A proposal that is open for comments for 30 days said “information about Ontario's underground infrastructure is currently maintained by hundreds of organizations, including municipalities, utilities and other owners and operators.
“This information is often fragmented across different systems and formats, making it difficult to access the reliable information needed to plan and build infrastructure projects.
National Farmers. Union President Phil Mount is worried about the federal government’s plan to stop automatically reviewoing the safety of pesticides every 15 years.
He worries it may reduce Canadian access to markets such as the European Union which has stiffer requirements than Canada.
But Pierre Petelle, president and chief executive officer of Crop Life Canada which speaks for companies making and selling pesticides, defended the proposal that is contained in the federal government’s omnibus Bill C-30.
And he raised a different issue: there are other countries such as the United States that are approving new pesticides before they receive clearances from Pesticide Regulatory Directorate which is within the Health Canada department.
Mount said “eliminating mandatory pesticide re-evaluation is one of those very low bars that that is required by many of these new markets that we’re theoretically looking for. It’s going to do nothing but harm.”
Mount also criticized the government for “hiding” the new regulations in the omnibus bill.
Mount argued the changes in C-31 were designed behind closed doors without input from producers nor the special scientific advisory committee at Health Canada.
Petelle said concerns about Bill C-31 may be misleading. The Pest Management Regulatory Directorate will still be required to determine if risks associated with products have changed so “no one’s scrapping anything.”
Data that suggests a problem with a product would still initiate a review, and that could happen at any time, he said.
Canada Packers lost $28.1 million in the third quarter since it was spun off from Maple Leaf Foods.
It made substantial profits in the first two quarters – eg. $25.6 million in the second quarter.
The results included a $47.6-million non-cash decrease in fair value of its hogs compared with $4.9-million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Packers says it earned 23 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.13 per share a year earlier.
Sales in the quarter totalled $420.7-million, down from $481.80-million a year ago, when they included operations not acquired in its spinoff from Maple Leaf Foods Inc.
The province has posted its plans to prevent people, including municipalities, from appealing official plan changes when the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has referred the issue to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
The provincial cabinet appoints the members of the Ontario Land Tribunal which has also vetoed a number of municipal government decisions after developers have filed appeals.
This recent change is up for public comment. It is posted on the province’s regulatory registry.
Good luck if a developer persuades the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that it wants to change your farm from agriculture to residential development in your local official plan.
Parrish and Heimbecker (P+H) plans to close its grain elevator in Owen Sound on Dec. 18.
"The decision is part of P&H's ongoing evaluation of its grain network and long-term infrastructure needs as we continue to align our operations and investments with the future needs of the business and the customers we serve," Monika Robertson, P&H marketing manager, said in an email to the Owen Sound Sun Times.
Robertson said they have made no decisions regarding the future of the site and the iconic grain elevator buildings after P&H shuts down operations.
Locally, crop farmers use the Owen Sound terminal as an outlet when capacity at inland elevators becomes limited.
United States President Donald Trump has removed some tariffs he placed on Canadian products this fall.
They are:
· Industrial machinery, plant or equipment for the treatment of materials, by process involving a change in temperature.
· Packing or wrapping machinery.
· Refrigerating or freezing equipment.
· Machines for cleaning, sorting or grading food items.
· Machinery for filling, closing, sealing, capsuling or labeling bottles, cans, boxes or other containers.
· Plywood not over 6mm thick.
· Sacks and bags.
· Nonadhesive plates, sheets, film, foil and strip.
· Bleached paper and paperboard, coated, impregnated or covered with plastics.
· Cartons, boxes and cases of corrugated paper or paperboard.
Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who is in the midst of a tight reelection campaign, issued a press release taking credit for the tariff changes.
The National Farmers Union has come out in favour of new food hubs but said the federal government’s promise of $432 million spread among dozens of pilot projects would be a mistake because they would collapse after the subsidies end.
Instead what is needed is well-funded hubs that include food-processing ventures with support from local farmers and run as locally-controlled co-operatives, it said.
It should not be food hubs run by large established companies such as Sysco and Gordon’s Food Services, the NFU said.
It also noted that the promise of a Food Link Fund with $1 billion pales when compared with the profits of Canada’s biggest supermarket chains.
Food hubs could provide the missing link between regional farms and institutions—such as prisons, schools, hospitals and universities, it said.
Mandating that publicly-funded programs—like the National School Food Program—purchase a fixed proportion of their food from local hubs would create a stable demand for farmer goods.
“The NFU maintains that new food hubs should be publicly owned, co-operatively owned, or farmer owned-and-operated,” it said.
It pointed to the Summerland Food Hub in British Columbia as an example that will operate as a partnership between a non-profit producer cooperative (the LocalMotive Farmers Network Cooperative) and a non-profit processing organization (the Okanagan Food and Innovation Centre).