Comments from provincial politicians last week about building a firewall to keep western beef out of Eastern Canada quickly grew into a political storm and a fast retreat. It started when Quebec Liberal premier Jean Charest used a visit by Prince Edward Island premier Pat Binns to complain that Quebec’s cattle industry should not be […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
Ag Canada budget down, but guaranteed by law
Agriculture Canada’s budget will fall 25 percent to $2 billion next year when the agricultural policy framework is fully in effect, senior department officials said May 29. But assistant deputy minister Bruce Deacon told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee that farmers will be better off because that $2 billion will be guaranteed […] Read more
GM label rules head to vote
A committee that has spent more than three years trying to devise rules for voluntarily labelling of genetically modified food may be on the verge of success. Doryne Peace, chair of a Canadian General Standards Board committee on GM labeling, told a House of Commons committee May 28 that a stalemate over labelling standards may […] Read more
Livestock growers applaud cruelty bill
In the midst of an assault of bad news over bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Canada’s livestock industry had a reason to celebrate a small political victory on another front last week. A Senate committee has proposed amendments to a new cruelty-to-animals law that reflects proposals from farmers to reduce worries about the impact of the law […] Read more
CFIA denies GM bias
A Canadian Food Inspection Agency vice-president has rejected allegations from New Democratic Party MPs that the CFIA is biased toward the creator of a genetically modified wheat variety. Peter Brackenridge, vice-president for operations, recently told the House of Commons agriculture committee that the agency is a neutral, science-based regulator and not a promoter of corporate […] Read more
U.S. politicians cordial: MP
Despite months of tension between Ottawa and Washington over international issues and the invasion of Iraq, there was no sign of anti-Canadian sentiment from American politicians who spent the May long weekend meeting their counterparts, says one of the Canadians at the meeting. Ontario liberal MP Bob Speller said there was no indication the dispute […] Read more
Alliance misses opportunity to show rural smarts – Opinion
ONE of the most delicate balancing acts of political leadership comes when a crisis erupts, whether in the economy, the health-care system or the public security system. If a political leader becomes too visible, he or she runs the risk of being accused of trying to gain political advantage from trouble. No one wants to […] Read more
WTO praises New Zealand
New Zealand, one of the world’s most aggressive promoters of trade liberalization, practises what it preachers in its own economy, says the World Trade Organization. A WTO review of New Zealand economic policies concluded that the country’s radical mix of deregulation and subsidy cuts in the 1980s and 1990s has worked, at least from the […] Read more
BSE fuels American label law arguments
Trent Thomas has his work cut out for him this week as he goes about his Capitol Hill business as Washington co-ordinator for the R-CALF lobby group. “I am meeting with elected officials and their staff on Capitol Hill next week, urging on them the importance of country-of-origin labelling,” he said May 23. R-CALF and […] Read more
Money available in wake of BSE, says Vanclief
The federal government will make sure the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has whatever budget it needs to deal with the fallout from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief promised May 26. “There is no lack of resources to do what we need to do,” Vanclief told the House of Commons agriculture committee. “The […] Read more
