Brian Killick of Sarnia has been appointed to a two-year terms as associate chairman of the Animal Care Review Board.
He is a former staff lawyer with Neighbourhood Legal Services in London and at Community Legal Assistance in Sarnia.
He is also a former Paralegal Program Professor at Sheridan College.
The review board hears appeals from owners whose animals have been seized because they were allegedly being abused.
The board membership has many lawyers.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) is calling for an independent audit of organic-farmed plots at the Swift Current, Sask. research station and restoration of the land to organic standards.
The government abandoned the organic-farmed area and planted wheat this year.
The NFU said when the cuts were announced, the government said there would be a careful, 12-month wind-down period to permit the completion of research in progress, transfer of assets and preservation of data.
But the destruction of the organic research project lands at Swift Current is a betrayal of those assurances, and deeply disrespectful of Parliament, as it pre-empts the government’s official response to the Agriculture Committee report which has not yet been tabled in Parliament.
Farmers made investments in the organic research yet they had no say in the decisions that interrupted ongoing work, and have made it impossible to go ahead with commitments for planned organic research, the NFU said.
The Organic and Regenerative Agriculture program at Swift Current has supported farmer-led alternative plant breeding and addresses urgent problems of climate adaptation, reduced-input production, disease issues, and others faced by all farmers, organic and conventional alike, the NFU said.
The program held well-attended annual field days to communicate its results to the farming community and other researchers.
The Organic and Regenerative Research program is needed to develop and share critical knowledge for a strong agriculture sector, a prosperous economy and Canada’s future food security, it said.
After an independent audit and restoration of the land to organic farming standards, the NFU wants “a formal commitment to a multi-year, supervised remediation process required to rehabilitate the soil structure, address the disruption of biological integrity, and mitigate the damage caused by the loss and mixing of distinct treatment, crop, and soil histories so that valid organic research can safely resume in the future.”
Why is the Canadian Federation of Agriculture silent?
Prime Minister Mark Carney was at the Ontario Food Terminal where he announced $1 billion for food terminals, including the one where he made the announcement.
He said two more food terminals will be established to help Canadian farmers market their produce.
He said the $1 billion adds to $2.3 billion being spent to help lower-income Canadians afford food.
It also includes $150 million toward a new food security fund, $100 million for supporting global innovation clusters and a $1-billion Agri-Food Project Finance Fund to be delivered through Farm Credit Canada.
The government aims to increase Canadian consumption of domestically produced and processed food from 70 to 80 per cent and he GDP growth of the food processing industry from 1.6 per cent a year to 2.75 per cent between 2027 and 2035.
It’s not clear whether two food wholesale operations in the Waterloo Region might qualify for some of the.$1 billion.
One is the Elmira Produce Auction Cooperate Inc. which wholesales food from Mennonite farms and greenhouses.
The other is St. Jacobs Foods which was purchased by Richard and Sherri Good and moved to New Hamburg.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed four cases of rabies in bats in Ontario during May.
Mexico will stop most imports of live animals from the United States because New World screwworms were found in Texas and New Mexico,.
It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black because the U.S. screwworms were probably from Mexico which has registered more than 28,200 cases of screwworm since November 2024.
Mexico said it is protecting its cattle herd in the northern states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, where there are currently no confirmed cases of screwworm.
Henro Dairy Farms Ltd., in Blanford-Blenheim has been fined $270,000 plus a $67,500 victim surcharge for a manure spill that killed about 1,700 fish along a three-kilometre ditch and waterway.
The farm’s manure storage overflowed.
Lactalis Canada is recalling its Lactantia UltraPur 2% Protein milk because it has been too heavily supplemented with Vitamins D and A.
Much of it was sold in Costco stores in May and June.
It’s lactose-free milk is also on recall.
Both were packaged in two-litre cartons.
There is no food safety risk with these milks.
The federal government requires milk to be fortified with Vitamins D and A.
Lactalis said only one batch of milk is involved in the recall.