When it broke ground on Prince Edward Island in 2014, Canadian Nectar Products had former high-profile politicians pitching a company with the potential to bring jobs and people to the small province.
It had a lofty goal: transform an island known for potatoes into the apple-growing capital of the world, as the local newspaper reported. Former B.C. Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal and former deputy prime minister Sheila Copps had shares in the business. Two successive Island premiers, Robert Ghiz and Wade MacLauchlan, also seemed eager to support the business.
But within a few years, the original company president, a controversial businessman who would
