Written By: Heather Clemenceau
First of all, let me give a hat tip to Denise, for finding this article. You gotta wonder what kind of Google Alerts she has set up for this……
It seems that a CFIA inspector-by-day has become the “superman of community theatre” by night, working in the St. Jacobs community near Waterloo Ontario. Graham Duench is a CFIA inspector who enjoys community theatre not for the money, but for the passion. Fair enough. To add to that passion, he’s about to reveal a whole new side of himself that, until now, has remained buried under his strict devotion to justice for animals and duty to maintaining the high standards of the Canadian agriculture industry.
Graham is about to add “stripper” to his resumé. He won’t however, reveal exactly how exposed he’s going to be in the upcoming K-W Musical Productions’ The Full Monty — The Musical, which opens at St. Jacobs Country Playhouse on February 13, 2014, running through to the 22nd.
The Full Monty — The Musical is based on the 1997 British film The Full Monty, where the protagonist and his misfit buddies decide the only way to make some quick money is stage a Chippendale’s type male strip show.
Talk about moonlighting. I realize that it’s not like he’s moonlighting as a male escort or entertaining at bachelorette parties, but you’ve got to wonder why someone who has a “professional” position with the government would want to risk that by taking on an evening job with nudity and lots of sexual innuendo.
It’s not exactly Masterpiece Theatre.
Ironically, the playhouse is about 7km down the street from the Ontario Livestock Exchange (OLEX), where from time to time, CFIA inspectors can be found measuring the height of trailers over a horse’s withers, and checking to see whether kill buyers have loaded their trailers with shod horses. But more often than not, horses get transported in double-decker trailers under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s nose and with their blessing.
But the potential for conflict of interest gets interesting.
Mercedes Corp., is a property management company that developed a number of tourism attractions in the village of St. Jacobs, including the playhouse. The company also owns the St. Jacobs Farmers Market, Water
loo Farmers Market, The Ontario Livestock Exchange and St. Jacobs stockyards as well as seven other rental and retail properties in the village. That’s right – the same firm that owns the playhouse where Graham Duench is performing (albeit short term) also owns the very places that the CFIA is inspecting for compliance under the Health of Animals Regulations The same places that Animals’ Angels has also inspected in the past and found issues not only with OLEX but other Ontario auctions under the jurisdiction of the CFIA – problems that seem obvious to everyone except the people employed at the auctions.
Mercedes Corp. also owns retirement homes in the region and several other towns. Seriously, who the hell in their right mind would want to retire or place a family member at a facility that also owns livestock markets that supply slaughterhouses? The gross-out factor is just unavoidable.
I’m not sure that anything embarrasses the CFIA anymore. Certainly, it doesn’t seem to faze them when they’re caught “pants down” in a bare-faced lie. I’m wondering if we’re approaching the wrong people at the CFIA? Maybe we’d get better results if we paid $35 bucks to get a seat at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, and then rolled out a large protest sign requesting CFIA response to our outstanding issues?
