Trail Blazers: The Story of Burns & Co. Limited

Burns and Co. - [1942?]

P. Burns and Co. was a large Prairie abattoir and packing-plant company. Established by Pat Burns in 1890 in Calgary, the company soon expanded to Vancouver and Edmonton, and changed its name to Burns and Co. in 1923. Though Burns and Co. specialized in meats and related products, their manufactures also included fruit, cheese, dairy, eggs, and animal feed. This brochure emphasizes that the products were made under the highest scientific standards, an important fact given chronic public skepticism about sanitation in packing plants. However, the brochure sidesteps questions about the workers, including the “girls” (in 1945, thirty per cent of packing-house employees were women [Chambers 10]) who test the eggs sent overseas to war-torn Britain. Edmonton packing workers set up an early union in 1937, but packing-house workers’ right to organize was not recognized until 1944, after the United Packinghouse Workers of America expanded to Canada (Chambers 7–8).