Smiths Falls ON – When a small town loses its biggest employer a lot of things happen; mostly negative. It puts people to the test and many leave to find jobs in other places.
For years the largest employer in Smiths Falls Ontario was the Hershey chocolate factory. “Free Trade” saw the company move to Mexico, next to a stock yard, that essentially forced the company to change the label of some of their product after people noticed a different taste? It’s one of the reasons I boycott companies like Hershey that gut Canadian cities yet still want to retain their markets.
But that’s a whole other story. This one is of a group of alleged sleaze and deceit by opportunists, and of irresponsible politicians desperate for good news for their voters, and ultimately some local investors left hanging the bag.
Where it starts? Well that’s a bit blurry as we’ve been tracking Aquablue, Aquagold, and other companies and names.
Smiths Falls Mayor Dennis Staples Welcomes Aqua….pick your color…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_OHF4kUdfA
Where is Manuel Da Silva now? Where is Dan Villineuve? Where are the people involved in this mess? Where are the dollars many investors made into a fractional stock market stock?
We don’t deal in hearsay or innuendo, we deal in fact.
That gem came from Dan Villineuve. And now Tom Ondrejicka, a former Aquablue consultant is calling for an official inquiry. Wonder why it took Mr. Ondrejicka so long to call for this inquiry?
Bet a lot of local investors will remember Mayor Dennis Staples words on the loss of their investments?
“Our role is to attract new business,” he previously told CBC News. “Our role is not to check out business plans for new businesses. We don’t do that. We simply encourage people to come to Smiths Falls.”
What do you think about alleged scams like this? Does Mayor Staples get a free pass for essentially almost giving credibility to Aquablue? Do you think this was a scam or simply a business that failed to get off the ground? How did the company get control of the very large Hershey Factory site without actually completing a deal?
You can post your comments below.
I believe that Hershey has closed all of their processing plants in Canada. Nestle closed the Chesterville plant but they at least still have some facilities left in Canada…for the time being.
We have the power to make companies like Hershey think twice before shuffling their processing facilities offshore. STOP BUYING THEIR PRODUCT! If we as consumers demonstrate that we will punish companies for abandoning Canadian workers and communities then maybe they will act more responsibly.
Hershey is already gone. Bick’s Pickles is in the process of disappearing from Canada. If we as a nation stop buying their product then we will send a strong message to other transient international companies. If you make a quality product here in Canada then we will buy it. As consumers we have the choice to negate the effects of Free Trade and the Chinese economic invasion…..BUY CANADIAN.
After the original announcement, it took me about 5 minutes on Google investigating AquaBlue, etc, to find out that it was probably a scam.
All AquaBlue needed was somewhere desperate enough to not ask too many questions; Smiths Falls, and Denis Staples, fitted the ill precisely. Hooked, admittedly, but willing to be caught as well.
And Denis Staples just got re-elected!
This reminds me of that city council in Summerside that thought they would have first dibs at a Michael Jackson tribute concert.. again, this mayor should be fired and I’m sure some of their city council should be on the hotseat for this as well..
http://lake88.ca/lake88/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=906&Itemid=1
it appears Mr Staples was warned by one of his councilors
Thanks, now I am sitting in a war zone, this is where my job is now, half way around the world away from my family,
Choose not too buy anything that is not partially made by Canadians. I already will not not buy fresh fruits or vegetables that are not grown in Canada or the step down from us the U.S.A. If they say Mexico on the label I will not even touch or look twice at that item. If you cannot drink there bacterial infected E-coli water then how are you suppose to grow anything safe for human consumption. We all have a choice and I choose to not and say I did. Americans have a rule of thumb that items have to have a certain percentage of process done in America to be sold in America. We should do the same and we need to shove free trade where it should be shoved, if we could get the party’s off there padded seats long enough to do it. Remember that if a company would rather rape your economy without supporting it in any way, do you feel obligated too give them any of your buisness, I know that they won’t get any of mine. Labelling is now getting a little less transparent and more understandable it is still not 100 percent fool proof but it’s getting alot clearer. Canadian company’s should boldly display a Canadian symbol on there items proudly because that’s what I choose first and foremost.