I was convicted in Montreal. I had plenty of company – between 5,000 & 10,000 others. We were all convicted of failing to stop, of failing to understand and of failing to do enough to combat global climate change. I am talking about the meetings held to discuss the Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations sponsored Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Canada signed this agreement and promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels before 2012. Since that time, our emissions have increased by 24%.
Why should I worry about this? Isn’t this someone else’s problem? Actually, that is the attitude of the US Government. With only Australia for company, they have refused to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol in spite of having helped to draft it (as Bill Clinton was at pains to point out) and in spite of being the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. In a critical and dissenting response, 195 American cities have signed on to meet Kyoto style emission reduction targets. Ten American states have also signed on including California with its famous Republican Governor. The head of the American Business Council for Sustainable Energy has also urged action because corporations need government agreement before they invest the billions of dollars needed to change industrial and consumer practice.
Maybe the best way of understanding the problem is to say that the Earth is running a fever. The average body temperature of the Earth has already increased by almost one full degree. The average temperature at the poles is increasing more rapidly. In the MacKenzie River Valley, running north into the Arctic Ocean, the average temperature has increased by 1.7 degrees. Once the average body temperature increases by over two full degrees the icecap over Greenland will melt. This will increase the percentage of freshwater in the North Atlantic, interrupting the Gulf Stream current, cooling northern Europe. It will raise ocean levels, flooding Prince Edward Island, small countries in the Pacific and parts of Manhattan. Not all areas of the world will experience increased water levels. Instead, the St. Lawrence River system is expected to have water flows decreased by 24% and water levels in Lakes Huron and Michigan are expected to decrease by between 0.5 and 1.5 metres within 45 years. It is expected that we will have more extreme weather events, more oscillation between flooding and drought, and more storm patterns in new places. Already in 2004 Argentina experienced the first recorded hurricane in the South Atlantic.
I was convicted in Montreal because I became convinced I was part of the problem and I needed to be part of the solution. Changes in government policy are necessary but they won’t be enough. I need to change. Cities across the world are challenging themselves to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020. We need to do the same. It will take government action to shift from coal fired generating stations to wind, solar and biomass generation, but it will take the concerted effort of committed and convinced citizens to decrease our electrical, gas and oil use. The beginning of a cure for our global fever is to increase our energy efficiency by 30% over the next 15 years. This will only happen if we all do it together.
First published in December 2005
Friday, January 06, 2006
Money for the Love of It
Did you wish you were an oil worker in Alberta last month? Did you find yourself wondering what it would be like to share millions of dollars with a group of your closest friends? You can’t win if you don’t play! That’s what some people say. Other people say: don’t do it! Money is the root of all evil.
Funny thing is, when people say money is the root of all evil, they are actually misquoting Scripture. In the New Testament, in the first letter to Timothy 6:9 we read “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evil;” Notice that this passage does not say that the rich have fallen into temptation, only that the desire to be rich leads there. Money is not the root of all evil but the love of it is.
I don’t begrudge the lottery winning oil workers a dime. Let them enjoy it, I say. On the other hand, I can fairly predict their closest and most cherished relationships will change because of it. Other people will love this new money and want to treat it as their own. Family will expect lavish presents and treats. Friends will expect free drinks and cheap loans. Stores will no longer offer a neighbourhood discount. They are no longer poor. They are now rich and others will covet what they have and manipulate themselves into a share of it.
There are a few choices open to them. They can spend it quickly so that it’s gone - that kind of party normally leaves a big hangover. They can give it away to family and worthy causes. They can buy a farm (see the first option!), or they can invest it and move to a new location where neighbours don’t know about their sudden change in circumstances, Arizona maybe. The least stressful might be option #2 – share the wealth, enhance your community and preserve your relationships.
I have no grievance with lottery winners but I am adamant about opposing lotteries. They deceive people. They distract us from the problems of low farm income, an inadequate minimum wage and inadequate pensions and instead focus our attention on fantasies of the good life. They don’t expand the supply of money, they encourage the love of money and that’s where the sin comes in. Money is a means to an end. Don’t confuse it with the end itself. The world needs stronger, more sustainable, more just communities. Money can help with that but the love of money will get in the way of that.
For years my father bought lottery tickets, though he never won more than $10 to my knowledge. I was always critical of this practice even though I harboured a secret hope that he would win! God bless the lottery winners, but God save me from wanting what they have.
First Published in November 2005
Funny thing is, when people say money is the root of all evil, they are actually misquoting Scripture. In the New Testament, in the first letter to Timothy 6:9 we read “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evil;” Notice that this passage does not say that the rich have fallen into temptation, only that the desire to be rich leads there. Money is not the root of all evil but the love of it is.
I don’t begrudge the lottery winning oil workers a dime. Let them enjoy it, I say. On the other hand, I can fairly predict their closest and most cherished relationships will change because of it. Other people will love this new money and want to treat it as their own. Family will expect lavish presents and treats. Friends will expect free drinks and cheap loans. Stores will no longer offer a neighbourhood discount. They are no longer poor. They are now rich and others will covet what they have and manipulate themselves into a share of it.
There are a few choices open to them. They can spend it quickly so that it’s gone - that kind of party normally leaves a big hangover. They can give it away to family and worthy causes. They can buy a farm (see the first option!), or they can invest it and move to a new location where neighbours don’t know about their sudden change in circumstances, Arizona maybe. The least stressful might be option #2 – share the wealth, enhance your community and preserve your relationships.
I have no grievance with lottery winners but I am adamant about opposing lotteries. They deceive people. They distract us from the problems of low farm income, an inadequate minimum wage and inadequate pensions and instead focus our attention on fantasies of the good life. They don’t expand the supply of money, they encourage the love of money and that’s where the sin comes in. Money is a means to an end. Don’t confuse it with the end itself. The world needs stronger, more sustainable, more just communities. Money can help with that but the love of money will get in the way of that.
For years my father bought lottery tickets, though he never won more than $10 to my knowledge. I was always critical of this practice even though I harboured a secret hope that he would win! God bless the lottery winners, but God save me from wanting what they have.
First Published in November 2005
The Moral Economy of the New Orleans Crowd
1773. That’s what New Orleans reminds me of. In 1773 in Cornwall, England a group of tin miners rioted. There was a scarcity of wheat in the local market. Some local grain dealers had begun shipping Cornish wheat to the London market in order to profit from the higher prices instead of selling it locally. Seven or eight hundred miners went to the local grain merchant and offered 17 shillings for 24 gallons of wheat. When they were refused, they broke down the cellar doors and took it all away without paying anything.
In 1766 the Sheriff of Gloucestershire describes a similar scene. A mob had formed “consisting of the lowest of the people such as weavers, mecanicks, labourers, prentices, and boys etc…” They went first to the gristmill where they made off with the flour and wheat. Then they went to the local market where they set and enforced a lower price for grain. Finally they went to farmers, millers and bakers selling all manner of foodstuffs at prices they set, giving the money to the owners. According to the Sheriff, they “behaved with great regularity and decency where they were not opposed, with outrage and violence where there was: but pilfered very little…”
Why does this remind me of New Orleans? Because in the examples above the common people were remembering and re-establishing a moral economy. They remembered that in times of mass hunger there were generally accepted moral principles that governed how people should behave. Prices should be fixed and the poor and hungry should be provided for. The English historian E.P. Thompson called this the “Moral Economy of the English Crowd”.
When a father wades into a pharmacy looking for looking for pop and diapers because the water is unsafe to drink and babies need to be changed regardless, is it random lawlessness or responsible parenthood? When some neighbours steal a van in order to evacuate a senior’s home the civic authorities have abandoned, is it theft or bravery? When local police break into a WalMart and set up camp, helping themselves to provisions, is it looting or setting public priorities over private ones?
Part of the reaction around the world to this disaster has to do with the apparent abandonment of moral principles by the highest authorities. Consider by contrast the reaction in Canada to the Red River flood of 1997. The rich were not rescued and the poor left to drown. The influential were not fed while strangers starved. The healthy were not carried away while the sick were left to fend for themselves. All were treated equally because flood waters have no respect for social class. In 1997 students lined up to sandbag because everyone takes their turn. German soldiers training at CFB Shilo offered engineering and transportation assistance because they had the resources and we had the need. When the people of St. Anne’s prepared their curling rink for evacuees, the fact that their neighbours were from the Roseau reserve was secondary. They were people first and different cultures second.
When the authorities down south dispatched military personnel to protect property instead of the poor, they violated some of our most deeply held moral values. If you said to yourself, “this is not how a civilized country is supposed to behave!” you were echoing a memory going back hundreds of years. Broad social purposes require leadership. If the government won’t provide it the people will.
First published in September 2005
In 1766 the Sheriff of Gloucestershire describes a similar scene. A mob had formed “consisting of the lowest of the people such as weavers, mecanicks, labourers, prentices, and boys etc…” They went first to the gristmill where they made off with the flour and wheat. Then they went to the local market where they set and enforced a lower price for grain. Finally they went to farmers, millers and bakers selling all manner of foodstuffs at prices they set, giving the money to the owners. According to the Sheriff, they “behaved with great regularity and decency where they were not opposed, with outrage and violence where there was: but pilfered very little…”
Why does this remind me of New Orleans? Because in the examples above the common people were remembering and re-establishing a moral economy. They remembered that in times of mass hunger there were generally accepted moral principles that governed how people should behave. Prices should be fixed and the poor and hungry should be provided for. The English historian E.P. Thompson called this the “Moral Economy of the English Crowd”.
When a father wades into a pharmacy looking for looking for pop and diapers because the water is unsafe to drink and babies need to be changed regardless, is it random lawlessness or responsible parenthood? When some neighbours steal a van in order to evacuate a senior’s home the civic authorities have abandoned, is it theft or bravery? When local police break into a WalMart and set up camp, helping themselves to provisions, is it looting or setting public priorities over private ones?
Part of the reaction around the world to this disaster has to do with the apparent abandonment of moral principles by the highest authorities. Consider by contrast the reaction in Canada to the Red River flood of 1997. The rich were not rescued and the poor left to drown. The influential were not fed while strangers starved. The healthy were not carried away while the sick were left to fend for themselves. All were treated equally because flood waters have no respect for social class. In 1997 students lined up to sandbag because everyone takes their turn. German soldiers training at CFB Shilo offered engineering and transportation assistance because they had the resources and we had the need. When the people of St. Anne’s prepared their curling rink for evacuees, the fact that their neighbours were from the Roseau reserve was secondary. They were people first and different cultures second.
When the authorities down south dispatched military personnel to protect property instead of the poor, they violated some of our most deeply held moral values. If you said to yourself, “this is not how a civilized country is supposed to behave!” you were echoing a memory going back hundreds of years. Broad social purposes require leadership. If the government won’t provide it the people will.
First published in September 2005
Culture Is the Work of Many Hands
In my neighbourhood, you can find poetry in the elbow of a sidewalk, in the shelter of a covering elm. I walk my dog and detour so I can receive this gift – no purchase required. A stranger has erected a music stand on the grassy verge, a stranger to me but a member of the commons nonetheless. Its black plywood top is covered in a plastic sheet and beneath it, changed on a weekly basis like the linens, is a sheet of photocopied verse. Last week it was a poem by Marge Piercy. “I want to be with people …who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out”. It reminds me of the prairie. It reminds me of a place where food and culture are tenuous. They persist only through the work of many hands.
It reminds me of the homes on Echo Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley, with their pastel siding and folk art lawns. It reminds me of the 20 ft. high chokecherry sculpture in Lancer, and the 30 ft corn stalk sculpture in Taber. It also reminded me of the mammoth slogans painted on barns, miles from any main roads. It doesn’t matter how many people read it, the farmers have something to say and by God, they are going to say it!
My poetic neighbour shares something with the artistic and vocal prairie farmer. They are reflecting on their lives, taking a point of view, expressing their identities, and adding to the beauty of their environment. They are making their own lives visible and in so doing, claiming public space for proper public purposes. They are engaging in activities that are open and accessible to all, that seek the general welfare of the community and they are doing it for the stimulation and enjoyment of all. This is the ancient meaning of the word – public. It is not concealed and in no way private.
Sadly, it is now common to find political leaders claim the opposite - that there is no such thing as a public purpose or a common good. There are only collections of private goods and interests. The notion of a public welfare and a common good is now so strange that we tend to treat public space as empty space. How easy it has become to think of empty space as commercial space that hasn’t yet been sold. By contrast, these poetry patrons, painters and rural activists are cooperating in the subversive activity of reclaiming public space for public use. They seek no commercial reward and work hard to promote the common good as they understand it. They remember a different world and they can imagine one too. All of us have this capacity but like any muscle or civil right, if we don’t exercise it we will lose it.
“Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.”
- from “To Be of Use”, by Marge Piercy, published in CIRCLES ON THE WATER, 1982, Alfred A. Knopf.
First Published in August 2005
It reminds me of the homes on Echo Lake in the Qu’Appelle Valley, with their pastel siding and folk art lawns. It reminds me of the 20 ft. high chokecherry sculpture in Lancer, and the 30 ft corn stalk sculpture in Taber. It also reminded me of the mammoth slogans painted on barns, miles from any main roads. It doesn’t matter how many people read it, the farmers have something to say and by God, they are going to say it!
My poetic neighbour shares something with the artistic and vocal prairie farmer. They are reflecting on their lives, taking a point of view, expressing their identities, and adding to the beauty of their environment. They are making their own lives visible and in so doing, claiming public space for proper public purposes. They are engaging in activities that are open and accessible to all, that seek the general welfare of the community and they are doing it for the stimulation and enjoyment of all. This is the ancient meaning of the word – public. It is not concealed and in no way private.
Sadly, it is now common to find political leaders claim the opposite - that there is no such thing as a public purpose or a common good. There are only collections of private goods and interests. The notion of a public welfare and a common good is now so strange that we tend to treat public space as empty space. How easy it has become to think of empty space as commercial space that hasn’t yet been sold. By contrast, these poetry patrons, painters and rural activists are cooperating in the subversive activity of reclaiming public space for public use. They seek no commercial reward and work hard to promote the common good as they understand it. They remember a different world and they can imagine one too. All of us have this capacity but like any muscle or civil right, if we don’t exercise it we will lose it.
“Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.”
- from “To Be of Use”, by Marge Piercy, published in CIRCLES ON THE WATER, 1982, Alfred A. Knopf.
First Published in August 2005
Let's End Mandatory Work After 65
Ontario is planning to end mandatory retirement at age 65. Ontario will then join Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and New Brunswick as provinces that have ended this practice.
Most people I know want to retire as soon as they can afford to do so. They have worked hard in one occupation and look forward to a chance to do something different. Some want to paint or play or volunteer or travel. Some want to work at different jobs on a part-time basis. There are two kinds of people who want to keep working after 65. The first type are those people whose identity is tied up in what they do. They may be lawyers or ministers or doctors or farmers who think that what they do is who they are. For them, if they stop doing, they stop being and no one should be able to force them to end their identity and existence.
The second type of person is the person who can’t afford to stop working. They don’t have enough money. They may be clerks or small business people, homemakers or farmers. In the 1960s when the Canada Pension Plan was created, our society was greatly concerned with poverty among the elderly. Our response was to create the CPP as a universal plan. It was thought to provide one leg of a three legged stool for all seniors. The other legs were supposed to be private savings and employer pension plans. Poverty among the elderly has been greatly reduced since 1966 but our three legged stool is still very wobbly. One of the legs is less than half built. Only 40 % of working Canadians participate in a company pension plan. The other 60% will only have the CPP, Old Age Security and whatever they’ve been able to save for their retirement – typically not much more than the value of their house. This is an issue that affects women particularly because they tend to spend fewer years in the paid work force but live longer than men after 65. I know many social workers (mostly women), who have dedicated their lives to improving society and who will retire with next to no company pension. In England the government is considering a new law that would require all employers to enroll their workers in some form of pension plan.
One of the best examples of what life looks like when there are inadequate pensions can be found on Canadian farms. 20% of all Canadian farms are being run by farmers over the age of 65 with annual net farm income of less than $16,000. Many of these would happily hand over the operation to a new generation if they could afford to do so. Demanding an end to mandatory retirement provides only half a solution because it only describes half the problem. Canadians need adequate pensions if they are going to have any real choice about when to retire. People need support in order to be free.
First Published in July 2005
Most people I know want to retire as soon as they can afford to do so. They have worked hard in one occupation and look forward to a chance to do something different. Some want to paint or play or volunteer or travel. Some want to work at different jobs on a part-time basis. There are two kinds of people who want to keep working after 65. The first type are those people whose identity is tied up in what they do. They may be lawyers or ministers or doctors or farmers who think that what they do is who they are. For them, if they stop doing, they stop being and no one should be able to force them to end their identity and existence.
The second type of person is the person who can’t afford to stop working. They don’t have enough money. They may be clerks or small business people, homemakers or farmers. In the 1960s when the Canada Pension Plan was created, our society was greatly concerned with poverty among the elderly. Our response was to create the CPP as a universal plan. It was thought to provide one leg of a three legged stool for all seniors. The other legs were supposed to be private savings and employer pension plans. Poverty among the elderly has been greatly reduced since 1966 but our three legged stool is still very wobbly. One of the legs is less than half built. Only 40 % of working Canadians participate in a company pension plan. The other 60% will only have the CPP, Old Age Security and whatever they’ve been able to save for their retirement – typically not much more than the value of their house. This is an issue that affects women particularly because they tend to spend fewer years in the paid work force but live longer than men after 65. I know many social workers (mostly women), who have dedicated their lives to improving society and who will retire with next to no company pension. In England the government is considering a new law that would require all employers to enroll their workers in some form of pension plan.
One of the best examples of what life looks like when there are inadequate pensions can be found on Canadian farms. 20% of all Canadian farms are being run by farmers over the age of 65 with annual net farm income of less than $16,000. Many of these would happily hand over the operation to a new generation if they could afford to do so. Demanding an end to mandatory retirement provides only half a solution because it only describes half the problem. Canadians need adequate pensions if they are going to have any real choice about when to retire. People need support in order to be free.
First Published in July 2005
The Economics of Family Life
I’m middle aged. Like most of my friends I care simultaneously for children in school and aging parents at home. The older my children get the more important economics becomes. They don’t live in my home anymore but I continue to help pay for their schooling. I pay for dinners, trips and other activities too depending on whether they’re in the same city as me. Sorry kids, I take that back. Better I should say there has always been an economic dimension to our relationship, going back to my first purchase of baby formula, but the economic is not dominant. Our relationship is dominated by affection, memory, shared values and reciprocity. In other words, we form a community – an intimate community, a family.
The same is true of my parents. They turn 89 and 90 this year and they don’t live with me either. Yes, there is an economic dimension to our relationship but it’s not the most important dimension. When I change my father’s clothes or remember for my mother her best friend’s name, I am acting out a familial role that is older than human settlement on the Canadian Prairie. We are being family, one to another.
In formal economics the most common elements of nature, like water and air, are described as ‘externalities’. That is, they are external to the formal economic model and are treated as if they were free. They already exist, you don’t have to buy them and they exist in abundance. That’s true in the abstract but not in the world we inhabit. In the world of you and me, air and water are provided through plants, trees and the hydrologic cycle. They belong to all of Creation and they have very real limits. Indeed, we are bumping up against those limits so frequently, that we are challenging our neighbours to plant more trees, burn less fossil fuels and use water more carefully. Treating air and water as external to the economy is a major threat to our survival.
In formal economic models, families are also treated as ‘external’. They exist, you don’t need to buy them and they exist in abundance. But that’s not really true either. In the world of you and me, lots of families are broken and all the adults have jobs or want them. Very little time is left over for volunteer activity. If we want people to take on the job of care giver to the elderly, we have to pay them.
Now my parents prefer to be cared for at home. They are healthier, more settled, more connected and less confused than they would be in an alternative environment. Besides, they prefer their own bad cooking to someone else’s bad cooking! They have care and it’s paid for.
Air and water may be external to economic models but they are not external to how we breathe or what we drink. In the same way families are not external to how we live or who we care for. Economics are not the most important dimension of family life but neither can it be ignored. If we pretend it doesn’t exist, we won’t survive.
First Published in May 2005
The same is true of my parents. They turn 89 and 90 this year and they don’t live with me either. Yes, there is an economic dimension to our relationship but it’s not the most important dimension. When I change my father’s clothes or remember for my mother her best friend’s name, I am acting out a familial role that is older than human settlement on the Canadian Prairie. We are being family, one to another.
In formal economics the most common elements of nature, like water and air, are described as ‘externalities’. That is, they are external to the formal economic model and are treated as if they were free. They already exist, you don’t have to buy them and they exist in abundance. That’s true in the abstract but not in the world we inhabit. In the world of you and me, air and water are provided through plants, trees and the hydrologic cycle. They belong to all of Creation and they have very real limits. Indeed, we are bumping up against those limits so frequently, that we are challenging our neighbours to plant more trees, burn less fossil fuels and use water more carefully. Treating air and water as external to the economy is a major threat to our survival.
In formal economic models, families are also treated as ‘external’. They exist, you don’t need to buy them and they exist in abundance. But that’s not really true either. In the world of you and me, lots of families are broken and all the adults have jobs or want them. Very little time is left over for volunteer activity. If we want people to take on the job of care giver to the elderly, we have to pay them.
Now my parents prefer to be cared for at home. They are healthier, more settled, more connected and less confused than they would be in an alternative environment. Besides, they prefer their own bad cooking to someone else’s bad cooking! They have care and it’s paid for.
Air and water may be external to economic models but they are not external to how we breathe or what we drink. In the same way families are not external to how we live or who we care for. Economics are not the most important dimension of family life but neither can it be ignored. If we pretend it doesn’t exist, we won’t survive.
First Published in May 2005
Ontario Agriculture Needs Sustainable Communities
The problem with public farm protests is they always happen in the winter when the weather is miserable and nobody wants to be outside. You’d think that when the National Farmers Union joins forces with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture on any issue, it would be a pretty big story. But it was freezing cold at the beginning of March when the tractors started to circle around Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto. I’d guess about 1,000 farmers were milling about trying to stay warm. There were buses from near London and others from the Windsor area. Others were from east of town near Kingston and the Ottawa valley.
The farmers were united in protesting a lack of government support for family farms, but divided in the specific issues each wanted to pursue. One Middlesex farmer had just sold three cows into the market and netted $20 each. The Essex County farmers were on about the new Ethanol plants being built with Canadian government support near the US border. They were located there so they could access cheap corn subsidized by the US government. Another farmer was protesting the new green belt legislation. He had borrowed money to buy a neighbouring farm and now the bank was after him because the farm could not be developed for housing and its value had dropped.
I was most struck by a mixed farmer from the Peterborough area. His grandparents had settled the farm of 200 acres in 1872. He was now 68 and the only reason he could live comfortably is because he had a pension from the giant paper company Domtar. He had worked for Domtar for 39 years. His family farm was not sustainable and hadn’t been for over 40 years. He was out in the cold, trying to support the family farm he had been subsidizing with off farm work his whole life.
All these farmers wanted provincial government action to preserve family farms. Yet it’s been clear for many years that Ontario’s rural strategy has been to treat farm land as subdivisions in waiting. The only other interest the government seems to have is in farms that can be players in the industrialized world market. One of the ironies is that the provincial government is accused by farmers of placing urban needs before rural needs. They don’t. One of the growing needs of urban Torontonians is for food they feel confident eating. Increasingly, urban dwellers want to know where their food is coming from and who is growing it. Are their farming practices safe and sustainable? Urban dwellers don’t get that answer from the world market. This year I bought a leg of Ontario lamb for my Easter dinner. I didn’t have a choice between Saskatchewan lamb and Ontario lamb. I did have a choice between Ontario and the world market, mostly New Zealand. I even paid a premium for local production. New Zealand farmers are not bad people. It is just that I can exercise no control over the food system there. I don’t have the necessary information nor the political influence.
If the provincial government really wanted to serve the interests of urban dwellers, they would introduce policies that supported sustainable agriculture within local sustainable agricultural communities. That way rural and urban people would both feel more safe and secure.
First published in April 2005
The farmers were united in protesting a lack of government support for family farms, but divided in the specific issues each wanted to pursue. One Middlesex farmer had just sold three cows into the market and netted $20 each. The Essex County farmers were on about the new Ethanol plants being built with Canadian government support near the US border. They were located there so they could access cheap corn subsidized by the US government. Another farmer was protesting the new green belt legislation. He had borrowed money to buy a neighbouring farm and now the bank was after him because the farm could not be developed for housing and its value had dropped.
I was most struck by a mixed farmer from the Peterborough area. His grandparents had settled the farm of 200 acres in 1872. He was now 68 and the only reason he could live comfortably is because he had a pension from the giant paper company Domtar. He had worked for Domtar for 39 years. His family farm was not sustainable and hadn’t been for over 40 years. He was out in the cold, trying to support the family farm he had been subsidizing with off farm work his whole life.
All these farmers wanted provincial government action to preserve family farms. Yet it’s been clear for many years that Ontario’s rural strategy has been to treat farm land as subdivisions in waiting. The only other interest the government seems to have is in farms that can be players in the industrialized world market. One of the ironies is that the provincial government is accused by farmers of placing urban needs before rural needs. They don’t. One of the growing needs of urban Torontonians is for food they feel confident eating. Increasingly, urban dwellers want to know where their food is coming from and who is growing it. Are their farming practices safe and sustainable? Urban dwellers don’t get that answer from the world market. This year I bought a leg of Ontario lamb for my Easter dinner. I didn’t have a choice between Saskatchewan lamb and Ontario lamb. I did have a choice between Ontario and the world market, mostly New Zealand. I even paid a premium for local production. New Zealand farmers are not bad people. It is just that I can exercise no control over the food system there. I don’t have the necessary information nor the political influence.
If the provincial government really wanted to serve the interests of urban dwellers, they would introduce policies that supported sustainable agriculture within local sustainable agricultural communities. That way rural and urban people would both feel more safe and secure.
First published in April 2005
Slow Food
Our family ate a slow dinner over the holidays. Fourteen people, three courses – We had gathered from six provinces for the occasion. There was enough time to change places between courses so most people had a chance to chat with everyone else who was there. Does it sound like Christmas on the farm? Actually it was at an award winning restaurant that has committed itself to the international slow food movement.
In 1986, McDonald’s opened a hamburger franchise beside the Spanish Steps in Rome. For the Italians, it was the last straw. In order to repel the invasion of fast food, Carlo Petrini, a famous and popular food writer, launched the ‘Slow Food Movement’. Its message is very simple: ‘Eat well and save the planet’! This movement now has 78,000 members in over 50 countries. Outside of Turin they have started a University devoted to gastronomic science.
How will this movement save the planet? First of all the movement is committed to ‘eco-gastronomy’. This means that eating well goes hand in hand with saving the environment. So the movement is committed to preserving heritage varieties of foodstuffs. In Canada there is an agricultural underground of people deliberately cultivating old and uncommon varieties of carrots, potatoes, wheat, rye and flax in order to preserve them. These people are the first heroes of slow food. They are part of the resistance movement for global biodiversity.
Secondly, restaurants committed to slow food are committed to local sourcing of their produce. This means that Jeff Crump, the Head Chef at the Ancaster Old Mill where my family dined, made sure he served a delicate butternut squash soup because he had a local supplier in the middle of winter. Even though he couldn’t provide certified organic venison, he still provided deer meat from a farmer he knew and could observe following organic principles. Disciples of slow food are supporters of local farmers.
Followers of slow food are fighters against the obesity epidemic in North America. It takes fifteen minutes for the brain to register the signal that you have eaten too much. In most fast food restaurants, your meal is over by then. If you take more time over a meal your body will be able to complete the information circuit and moderate its intake. At the University of Toronto, the Human Resources Department is trying to promote work/life balance by persuading faculty and staff to stop eating lunch at their desks. They want people to reduce stress and achieve balance by working less, socializing more and moving about frequently.
In my twenty years of work on rural issues, I can’t count the number of times I heard people say ‘we want to put the culture back in agri-culture’. Well, now there’s a larger, international movement trying to do the same thing. It’s not against trade. It promotes the global trade of unique products, but it is pro-local. By focusing on the benefits of food grown locally and consumed socially, it has touched a nerve at the heart of our modern madness. Do farmers really want to become bio-industrialists? Well, neither do consumers.
First Published in January 2005
In 1986, McDonald’s opened a hamburger franchise beside the Spanish Steps in Rome. For the Italians, it was the last straw. In order to repel the invasion of fast food, Carlo Petrini, a famous and popular food writer, launched the ‘Slow Food Movement’. Its message is very simple: ‘Eat well and save the planet’! This movement now has 78,000 members in over 50 countries. Outside of Turin they have started a University devoted to gastronomic science.
How will this movement save the planet? First of all the movement is committed to ‘eco-gastronomy’. This means that eating well goes hand in hand with saving the environment. So the movement is committed to preserving heritage varieties of foodstuffs. In Canada there is an agricultural underground of people deliberately cultivating old and uncommon varieties of carrots, potatoes, wheat, rye and flax in order to preserve them. These people are the first heroes of slow food. They are part of the resistance movement for global biodiversity.
Secondly, restaurants committed to slow food are committed to local sourcing of their produce. This means that Jeff Crump, the Head Chef at the Ancaster Old Mill where my family dined, made sure he served a delicate butternut squash soup because he had a local supplier in the middle of winter. Even though he couldn’t provide certified organic venison, he still provided deer meat from a farmer he knew and could observe following organic principles. Disciples of slow food are supporters of local farmers.
Followers of slow food are fighters against the obesity epidemic in North America. It takes fifteen minutes for the brain to register the signal that you have eaten too much. In most fast food restaurants, your meal is over by then. If you take more time over a meal your body will be able to complete the information circuit and moderate its intake. At the University of Toronto, the Human Resources Department is trying to promote work/life balance by persuading faculty and staff to stop eating lunch at their desks. They want people to reduce stress and achieve balance by working less, socializing more and moving about frequently.
In my twenty years of work on rural issues, I can’t count the number of times I heard people say ‘we want to put the culture back in agri-culture’. Well, now there’s a larger, international movement trying to do the same thing. It’s not against trade. It promotes the global trade of unique products, but it is pro-local. By focusing on the benefits of food grown locally and consumed socially, it has touched a nerve at the heart of our modern madness. Do farmers really want to become bio-industrialists? Well, neither do consumers.
First Published in January 2005
Common Security
In our new home in downtown Toronto, we live walking distance from a cinema. It has become our new Friday night custom to take in the early show, other things being equal. Last month, things weren’t equal.
As we strolled hand-in-hand behind the Bay, I saw a 1970 Dodge convertible make a slow and deliberate three point turn. It was being maneuvered with the stately efficiency only a senior citizen would value as it headed on a certain path toward a parking space on our side of the street. Somewhere in between points two and three, a dark, lone figure appeared on the horizon. Headphones, hooded sweatshirt, baggy shorts and one leg rooted to a skateboard, he flamingoed his way toward us. Neither his speed nor his trajectory altered as he headed for the intersection of the convertible’s tire and the city’s curb. The senior driver knew nothing until the intruder thumped on his car. The road had been clear last time he checked. As he completed his automotive pirouette, the one legged boarder was boarded and exploded with rage. He picked up his transportation and smashed it with all his weight through the passenger side window. The driver was torn between rage and protectiveness. Even while he yelled out he was sprawled across the back seat protecting his three year old Afghan hound from the shards of shattered glass.
Police were called and the movie missed as we tried to calm the dog. The driver chased the boarder to no avail and received some medical attention from a passing paramedic. The police called back the next day since, in Toronto on a Friday night, they only respond to gun calls.
One week later, I was walking home from the grocery store early on a weekday evening. Heavy bags and construction rubble are a bad combination if you’re not paying close attention, and I wasn’t. Ass over tea kettle is the expression my father used to use. When I stopped rolling, the groceries were spread over five square metres and my hands and knees scraped raw. It took a good five minutes to re-assemble my self and my belongings. When I resumed my journey I passed two parked cars, each with drivers – one on a cell ‘phone and one doing nothing. It took me another block to realize they had witnessed my collapse and stayed rooted to their seats, refusing to acknowledge my distress. What combination of fear, inattention and indifference kept them distanced from my plight?
There are some in our society who claim that there is a direct relationship between how much money we spend on police and how secure we are. I hold a different view. Police play a necessary but small role in the security of our society. What is far more important is the security we hold in common. I invest in the security of my community when I respond to the senior citizen who has been victimized. He started out a stranger and became a friend. The frozen witnesses to my own accident refused to invest in common security because they refused to invest in community. We were strangers in the beginning and strangers in the end. If we want to be more secure, what we need are not more heavily armed police but stronger communities.
First Published in November 2004
As we strolled hand-in-hand behind the Bay, I saw a 1970 Dodge convertible make a slow and deliberate three point turn. It was being maneuvered with the stately efficiency only a senior citizen would value as it headed on a certain path toward a parking space on our side of the street. Somewhere in between points two and three, a dark, lone figure appeared on the horizon. Headphones, hooded sweatshirt, baggy shorts and one leg rooted to a skateboard, he flamingoed his way toward us. Neither his speed nor his trajectory altered as he headed for the intersection of the convertible’s tire and the city’s curb. The senior driver knew nothing until the intruder thumped on his car. The road had been clear last time he checked. As he completed his automotive pirouette, the one legged boarder was boarded and exploded with rage. He picked up his transportation and smashed it with all his weight through the passenger side window. The driver was torn between rage and protectiveness. Even while he yelled out he was sprawled across the back seat protecting his three year old Afghan hound from the shards of shattered glass.
Police were called and the movie missed as we tried to calm the dog. The driver chased the boarder to no avail and received some medical attention from a passing paramedic. The police called back the next day since, in Toronto on a Friday night, they only respond to gun calls.
One week later, I was walking home from the grocery store early on a weekday evening. Heavy bags and construction rubble are a bad combination if you’re not paying close attention, and I wasn’t. Ass over tea kettle is the expression my father used to use. When I stopped rolling, the groceries were spread over five square metres and my hands and knees scraped raw. It took a good five minutes to re-assemble my self and my belongings. When I resumed my journey I passed two parked cars, each with drivers – one on a cell ‘phone and one doing nothing. It took me another block to realize they had witnessed my collapse and stayed rooted to their seats, refusing to acknowledge my distress. What combination of fear, inattention and indifference kept them distanced from my plight?
There are some in our society who claim that there is a direct relationship between how much money we spend on police and how secure we are. I hold a different view. Police play a necessary but small role in the security of our society. What is far more important is the security we hold in common. I invest in the security of my community when I respond to the senior citizen who has been victimized. He started out a stranger and became a friend. The frozen witnesses to my own accident refused to invest in common security because they refused to invest in community. We were strangers in the beginning and strangers in the end. If we want to be more secure, what we need are not more heavily armed police but stronger communities.
First Published in November 2004
Poverty By Postal Code
I have just moved back to Toronto after almost 20 years in Saskatoon. When friends from western and rural Canada come to visit they are sometimes overwhelmed by the noise, the speed and the wealth of this city. What they sometimes miss is how much poverty has grown here and how that didn’t always used to be the case.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s I lived right downtown. It was crowded and busy then too, but one of the things I liked most about Toronto was the strong and coherent neighbourhoods. People didn’t live in the city so much as they lived in Cabbagetown, Chinatown, Little Italy and the like.
Toronto’s United Way Agency has now published a study that documents this growth in poverty and it focuses on Toronto’s once famous neighbourhoods. Called “Poverty by Postal Code” the study uses data from the Census taken over 20 years to show how poverty has become more concentrated in more and more neighbourhoods.
In 1981 the number of families living below the poverty line in Canada was 13%. Toronto mirrored the country with 13.3% of families living in poverty. Since that time Canada’s poverty rate has declined slightly to 12.8% while Toronto’s has jumped to 19.4%.
When more than 26% of families in a neighbourhood live below the poverty line, the United Way study calls that a higher poverty neighbourhood. In 1981 the study identified 30 such neighbourhoods in Metropolitan Toronto. In 1991, that number doubled to 66 neighbourhoods and in 2001 it doubled again to 120 neighbourhoods. In 2001, 43.2% of Toronto’s poor families lived in these higher poverty neighbourhoods. 66% of all Toronto’s neighbourhoods now exceed the 1981 national average for families in poverty.
There are now over 160,000 children growing up in these poor Toronto neighbourhoods. That’s almost the population of Regina (178,225) where the family poverty rate is only 11%. If you think all this poverty is a function of unemployment you’d be wrong. 90% of all employable persons in these neighbourhoods have jobs, which is only 3% less than the rest of the city. These people are hard working people in minimum wage or part-time employment. They live in rental accommodation and a high percentage are new Canadians.
The single biggest factor contributing to this rising poverty rate is the high cost of housing. This comes from the brutal elimination of government support for social housing and the failure of the market to provide a low cost alternative. 25 years ago I moved into a mixed income housing cooperative in Toronto that provided 10% of its units as rent-geared-to-income. This is an example of the kind of program that was “collateral damage” in the war against the deficit. The report calls this poverty by postal code. I call it poverty by policy. The United Way argues that “no one should be disadvantaged or excluded from the mainstream, based on where they live.” This is a point of view rural Canadians can understand.
First Published in October 2004
In the late 1970s and early 1980s I lived right downtown. It was crowded and busy then too, but one of the things I liked most about Toronto was the strong and coherent neighbourhoods. People didn’t live in the city so much as they lived in Cabbagetown, Chinatown, Little Italy and the like.
Toronto’s United Way Agency has now published a study that documents this growth in poverty and it focuses on Toronto’s once famous neighbourhoods. Called “Poverty by Postal Code” the study uses data from the Census taken over 20 years to show how poverty has become more concentrated in more and more neighbourhoods.
In 1981 the number of families living below the poverty line in Canada was 13%. Toronto mirrored the country with 13.3% of families living in poverty. Since that time Canada’s poverty rate has declined slightly to 12.8% while Toronto’s has jumped to 19.4%.
When more than 26% of families in a neighbourhood live below the poverty line, the United Way study calls that a higher poverty neighbourhood. In 1981 the study identified 30 such neighbourhoods in Metropolitan Toronto. In 1991, that number doubled to 66 neighbourhoods and in 2001 it doubled again to 120 neighbourhoods. In 2001, 43.2% of Toronto’s poor families lived in these higher poverty neighbourhoods. 66% of all Toronto’s neighbourhoods now exceed the 1981 national average for families in poverty.
There are now over 160,000 children growing up in these poor Toronto neighbourhoods. That’s almost the population of Regina (178,225) where the family poverty rate is only 11%. If you think all this poverty is a function of unemployment you’d be wrong. 90% of all employable persons in these neighbourhoods have jobs, which is only 3% less than the rest of the city. These people are hard working people in minimum wage or part-time employment. They live in rental accommodation and a high percentage are new Canadians.
The single biggest factor contributing to this rising poverty rate is the high cost of housing. This comes from the brutal elimination of government support for social housing and the failure of the market to provide a low cost alternative. 25 years ago I moved into a mixed income housing cooperative in Toronto that provided 10% of its units as rent-geared-to-income. This is an example of the kind of program that was “collateral damage” in the war against the deficit. The report calls this poverty by postal code. I call it poverty by policy. The United Way argues that “no one should be disadvantaged or excluded from the mainstream, based on where they live.” This is a point of view rural Canadians can understand.
First Published in October 2004
E. H. Ted Scott: Heart of the Nation
Several weeks ago I attended a prairie funeral in Toronto. An overflow crowd of more than one thousand people, including the Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, jammed the aisles of St. James Cathedral to hear Scripture read by former Prime Minister Joe Clark and retired Senator Lois Wilson. We heard a letter of condolence and praise written by the freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. We listened to a sermon in which former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared himself to be “a slightly less bad person for having known [the deceased]”.
Who were we mourning and whose life were we celebrating? Born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1919, raised in Caron, Saskatchewan, Edward Walter Scott worked in Prince Rupert, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Kelowna before being elected as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada in 1971. Archbishop Scott (everyone called him Ted) led the Anglican Church for 15 turbulent years. During this time he consistently pushed the Church to focus its attention on the places where morality and economics intersect.
In Prince Rupert and in Winnipeg Ted had significant first hand exposure to the racist policies of the Canadian Government and Canadian Churches in dealing with the First Nations. He supported the dismantling of the residential school system. In the 1970s, when the Government created the Berger Inquiry into the effects of a proposed oil pipeline in the Mackenzie Valley, Scott helped lead the Anglican Church into a relationship of solidarity with the Dene of the Northwest Territories. When he was criticized by business leaders for being too confrontational, he replied “I couldn’t be a disciple of Christ, and take it seriously, without realizing there are times for confrontation on moral and ethical issues.”
Apartheid was an example of institutionalized racism that Canadians were more united in fighting because it was so far away. In the early 70s Canadian Church leaders began meeting with bank executives to discuss their international loan policies. In the face of resistance, leaders like Ted Scott began attending Annual General Meetings of the banks and proposing resolutions on behalf of Church shareholders to change lending practices.
Church members began placing stickers on their cheques that read “No Loans to Apartheid”. The stickers gummed up the automated cheque processing machines forcing them to be processed by hand. By 1978, the first Canadian bank announced it would make no new loans to South Africa and soon the other banks followed suit. He called his effort to end apartheid “the greatest challenge of my life.”
In 1986 Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Ted as Canada’s representative on the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to pressure South Africa to end apartheid. That same year he managed to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. In 1994, Ted attended Mandela’s installation as President of the Republic of South Africa.
While he was Primate, Ted Scott the prairie preacher’s kid, was formally adopted by the Nisga’a in gratitude for his support of their aboriginal rights. There was a great debate about which of the four clans – eagle, wolf, killer whale or raven – he should be adopted into. Finally, the women decided that since he was the spiritual leader of All the People, he should be adopted into All the Clans. His Nisga’a name was ‘Gott Lisims’. It means ‘Heart of the Nation”.
Ted Scott’s biography, by Hugh McCullum, is entitled “Radical Compassion: the Life and Times of E.H. Scott”. It is available from the Anglican Book Centre in Toronto or the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.
First Published in July 2004
Who were we mourning and whose life were we celebrating? Born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1919, raised in Caron, Saskatchewan, Edward Walter Scott worked in Prince Rupert, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Kelowna before being elected as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada in 1971. Archbishop Scott (everyone called him Ted) led the Anglican Church for 15 turbulent years. During this time he consistently pushed the Church to focus its attention on the places where morality and economics intersect.
In Prince Rupert and in Winnipeg Ted had significant first hand exposure to the racist policies of the Canadian Government and Canadian Churches in dealing with the First Nations. He supported the dismantling of the residential school system. In the 1970s, when the Government created the Berger Inquiry into the effects of a proposed oil pipeline in the Mackenzie Valley, Scott helped lead the Anglican Church into a relationship of solidarity with the Dene of the Northwest Territories. When he was criticized by business leaders for being too confrontational, he replied “I couldn’t be a disciple of Christ, and take it seriously, without realizing there are times for confrontation on moral and ethical issues.”
Apartheid was an example of institutionalized racism that Canadians were more united in fighting because it was so far away. In the early 70s Canadian Church leaders began meeting with bank executives to discuss their international loan policies. In the face of resistance, leaders like Ted Scott began attending Annual General Meetings of the banks and proposing resolutions on behalf of Church shareholders to change lending practices.
Church members began placing stickers on their cheques that read “No Loans to Apartheid”. The stickers gummed up the automated cheque processing machines forcing them to be processed by hand. By 1978, the first Canadian bank announced it would make no new loans to South Africa and soon the other banks followed suit. He called his effort to end apartheid “the greatest challenge of my life.”
In 1986 Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Ted as Canada’s representative on the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group to pressure South Africa to end apartheid. That same year he managed to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. In 1994, Ted attended Mandela’s installation as President of the Republic of South Africa.
While he was Primate, Ted Scott the prairie preacher’s kid, was formally adopted by the Nisga’a in gratitude for his support of their aboriginal rights. There was a great debate about which of the four clans – eagle, wolf, killer whale or raven – he should be adopted into. Finally, the women decided that since he was the spiritual leader of All the People, he should be adopted into All the Clans. His Nisga’a name was ‘Gott Lisims’. It means ‘Heart of the Nation”.
Ted Scott’s biography, by Hugh McCullum, is entitled “Radical Compassion: the Life and Times of E.H. Scott”. It is available from the Anglican Book Centre in Toronto or the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.
First Published in July 2004
Has Monsanto Won a Pyrrhic Victory?
Once upon a time in the Greek Mediterranean, many years ago, there was a King named Pyrrhus. His armies fought a battle at Asculum in the region of Apulia. He won the battle but the casualties were so high that his army was almost eliminated. His victory cry was so poignant, it has survived for thousands of years: “One more such victory and we are lost”!
Ever since then, a victory gained at too great a cost has been known as a Pyrrhic victory. Has Monsanto won a Pyrrhic victory?
In the battle between the biotech giant Monsanto and the Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, the Supreme Court of Canada has declared Monsanto to be the victor. By the same 5-4 margin that defeated the claim of Harvard to patent its genetically modified mouse in Canada, the Court found that Monsanto had a valid patent on the genetically modified genes contained in Roundup Ready Canola. It also found that their patent had been infringed when Percy Schmeiser saved seeds from plants that survived the spraying of Roundup herbicide, replanted them, harvested them and sold the seed, all without signing a Technology Use Agreement with Monsanto or paying them $15 per acre as required.
While the Court found that Percy Schmeiser used the GM seed, it also found that he did not profit from this use and so reversed a lower court ruling awarding Monsanto damages and declined to award Monsanto court costs for the case. So, Monsanto won no money from the case, spent close to $1 million prosecuting the case and received negative publicity worldwide for over five years for pursuing it.
Furthermore, they have declined to proceed with the introduction of Roundup Ready Wheat though they carefully refuse to say that will never happen. How much has this cost them? According to the court documents, in the year 2000, up to 5 million acres in Canada were planted to Roundup Ready Canola, 40% of Canada’s Canola crop that year. At $15 per seeded acre, Monsanto earned $75 million in Canola licensing fees, not including the revenue from selling seed or from selling the herbicide. Conceivably, they could have earned much more from wheat, still the dominant crop in western Canada.
Later this year the Schmeiser case may boomerang on Monsanto as organic farmers in Saskatchewan proceed with their class action alleging that Monsanto and Aventis have contaminated the fields of organic canola growers with genetically modified strains on which these companies hold the patents. If patent holders have the legally enforceable right of monopoly over their creations, are they also liable for the damage these new genes do?
When I was about 8 years old my mother parked her station wagon under a shady tree on a downhill slope while she played tennis nearby. My younger brother and I were left in the car to play. I played the driver! You can imagine what happened. Without turning on the engine, I managed to shift the car into neutral. As my mother practiced her backhand, her car and precious cargo silently accelerated into the nearest lamppost. My mother owned the car. Even though she wasn’t driving it, she was liable for the damages resulting from its use. I no longer recall whether my mother won her tennis match, but if she had, it too would have been a pyrrhic victory.
First Published in June 2004
Ever since then, a victory gained at too great a cost has been known as a Pyrrhic victory. Has Monsanto won a Pyrrhic victory?
In the battle between the biotech giant Monsanto and the Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, the Supreme Court of Canada has declared Monsanto to be the victor. By the same 5-4 margin that defeated the claim of Harvard to patent its genetically modified mouse in Canada, the Court found that Monsanto had a valid patent on the genetically modified genes contained in Roundup Ready Canola. It also found that their patent had been infringed when Percy Schmeiser saved seeds from plants that survived the spraying of Roundup herbicide, replanted them, harvested them and sold the seed, all without signing a Technology Use Agreement with Monsanto or paying them $15 per acre as required.
While the Court found that Percy Schmeiser used the GM seed, it also found that he did not profit from this use and so reversed a lower court ruling awarding Monsanto damages and declined to award Monsanto court costs for the case. So, Monsanto won no money from the case, spent close to $1 million prosecuting the case and received negative publicity worldwide for over five years for pursuing it.
Furthermore, they have declined to proceed with the introduction of Roundup Ready Wheat though they carefully refuse to say that will never happen. How much has this cost them? According to the court documents, in the year 2000, up to 5 million acres in Canada were planted to Roundup Ready Canola, 40% of Canada’s Canola crop that year. At $15 per seeded acre, Monsanto earned $75 million in Canola licensing fees, not including the revenue from selling seed or from selling the herbicide. Conceivably, they could have earned much more from wheat, still the dominant crop in western Canada.
Later this year the Schmeiser case may boomerang on Monsanto as organic farmers in Saskatchewan proceed with their class action alleging that Monsanto and Aventis have contaminated the fields of organic canola growers with genetically modified strains on which these companies hold the patents. If patent holders have the legally enforceable right of monopoly over their creations, are they also liable for the damage these new genes do?
When I was about 8 years old my mother parked her station wagon under a shady tree on a downhill slope while she played tennis nearby. My younger brother and I were left in the car to play. I played the driver! You can imagine what happened. Without turning on the engine, I managed to shift the car into neutral. As my mother practiced her backhand, her car and precious cargo silently accelerated into the nearest lamppost. My mother owned the car. Even though she wasn’t driving it, she was liable for the damages resulting from its use. I no longer recall whether my mother won her tennis match, but if she had, it too would have been a pyrrhic victory.
First Published in June 2004
Increasing Poverty Is a Matter of Public Policy
Five years ago I traveled to India. It had been 20 years since I had spent any time in the 3rd World and I felt my assumptions needed shaking up. I was right. Everything about India was different – the sights, the sounds, the smells and the tastes – or so I imagined. Since that time I have begun to see India all over Canada.
I thought of the sub-continent a few weeks ago when I met Richard. In his early 30s, Richard approached me on a Sunday afternoon as I was walking home from Church. He had been laid off from Magna Auto Parts. “Do you have a job for me? I’ll do anything!”
The proportion of unemployed people receiving EI benefits has declined significantly in Canada, from 87% in 1990 to 36% by 1998.
Last week I was napping when the doorbell rang. Startled, and a little dazed, I ran to the door to greet a thin middle-aged man, standing in front of his bicycle. “I would like to clean up your front yard in return for a small donation. I don’t have a penny. I’m completely broke.” I looked down at my front steps and the leaves and winter rubbish that had collected beneath them. My entire property is 14 feet wide and less than that to the sidewalk. I figured it would take 10 minutes to clean it, fifteen minutes to do it well. “Sure”, I replied. “Go ahead”.
Twenty minutes later, he summoned me to the door. “Are you married, sir?” “Yes, why do you ask?” “Because she’s really going to love this”. “Are you married?” I asked. “Well that’s the thing, you see, she’s got everything. I figured it was better that way. Just leave it all. That’s why I’m in the hostels. They’re not very good you know. They’ve become crack houses – and noisy too. You can never get any sleep.” Truth be told, I didn’t want to know.
According to an April 2000 study, people who use food banks in Toronto have, on average, $4.95 a day to spend on all their needs other than rent - food, transportation, utilities, laundry, school supplies, personal toiletries, etc. In 1995, the average amount was $7.40.
I made a $10 donation. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful sir, but I’m just doing some calculation in my head. I don’t have anything and if I had $12 I could get a ‘pay bed’ and a hamburger and a coffee.” I had a toonie in my pocket so I added it to the paper.
This is not the first time a beggar has negotiated with me. It has happened several times on the streets of Toronto. But its still not as sophisticated as it is in India.
Lawrence worked as a driver at the Indian Institute where I was teaching and would sometimes take me on errands around the city. He distinguished himself by being one of the few people who did not ask me for money. Then, the day before I left India, he asked me to become a sponsor for his children’s school fees. Several hundred dollars annually is not a lot by Canadian standards but it was a negotiation just the same.
Where I live in downtown Toronto, I pass anywhere from two to ten beggars on my way walking to work. This does not include the young couple in their early twenties who sleep on the porch of my parish church. They can’t receive social assistance because they don’t have a permanent address.
In 1996, families represented 46% of the people using hostels in Toronto ; in Montreal it is estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 youth are homeless and that 30-40% of homeless people are women.
The biggest challenge for compassionate Canadians is coming to terms with the fact that increasing poverty is a function of public policy. We could change it if we wanted to. Do you?
Sentences in Italics are taken from documents of the National Anti Poverty Organization.
First Published in May 2004
I thought of the sub-continent a few weeks ago when I met Richard. In his early 30s, Richard approached me on a Sunday afternoon as I was walking home from Church. He had been laid off from Magna Auto Parts. “Do you have a job for me? I’ll do anything!”
The proportion of unemployed people receiving EI benefits has declined significantly in Canada, from 87% in 1990 to 36% by 1998.
Last week I was napping when the doorbell rang. Startled, and a little dazed, I ran to the door to greet a thin middle-aged man, standing in front of his bicycle. “I would like to clean up your front yard in return for a small donation. I don’t have a penny. I’m completely broke.” I looked down at my front steps and the leaves and winter rubbish that had collected beneath them. My entire property is 14 feet wide and less than that to the sidewalk. I figured it would take 10 minutes to clean it, fifteen minutes to do it well. “Sure”, I replied. “Go ahead”.
Twenty minutes later, he summoned me to the door. “Are you married, sir?” “Yes, why do you ask?” “Because she’s really going to love this”. “Are you married?” I asked. “Well that’s the thing, you see, she’s got everything. I figured it was better that way. Just leave it all. That’s why I’m in the hostels. They’re not very good you know. They’ve become crack houses – and noisy too. You can never get any sleep.” Truth be told, I didn’t want to know.
According to an April 2000 study, people who use food banks in Toronto have, on average, $4.95 a day to spend on all their needs other than rent - food, transportation, utilities, laundry, school supplies, personal toiletries, etc. In 1995, the average amount was $7.40.
I made a $10 donation. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful sir, but I’m just doing some calculation in my head. I don’t have anything and if I had $12 I could get a ‘pay bed’ and a hamburger and a coffee.” I had a toonie in my pocket so I added it to the paper.
This is not the first time a beggar has negotiated with me. It has happened several times on the streets of Toronto. But its still not as sophisticated as it is in India.
Lawrence worked as a driver at the Indian Institute where I was teaching and would sometimes take me on errands around the city. He distinguished himself by being one of the few people who did not ask me for money. Then, the day before I left India, he asked me to become a sponsor for his children’s school fees. Several hundred dollars annually is not a lot by Canadian standards but it was a negotiation just the same.
Where I live in downtown Toronto, I pass anywhere from two to ten beggars on my way walking to work. This does not include the young couple in their early twenties who sleep on the porch of my parish church. They can’t receive social assistance because they don’t have a permanent address.
In 1996, families represented 46% of the people using hostels in Toronto ; in Montreal it is estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 youth are homeless and that 30-40% of homeless people are women.
The biggest challenge for compassionate Canadians is coming to terms with the fact that increasing poverty is a function of public policy. We could change it if we wanted to. Do you?
Sentences in Italics are taken from documents of the National Anti Poverty Organization.
First Published in May 2004
Are There Questions We Don't Want Answered?
Remember when Canola was western Canada’s Cinderella crop? Back in the mid 90s, canola was the crop that was bolstering farm revenues when wheat prices were low. (We didn’t know wheat prices could go lower!) Bright yellow was the colour of money. When herbicide resistant canola was introduced in 1996, farmers rushed to adopt the new technology. Western Canada’s second most widely planted and second most valuable crop was now going to show increased yield with reduced inputs. It took 3 years for 60% of the crop to be planted to genetically modified strains. According to its promoters, there was going to be all upside with no downside. Now we have to ask, who has Cinderella been sleeping with?
Genetically modified crops are controversial. Debates have raged about their health and safety. This has overshadowed the debate about the legal, social and economic impact of the new technology. The Schmeiser case is the one place where some of these concerns have been aired. Percy Schmeiser has argued that his fields have been contaminated by ‘roundup ready’ canola. Monsanto has accused him of infringing their patent by growing their seed without payment.
Now it turns out there is research to show there is widespread contamination of canola seed stocks by herbicide resistant strains. A 2002 Agriculture and Agri-food Canada study examined 70 certified canola seed lots and found 50% of them were contaminated. 25% had contamination levels exceeding the standard for certified seed. A 2003 University of Manitoba study examined 27 seed lots and found contamination in 26 of them. 14 of them (more than 50%) had contamination greater than the purity guideline for certified canola seed (0.25%). Three of them had contamination greater than 2%. The authors of the Manitoba study concluded that cross contamination in the pedigreed canola seed production systems occurs at such a high level, the use of pedigreed canola seed can no longer guarantee the absence of herbicide resistant strains. This is a problem for all canola growers. Farmers who plant a conventional canola crop purchased from a certified seed grower can now be fairly sure they will have some herbicide resistant seed. For one or two years following, they will have volunteer canola resistant to the most popular herbicides forcing a more expensive application of other chemicals and limiting the choices of crop rotation. Some of this contamination probably comes from gene movement through cross pollination and the rest probably comes from mixture in commercial seed handling and packaging. The system is simply not designed to handle tolerances this fine.
Now we have a proposal to introduce wheat genetically modified to be herbicide resistant. What obligation do we have to protect conventional wheat farmers from the collateral damage arising from GM wheat? This winter we had a dramatic lesson on how fragile is an agricultural activity highly dependent on trade. One sick cow and the whole Canadian beef industry was decimated. What would happen if we discovered that our certified wheat seed stocks were contaminated with GM wheat? What would happen to our wheat exports if we could no longer guarantee they were GM free? What would happen if one or more certified wheat growers sprayed a corner of their plots with a popular herbicide and not all the plants died? There are some questions to which we don’t want answers.
The University of Manitoba study was written by Friesen, Nelson and Van Acker and published in the American Agronomy Journal 95:1342-1347 (2003). The 2002 study was by Downie and Beckie for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Saskatoon.
First Published in March 2004
Genetically modified crops are controversial. Debates have raged about their health and safety. This has overshadowed the debate about the legal, social and economic impact of the new technology. The Schmeiser case is the one place where some of these concerns have been aired. Percy Schmeiser has argued that his fields have been contaminated by ‘roundup ready’ canola. Monsanto has accused him of infringing their patent by growing their seed without payment.
Now it turns out there is research to show there is widespread contamination of canola seed stocks by herbicide resistant strains. A 2002 Agriculture and Agri-food Canada study examined 70 certified canola seed lots and found 50% of them were contaminated. 25% had contamination levels exceeding the standard for certified seed. A 2003 University of Manitoba study examined 27 seed lots and found contamination in 26 of them. 14 of them (more than 50%) had contamination greater than the purity guideline for certified canola seed (0.25%). Three of them had contamination greater than 2%. The authors of the Manitoba study concluded that cross contamination in the pedigreed canola seed production systems occurs at such a high level, the use of pedigreed canola seed can no longer guarantee the absence of herbicide resistant strains. This is a problem for all canola growers. Farmers who plant a conventional canola crop purchased from a certified seed grower can now be fairly sure they will have some herbicide resistant seed. For one or two years following, they will have volunteer canola resistant to the most popular herbicides forcing a more expensive application of other chemicals and limiting the choices of crop rotation. Some of this contamination probably comes from gene movement through cross pollination and the rest probably comes from mixture in commercial seed handling and packaging. The system is simply not designed to handle tolerances this fine.
Now we have a proposal to introduce wheat genetically modified to be herbicide resistant. What obligation do we have to protect conventional wheat farmers from the collateral damage arising from GM wheat? This winter we had a dramatic lesson on how fragile is an agricultural activity highly dependent on trade. One sick cow and the whole Canadian beef industry was decimated. What would happen if we discovered that our certified wheat seed stocks were contaminated with GM wheat? What would happen to our wheat exports if we could no longer guarantee they were GM free? What would happen if one or more certified wheat growers sprayed a corner of their plots with a popular herbicide and not all the plants died? There are some questions to which we don’t want answers.
The University of Manitoba study was written by Friesen, Nelson and Van Acker and published in the American Agronomy Journal 95:1342-1347 (2003). The 2002 study was by Downie and Beckie for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Saskatoon.
First Published in March 2004
Christmas Presents as a Subversive Activity
It has become my Christmas custom to send a care package to my brother and his family in the United States. Poor disadvantaged souls that they are, if it weren’t for me they wouldn’t have access to Mackintosh toffee, Smarties or Quebec Maple Syrup. Truth be told, the most fought over gift is usually the sturdy canvas Saskatoon Coop bag I wrap them all in. Various family members compete to see who will walk down the streets of Richmond, Philadelphia or Washington with this handsome carryall.
It is also my custom to enclose a jar of Saskatoon Berry Jam in Kris Kringle’s sack. I have yet to find anyone who could resist that sweet/tart delight. This year however, I hesitated to do so. This year the US Food & Drug Administration issued new rules preventing the importing of commercially produced jams, jellies and sweets without a special permit. The Post Office won’t accept such parcels without evidence of the permit having been secured.
How to respond to such nonsense? Shall we stand on our high horses (always at the ready!) and denounce the surreptitious protectionism of such a move. Or is there a nationalist shelf higher up the wall from which we can castigate the barbarians who suggest that anything ‘foreign’ is inferior.
This policy is so absurd, it leads me to a different response. Many people have written about how America was traumatized by the events we have come to know as 9/11. But the suicide aero-bombings of Washington and New York were only the end of a string of shocks to America’s self-confidence, self-image and sense of security. In 1995, it was born and bred American citizens who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. In 1999 it was born and bred American teenagers who slaughtered the innocents in a high school in Columbine, Colorado. All of these events together have disturbed the quintessentially modern (and North American) expectation that bad things don’t happen to good people.
One response is to conclude that insufficient precautions have been taken. So, let’s now be suspicious of everybody and everything – even Saskatoon Berry jam. Another response is to root out evil at its source, especially if its source can be located in another country. My response is to lament the wasted efforts and also the lack of leadership. Most Americans of my acquaintance are appalled at the direction their Government has taken them and can’t wait to vote for Jed Bartlett.
My other reaction is to redouble my efforts to build international bridges of mutual respect and understanding. I don’t believe evil can be eradicated. I do believe it can be contained. Evil thrives in the darkness. Its containers are built in the broad light of day.
Saskatoon Berry jam is as much a cultural product as a food product – just like the Coop bag. Its export is one of the planks on that international bridge of understanding. The Post Office and the FDA were obstacles but they were not insurmountable. My brother visited me in December and took the presents back in his car. On Christmas morning he went ‘out’ and ‘about’ with a distinctly Canadian flavour in his American home
First Published in January 2004
It is also my custom to enclose a jar of Saskatoon Berry Jam in Kris Kringle’s sack. I have yet to find anyone who could resist that sweet/tart delight. This year however, I hesitated to do so. This year the US Food & Drug Administration issued new rules preventing the importing of commercially produced jams, jellies and sweets without a special permit. The Post Office won’t accept such parcels without evidence of the permit having been secured.
How to respond to such nonsense? Shall we stand on our high horses (always at the ready!) and denounce the surreptitious protectionism of such a move. Or is there a nationalist shelf higher up the wall from which we can castigate the barbarians who suggest that anything ‘foreign’ is inferior.
This policy is so absurd, it leads me to a different response. Many people have written about how America was traumatized by the events we have come to know as 9/11. But the suicide aero-bombings of Washington and New York were only the end of a string of shocks to America’s self-confidence, self-image and sense of security. In 1995, it was born and bred American citizens who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. In 1999 it was born and bred American teenagers who slaughtered the innocents in a high school in Columbine, Colorado. All of these events together have disturbed the quintessentially modern (and North American) expectation that bad things don’t happen to good people.
One response is to conclude that insufficient precautions have been taken. So, let’s now be suspicious of everybody and everything – even Saskatoon Berry jam. Another response is to root out evil at its source, especially if its source can be located in another country. My response is to lament the wasted efforts and also the lack of leadership. Most Americans of my acquaintance are appalled at the direction their Government has taken them and can’t wait to vote for Jed Bartlett.
My other reaction is to redouble my efforts to build international bridges of mutual respect and understanding. I don’t believe evil can be eradicated. I do believe it can be contained. Evil thrives in the darkness. Its containers are built in the broad light of day.
Saskatoon Berry jam is as much a cultural product as a food product – just like the Coop bag. Its export is one of the planks on that international bridge of understanding. The Post Office and the FDA were obstacles but they were not insurmountable. My brother visited me in December and took the presents back in his car. On Christmas morning he went ‘out’ and ‘about’ with a distinctly Canadian flavour in his American home
First Published in January 2004
The Moral Hazard of Politics
What guarantee do we have that newly elected governments will follow through on the promises that were made in the election campaign? Right now we have new governments in Newfoundland, Ontario and Saskatchewan. We have a new government every time there is an election even if we re-elect the same party. When political parties want our vote, they will promise outcomes that are popular even if they are hard to deliver. In the cold light of a post election winter morning, their behaviour may not match their promises. In that case, do voters run the risk of moral hazard?
Moral hazard refers to changes in behaviour by one party to a contract without the knowledge of the other party. Normally, moral hazard is written about from the perspective of the larger or more powerful group - for example, an insurance company or a government agency underwriting a farm income stabilization program. It is the company or the government agency that encounters the ‘hazard’ because of the immoral behaviour of the individual farmer who acts differently now that they are insured. However, it is also possible to look at it from the perspective of the smaller or weaker party. An individual farmer can enter into a contract with a seed company or government agency expecting one kind of behaviour and then experience a very different set of behaviours once the contract has been signed. This deliberate change in behaviour is an act of bad faith.
When you and I discuss this on coffee row, we remind ourselves to read the fine print and insist on full disclosure. That’s because we have been trained to accept “buyer beware” as the only moral principle that applies. Insurance companies talk about moral hazard because they rely on an additional and different moral principle. This is the principle of “utmost good faith”. Insurance companies have to trust their clients to behave the way they say they are going to because they can only afford to check a few contracts on a random or high risk basis.
In a similar way, voters accept the promises of political parties on the basis of “utmost good faith”. Voting them out in five years time is one kind of check on their behaviour but a rough and incomplete one.
Do political parties engage in immoral behaviour when they fail to keep their election promises? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Promises are made on the basis of certain assumptions and often politicians do not control the realities on which they are based. The collapse of the stock market, or the beef export market cannot be anticipated and may radically alter assumptions about government revenue, expense or both. On the other hand, provincial governments may encourage expectations of growth or federal support when they know these outcomes are highly unlikely. They may promise to protect a community asset and then eviscerate it by another means. The capacity for deception is part of human nature. Theologians call it human sin. Economists call it moral hazard. It does exist. Everyone can experience it and everyone, farmers, insurance companies and politicians included, can engage in it.
First Published in November 2003
Moral hazard refers to changes in behaviour by one party to a contract without the knowledge of the other party. Normally, moral hazard is written about from the perspective of the larger or more powerful group - for example, an insurance company or a government agency underwriting a farm income stabilization program. It is the company or the government agency that encounters the ‘hazard’ because of the immoral behaviour of the individual farmer who acts differently now that they are insured. However, it is also possible to look at it from the perspective of the smaller or weaker party. An individual farmer can enter into a contract with a seed company or government agency expecting one kind of behaviour and then experience a very different set of behaviours once the contract has been signed. This deliberate change in behaviour is an act of bad faith.
When you and I discuss this on coffee row, we remind ourselves to read the fine print and insist on full disclosure. That’s because we have been trained to accept “buyer beware” as the only moral principle that applies. Insurance companies talk about moral hazard because they rely on an additional and different moral principle. This is the principle of “utmost good faith”. Insurance companies have to trust their clients to behave the way they say they are going to because they can only afford to check a few contracts on a random or high risk basis.
In a similar way, voters accept the promises of political parties on the basis of “utmost good faith”. Voting them out in five years time is one kind of check on their behaviour but a rough and incomplete one.
Do political parties engage in immoral behaviour when they fail to keep their election promises? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Promises are made on the basis of certain assumptions and often politicians do not control the realities on which they are based. The collapse of the stock market, or the beef export market cannot be anticipated and may radically alter assumptions about government revenue, expense or both. On the other hand, provincial governments may encourage expectations of growth or federal support when they know these outcomes are highly unlikely. They may promise to protect a community asset and then eviscerate it by another means. The capacity for deception is part of human nature. Theologians call it human sin. Economists call it moral hazard. It does exist. Everyone can experience it and everyone, farmers, insurance companies and politicians included, can engage in it.
First Published in November 2003
What's Moral About Moral Hazard?
We acquired a puppy this spring. In addition to his charming habit of jumping up and down and wetting the carpet every time we return home, he has also taking to burying his toys in the corner of our sofa. This involves a lot of digging and scratching. Now, it also involves the purchase of a new sofa.
Having diligently search for a high quality sofa at the cheapest possible price, I discovered a good sale at The Bay. I also discovered The Bay will sell insurance against damage to the sofa regardless of the source of the damage. I specifically asked whether it covered damage covered by animals and I was assured it did. If I buy the sofa, would I be any less diligent at preventing my puppy from damaging it because of the insurance? If I would, maybe I should save the premium of over $100 and just step up my diligence?
In the insurance industry, this is called the problem of moral hazard. It has its origins in fire insurance and the proposition that the incidence of fire among a group of insured home owners will be greater than the incidence of fire among the same number of uninsured home owners. This is thought to be because those who are uninsured will be more diligent at reducing risks than those who are insured. Although I can find no statistical data to prove this point, the proposition is widely accepted as true. Moral hazard is different from cheating and fraud. It merely refers to the possibility that the presence of insurance will change the behaviour of the insured.
The concept of moral hazard has also been extended to changes in behaviour between two parties to a contract without the knowledge of one of the parties. This is why the concept of ‘moral’ hazard implicitly suggests ‘immorality’. In agriculture, moral hazard often refers to the changing behaviour of farmers in the presence of a program of government support.
Prudence is also part of morality. Aristotle considered it a virtue. It refers to the need to take very carefully calculated risks, to be wise in practical matters. When I arrange my finances so as to minimize tax and maximize my after tax income, I am being neither unlawful nor immoral. I am being efficient and prudent. I try and exhibit this behaviour in all my commercial transactions and in relation to all government programs. My behaviour is not immoral, it is prudent. All actions can have unintended consequences, including government programs. Farmers shouldn’t be penalized for being prudent and they shouldn’t be thought of as immoral for being program efficient. From my point of view, I can find nothing moral about moral hazard.
First Published in September 2003
Having diligently search for a high quality sofa at the cheapest possible price, I discovered a good sale at The Bay. I also discovered The Bay will sell insurance against damage to the sofa regardless of the source of the damage. I specifically asked whether it covered damage covered by animals and I was assured it did. If I buy the sofa, would I be any less diligent at preventing my puppy from damaging it because of the insurance? If I would, maybe I should save the premium of over $100 and just step up my diligence?
In the insurance industry, this is called the problem of moral hazard. It has its origins in fire insurance and the proposition that the incidence of fire among a group of insured home owners will be greater than the incidence of fire among the same number of uninsured home owners. This is thought to be because those who are uninsured will be more diligent at reducing risks than those who are insured. Although I can find no statistical data to prove this point, the proposition is widely accepted as true. Moral hazard is different from cheating and fraud. It merely refers to the possibility that the presence of insurance will change the behaviour of the insured.
The concept of moral hazard has also been extended to changes in behaviour between two parties to a contract without the knowledge of one of the parties. This is why the concept of ‘moral’ hazard implicitly suggests ‘immorality’. In agriculture, moral hazard often refers to the changing behaviour of farmers in the presence of a program of government support.
Prudence is also part of morality. Aristotle considered it a virtue. It refers to the need to take very carefully calculated risks, to be wise in practical matters. When I arrange my finances so as to minimize tax and maximize my after tax income, I am being neither unlawful nor immoral. I am being efficient and prudent. I try and exhibit this behaviour in all my commercial transactions and in relation to all government programs. My behaviour is not immoral, it is prudent. All actions can have unintended consequences, including government programs. Farmers shouldn’t be penalized for being prudent and they shouldn’t be thought of as immoral for being program efficient. From my point of view, I can find nothing moral about moral hazard.
First Published in September 2003
The Moral Economy of Food Quality
Have you ever noticed how bottled water is marketed with images of snow capped peaks? It is as if the water inside was melted straight from the Columbia ice-field instead of drawn from a stand-pipe in Richmond B.C. What’s being sold is a quality, both real and perceived.
Last month I motored through the United States. As I stopped to fill up with (still cheaper) American gas, I noticed a sign outside the duty free store advertising “Canadian Jam”. Why, I wondered, would a US merchant be promoting Canadian jam to American tourists? Quality, I concluded. Canadian food products are often seen as being more pure and of higher quality. It might even be true.
As a result of the first Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s wine producers developed a program of quality assurance, the Vintners Quality Alliance. Now a wine buyer can go into any Canadian liquor store and pick out a VQA bottle. This bottle is guaranteed to have 100% of its grapes grown in the identified Canadian region and to be of good quality.
On the other hand, sometimes quality is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Some years ago I dined at the famous Boston restaurant “Legal Seafood”. The menu boasted only the “finest American fish” – nothing imported. I wondered how the store could tell the difference between a Maine lobster and a Nova Scotian lobster? I also wondered how the restaurant could stay in business if it routinely insulted the tourists who ate there? On a visit this spring I noticed this language had changed.
Part of living successfully in a world characterized by cultural diversity is a recognition and acceptance of different cultural, religious and moral values. The word ‘quality’ can refer to culture (some cultures prefer white bread over whole wheat), religion (food that is not prepared according to Jewish Law would be of unacceptable quality to Orthodox Jews) or morality (a casserole made with meat would be morally unacceptable to vegetarians). As consumers become more aware of the geographical distance between their dinner table and the place of production of their food, they will seek to reduce the moral distance by purchasing goods from suppliers they trust. These suppliers must be in a position to guarantee the qualities of the goods they produce.
I recently spoke with a beef operator with a farm near Fort Frances, Ontario. They breed and raise their own stock and then slaughter and market direct to consumers in southern Ontario. It is a closed system (less vulnerable to a BSE outbreak) except for the feed they import from a single farm in the US. It is not an organic operation but a natural one – no growth hormones and antibiotics only for the treatment of disease. People pay a premium for this beef knowing that the farmer has the same values they have.
Quality includes safety from disease but is much more than that. Quality is not singular. There are many qualities about which different populations will need assurance. Canada is not only capable of meeting quality standards; it is well placed to set the standards for the next generation of food producers.
First Published in July 2003
Last month I motored through the United States. As I stopped to fill up with (still cheaper) American gas, I noticed a sign outside the duty free store advertising “Canadian Jam”. Why, I wondered, would a US merchant be promoting Canadian jam to American tourists? Quality, I concluded. Canadian food products are often seen as being more pure and of higher quality. It might even be true.
As a result of the first Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s wine producers developed a program of quality assurance, the Vintners Quality Alliance. Now a wine buyer can go into any Canadian liquor store and pick out a VQA bottle. This bottle is guaranteed to have 100% of its grapes grown in the identified Canadian region and to be of good quality.
On the other hand, sometimes quality is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Some years ago I dined at the famous Boston restaurant “Legal Seafood”. The menu boasted only the “finest American fish” – nothing imported. I wondered how the store could tell the difference between a Maine lobster and a Nova Scotian lobster? I also wondered how the restaurant could stay in business if it routinely insulted the tourists who ate there? On a visit this spring I noticed this language had changed.
Part of living successfully in a world characterized by cultural diversity is a recognition and acceptance of different cultural, religious and moral values. The word ‘quality’ can refer to culture (some cultures prefer white bread over whole wheat), religion (food that is not prepared according to Jewish Law would be of unacceptable quality to Orthodox Jews) or morality (a casserole made with meat would be morally unacceptable to vegetarians). As consumers become more aware of the geographical distance between their dinner table and the place of production of their food, they will seek to reduce the moral distance by purchasing goods from suppliers they trust. These suppliers must be in a position to guarantee the qualities of the goods they produce.
I recently spoke with a beef operator with a farm near Fort Frances, Ontario. They breed and raise their own stock and then slaughter and market direct to consumers in southern Ontario. It is a closed system (less vulnerable to a BSE outbreak) except for the feed they import from a single farm in the US. It is not an organic operation but a natural one – no growth hormones and antibiotics only for the treatment of disease. People pay a premium for this beef knowing that the farmer has the same values they have.
Quality includes safety from disease but is much more than that. Quality is not singular. There are many qualities about which different populations will need assurance. Canada is not only capable of meeting quality standards; it is well placed to set the standards for the next generation of food producers.
First Published in July 2003
Even War Has a Moral Economy
“I’ll tell you my position on the war if you’ll tell me yours?”
“You first.”
That’s how the conversation started with a waitress in an Edmonton restaurant earlier this month. As it turned out, both of us were appalled by what was going on. Neither of us wanted any more killing. We wanted it to stop. Why were we afraid to just come out and say so? Who would hear us if we spoke out clearly?
Moral action can often have costs. Sometimes those costs are economic. Canada’s opposition to military intervention in Iraq without UN support was a moral as well as a political stand. Is there a cost to this moral stand? Perhaps. Certainly the American ambassador to Canada, Paul Celluci thinks so. Recently the ambassador has warned us of the consequences of publicly disagreeing with Washington. The decision by President Bush to host a visit by the Australian Prime Minister rather than visit Ottawa this fall is widely interpreted as a public rebuke for our lack of solidarity.
Canada likes to think of itself as a sovereign, independent nation acting in a community of other independent states. What difference would it make to describe us as a dependency of the American empire? Is our relationship to the US now any different from the relationship of Poland to the USSR twenty years ago?
Some Canadian business leaders want to create a customs union with the US. This would prevent the next President from taking retaliatory economic action the next time Canada decided to act contrary to perceived American interests. The cost of such a customs union would be that trade would need to happen on American terms. In effect, Canada would have to agree to give up the very capacity for independent economic action that some Americans find so threatening.
Canada is not the only country made anxious by the new willingness of the US to impose its will on the world. Actually, most of the rest of the world is now significantly more afraid of the United States’ unwillingness to hold itself accountable to the Community of Nations. We have good reason to be more fearful when the Commanders of the world’s most powerful military refuse to abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war or when they refuse to hold themselves accountable to the International Court of Justice for war crimes.
There is another model. On issues of culture, Canada has aligned itself with France to gather countries together to discuss how culture (films, TV, music, books etc.) can be protected from American domination through trade agreements. What would happen if we aligned ourselves with others to discuss how rural culture and local agriculture can be protected from American domination through trade agreements?
There are many patriotic Americans that think traditional American values have been abandoned by contemporary American foreign policy. By charting a different course, Canadians can also support their American cousins in calling their country to account. Canada’s moral leadership may have an economic cost but the most important moral leadership almost always does.
First Published in April 2003
“You first.”
That’s how the conversation started with a waitress in an Edmonton restaurant earlier this month. As it turned out, both of us were appalled by what was going on. Neither of us wanted any more killing. We wanted it to stop. Why were we afraid to just come out and say so? Who would hear us if we spoke out clearly?
Moral action can often have costs. Sometimes those costs are economic. Canada’s opposition to military intervention in Iraq without UN support was a moral as well as a political stand. Is there a cost to this moral stand? Perhaps. Certainly the American ambassador to Canada, Paul Celluci thinks so. Recently the ambassador has warned us of the consequences of publicly disagreeing with Washington. The decision by President Bush to host a visit by the Australian Prime Minister rather than visit Ottawa this fall is widely interpreted as a public rebuke for our lack of solidarity.
Canada likes to think of itself as a sovereign, independent nation acting in a community of other independent states. What difference would it make to describe us as a dependency of the American empire? Is our relationship to the US now any different from the relationship of Poland to the USSR twenty years ago?
Some Canadian business leaders want to create a customs union with the US. This would prevent the next President from taking retaliatory economic action the next time Canada decided to act contrary to perceived American interests. The cost of such a customs union would be that trade would need to happen on American terms. In effect, Canada would have to agree to give up the very capacity for independent economic action that some Americans find so threatening.
Canada is not the only country made anxious by the new willingness of the US to impose its will on the world. Actually, most of the rest of the world is now significantly more afraid of the United States’ unwillingness to hold itself accountable to the Community of Nations. We have good reason to be more fearful when the Commanders of the world’s most powerful military refuse to abide by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war or when they refuse to hold themselves accountable to the International Court of Justice for war crimes.
There is another model. On issues of culture, Canada has aligned itself with France to gather countries together to discuss how culture (films, TV, music, books etc.) can be protected from American domination through trade agreements. What would happen if we aligned ourselves with others to discuss how rural culture and local agriculture can be protected from American domination through trade agreements?
There are many patriotic Americans that think traditional American values have been abandoned by contemporary American foreign policy. By charting a different course, Canadians can also support their American cousins in calling their country to account. Canada’s moral leadership may have an economic cost but the most important moral leadership almost always does.
First Published in April 2003
Banks Will Be On the Agenda in 2003
Have you noticed how the banks are changing their names these days? The Royal Bank of Canada is now RBC and the Bank of Montreal is now BMO. The names are changing because words like “Royal”, “Canada” and “Montreal” don’t play well south of the border. Of course, rural lending plays even less well.
It is now five years since The Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal announced plans to merge. A political firestorm engulfing rivals Paul Martin and Jean Chretien put those plans on ice. But you should expect Bank mergers to resurface on the national agenda this year regardless of who wins the Liberal leadership race.
These two Canadian banks marked each other’s dance card early because they wanted to take advantage of the newly minted Agreement on Financial Services announced by the World Trade organization one month earlier. This Agreement was aimed at reducing national barriers to transnational financial companies. The political roadblock in Ottawa meant these banks had to move to plan “B”. What does plan “B” look like? It looks like expanding internationally or moving into businesses not associated with banks.
Take the Royal Bank for example. RBC is the largest bank in Canada with 2001 net income of $2.4 billion, an increase of $800 million since 1997. In November of 2000 they bought Liberty Life Insurance in the US. Liberty operates in 6 states and provides a good foundation for growing an insurance business. In June of 2001, RBC also bought Centura Banks in the south-eastern US. Centura has US$14 billion in assets.
Why would Canadian banks follow this strategy? All around the world banks are merging and getting larger. As global trade grows, businesses want to deal with only one lender even though they are operating in several countries. The competition is to see who will be the largest bank in the European Union or in NAFTA or in Asia. For example, Crédit Agricole, which started as a farmer owned cooperative, just bought the city based Crédit Lyonnais to create the largest bank in France and the second largest in Europe. The largest bank in Europe is Deutschbank although some people wonder if it’s even German anymore since more than half its Executive Committee is made up of foreigners.
RBC is very clear about its motivation. It’s Annual Report claims “our approach is to encourage every business segment to grow internationally …. In addition, many of our clients are expanding in the US and seeking service capability in that market.”
The winners in this strategy will be international businesses who will be better served by this new arrangement. The losers will be small Canadian towns and small businesses with less financial clout. Rural people may be able to exert political pressure by lobbying the federal rural caucus with some clear, practical ideas. Small towns can insist that bank mergers not force the closure of the only remaining bank. They can also insist that proper regulatory mechanisms be put in place to govern sectors where a virtual banking monopoly exists. Maybe the Feds could insist that all banks with a Class A charter commit a certain proportion of their assets to agricultural lending? Finally, they can ensure that Credit Unions have the same access to the insurance business that banks will shortly have. Banks have grown wealthy because of the protected environment we created for them. We shouldn’t be shy about insisting on reciprocity. You can express your opinion by contacting the Charles Hubbard, Chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, and Liberal M.P. for Miramichi.
First Published in January 2003
It is now five years since The Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal announced plans to merge. A political firestorm engulfing rivals Paul Martin and Jean Chretien put those plans on ice. But you should expect Bank mergers to resurface on the national agenda this year regardless of who wins the Liberal leadership race.
These two Canadian banks marked each other’s dance card early because they wanted to take advantage of the newly minted Agreement on Financial Services announced by the World Trade organization one month earlier. This Agreement was aimed at reducing national barriers to transnational financial companies. The political roadblock in Ottawa meant these banks had to move to plan “B”. What does plan “B” look like? It looks like expanding internationally or moving into businesses not associated with banks.
Take the Royal Bank for example. RBC is the largest bank in Canada with 2001 net income of $2.4 billion, an increase of $800 million since 1997. In November of 2000 they bought Liberty Life Insurance in the US. Liberty operates in 6 states and provides a good foundation for growing an insurance business. In June of 2001, RBC also bought Centura Banks in the south-eastern US. Centura has US$14 billion in assets.
Why would Canadian banks follow this strategy? All around the world banks are merging and getting larger. As global trade grows, businesses want to deal with only one lender even though they are operating in several countries. The competition is to see who will be the largest bank in the European Union or in NAFTA or in Asia. For example, Crédit Agricole, which started as a farmer owned cooperative, just bought the city based Crédit Lyonnais to create the largest bank in France and the second largest in Europe. The largest bank in Europe is Deutschbank although some people wonder if it’s even German anymore since more than half its Executive Committee is made up of foreigners.
RBC is very clear about its motivation. It’s Annual Report claims “our approach is to encourage every business segment to grow internationally …. In addition, many of our clients are expanding in the US and seeking service capability in that market.”
The winners in this strategy will be international businesses who will be better served by this new arrangement. The losers will be small Canadian towns and small businesses with less financial clout. Rural people may be able to exert political pressure by lobbying the federal rural caucus with some clear, practical ideas. Small towns can insist that bank mergers not force the closure of the only remaining bank. They can also insist that proper regulatory mechanisms be put in place to govern sectors where a virtual banking monopoly exists. Maybe the Feds could insist that all banks with a Class A charter commit a certain proportion of their assets to agricultural lending? Finally, they can ensure that Credit Unions have the same access to the insurance business that banks will shortly have. Banks have grown wealthy because of the protected environment we created for them. We shouldn’t be shy about insisting on reciprocity. You can express your opinion by contacting the Charles Hubbard, Chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, and Liberal M.P. for Miramichi.
First Published in January 2003
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