OTTAWA – The federal government has proposed new “precautionary” rules to govern the regulation of food products produced through biotechnology. The proposals, now subject to a 60-day comment period, cheered farm representatives who lobbied to keep food product assessment under Agriculture Canada control, rather than Environment Canada. “We are pleased with these recommendations,” said Sally […] Read more
Stories by Barry Wilson
Minister’s desk piles up with views for and against
OTTAWA – Conflicting advice about how to handle reform of the Canadian Wheat Board continues to flow into Ralph Goodale’s office. The federal agriculture minister has said he will listen to advice until Aug. 31, then begin to decide. Last week, two national farm groups offered starkly different opinions. The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association urged Ottawa […] Read more
Tory youth wing files resolutions
OTTAWA – Members of the youth wing of the federal Progressive Conservative party have definite ideas about the kind of Canada in which they would like to grow old. Based on resolutions PC Youth are taking to next weekend’s Tory policy convention in Winnipeg, it is a Canada in which: There is a dual medical […] Read more
Health care for women on decline
OTTAWA – The health concerns facing Canadian women in the early years of the 21st century will have a familiar ring to them, according to predictions made at an international forum on women’s health. Women will be living longer and needing extended health care in the later years of their life, Susan McDaniel from the […] Read more
Prospects of ‘Easter Island’ tantalize Liberals
Even the man at the centre of the storm sounds a bit incredulous that it is happening to him. Wayne Easter, just a few years away from being National Farmers Union president and a not-so-closet New Democrat, is being told by many in his party that he can become Liberal premier of Prince Edward Island […] Read more
Reform justice critic is interested in wheat board
Jack Ramsay, Alberta Reform MP, is a former RCMP officer with a reputation for tenacity and a tough law-and-order stance on the justice system. As the Reform Party justice critic, he campaigns relentlessly to have tougher sentences handed out to violent criminals and tougher laws written for young offenders. Usually, this straight-talking former cop is […] Read more
Canadian Senate receives a Gene transplant
OTTAWA – It might be called The Greening of the Senate. Next month, former agriculture minister Eugene Whelan will cart his trademark green stetson across the street to Parliament Hill to be sworn in as a senator. “You’d better believe I’ll wear that hat,” Whelan said in an Aug. 9 interview from a cottage on […] Read more
Senator Whelan plans to be heard
OTTAWA – Eugene Whelan figures a seat in the Senate will give him a perch from which he can take public aim at issues close to his liberal, federalist heart – national unity, farmer power and the need for Canada to continue foreign aid. For the first time in a dozen years, it will also […] Read more
Trade ruling firm in rejecting U.S. NAFTA challenge
OTTAWA – They write in the dry language of lawyers, but the international trade specialists appointed to judge the American attack on Canada’s supply management tariffs could hardly have been more clear in rejecting the U.S. arguments. In the confidential preliminary report filed July 15 in Washington and Ottawa, a copy of which was obtained […] Read more
Ag Canada cuts staff, hires contract workers
OTTAWA – The Agriculture Canada bureaucracy is much smaller this year than last but so far, government cuts have not hit the departmental workforce as hard as predicted. Agriculture Canada’s fate was one of the surprises when the government last week published an analysis of its efforts to cut the size of the public service. […] Read more
