Food safety
The health and safety of the food system for the people of this great Canada is so precious and important to their well-being and existence that it must never be put to risk and compromised or taken for granted.
The stakes are just too high and the consequences are deadly!
According to a 2002 Health Canada Report, the deadly bacteria listeria was identified as a hazard that needed better management and more vigilance by food safety officials. The food industry was put in charge to basically police itself and complacency apparently prevailed.
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The irony is, the Canadian government seemingly downplayed the advice of the professionals that they employ to help keep our food systems safe. Why do people have to die and suffer before government reacts? And then it is too late. The government has failed to protect the people.
The few random samplings by a limited number of government inspectors for the end product were not sufficient. And while the prime minister and the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods have voiced their concerns, offered condolences and apologized to the public for this listeriosis crisis, I would suggest that two very, very important and fundamental lessons have been disregarded, now worthy of future consideration. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and bigger is not always better.
– John Fefchak,
Virden, Man.
Ethanol plant
In ancient times, the Roman Empire staged circuses to keep their citizens’ minds off disturbing issues of the day. The gala opening of the Belle Plaine ethanol plant is such a circus in our time.
The promotion of converting wheat into ethanol is wrong for two reasons. The use of agricultural land to grow food for automobiles instead of growing food for hungry people of the world is immoral. To suggest that the process gives a substantial positive return in energy, namely that the energy output is greater than the energy input, is a ruse.
Wishful thinking serves as a distraction for more imaginative ways of getting off our addiction to oil. While we are hypnotized by Adam Smith’s “unseen hand” of the marketplace, we are doomed to continue down the path of destruction.
– Michael Mowchenko,
Saskatoon, Sask.
Beef marketing
In responding to the article written by Barbara Duckworth in the July 31 paper (NFU boos packer deal.) I think ranchers who have been sending cows to slaughter without choice were lucky to have Nilsson Brothers take over XL Foods in Moose Jaw and turn it into what it is today.
Thank (goodness) Nilsson Bros. had the (guts) to put that Moose Jaw plant into the kind of production we’re seeing today and have seen for the last three years. Without their help we would have literally given our cull cows away.
As bad as it was, this was better than nothing.
I don’t think as a rancher we should sit back and let the National Farmers Union or the government discourage these people from going full speed ahead. So far they have been successful. They are Canadians and they really don’t have to do this to put food on their table or, by the same token, on our tables.
I’d like to know where (NFU executive director Darren) Qualman got his figures, 20 percent is a lot of animals.
I think that Nilsson Bros., Vold & Jones and Danard, to name a few, have done a lot more than NFU, the provincial government and Alberta Beef Producers in marketing our cattle, whether it was across the American border, Eastern Canada or abroad.
To sit back as a producer and watch the NFU try and stop the sale of Lakeside to Nilsson Bros. doesn’t sit right with me and some of the other producers. I don’t think Nilsson Bros. are the kind of people that will take advantage of a situation like this in order to dominate our markets in Western Canada.
If they do, they will likely pay the price for operating unfairly in the end. Obviously they haven’t done this so far, that’s why they have been fairly successful. …
– Don Plante,
High Prairie, Alta.
Election matters
(On) Sept. 7, I heard that Stephen Harper was trying to get the Governor General to give him permission, without the usual democratic way, of allowing the members of all parties the opportunity to attempt to form a coalition government, as is the practice in most of democratic Europe, allowing Harper to break his own law of fixed election dates in November, much like the United States.
I listened to Cross Country Checkup Sept. 7, and while there were many very good calls, I heard no mention of most small family farms who supply most of the locally grown fresh farm products.
Most farmers have been trying to carry on with an end-of-year negative income, another important promise that Harper’s Conservative party ignored when gaining a minority position to govern at the end of January, even though they won the majority of votes from farmers in rural constituencies of Saskatchewan.
The Green parties of Europe have played an important role in the European government for some time, and I first heard Elizabeth May as a whistle blower when the food safety branch attempted to allow a genetically modified type substance into the dairy cow feed supply.
That would seem to me a non-political health protection interest for the general public which reminded me of the British Commonwealth common law Parliament group in a non-political way that watched over all political parties. In the time I spent in England in the Canadian Army, I came to hear about this group and attended and supported several local meetings.
– Lester Jorgenson,
Abbey, Sask.
No psyche damage
I read the opinion on page 11 of the Aug. 21 edition of The Western Producer and one question immediately came to mind. Did the opinion piece penned by Brian Horejsi, Barrie Gilbert and George Wuerthner come in too late for the April Fools’ edition?
They claim that wind turbines are a blight on the landscape and a form of oppressive symbolism for our consumption-based corporate society. Maybe they are, but couldn’t the same be said for roads, railroads, hydroelectric dams and office buildings? Somehow our fragile human psyche has been able to cope …..
The authors claim we should be financially compensated for our damaged horizon and that somehow $3,000 a year would improve their degraded “human gestalt.”
Considering that the Eiffel tower was one of the original monuments to an industrialized society, I wonder how many Parisians would insist they should be compensated for their distorted view of the sky?
One statement in the story I do agree with is that our population does continue to grow, and that our needs will continue to increase. Ultimately this means that Canadians will continue to use electricity, and future sources need consideration. …
I live near the wind farm at St. Leon, Man., and can see several of the 63 windmills from my tractor when working in the field. I disagree that it has damaged my psyche to see these giant daisies in action, and in fact I have only had two people tell me that they don’t like the look of wind turbines on the landscape.
However, when I ask them if they would prefer to have a coal plant or a nuclear power plant next door, both people declined to have them exchanged. …
As a freelance photojournalist, I have spent some time around the windmills taking pictures. I have yet to see a dead bird or bat near one, I have never suffered from the “strobing effect” of the passing blades and the noise is no more intrusive than a passing vehicle on the road. While I don’t have a windmill on my own property, I know many of the involved landowners personally and have heard very few complaints about the wind farm or its operations.
I would suggest to the authors of this story that they should take their own advice to heart and discontinue the use of electricity and commercially produced articles in their own homes.
As one of the misinformed landowners that would not object to a wind turbine on his own property, I would be prepared to sow my farm back down to native grasses and raise bison.
All these gentlemen have to do is convince the people in our cities to move back into teepees and eat pemmican.
– Les McEwan,
Altamont, Man.
