Local foods VS Costco
March 7, 2010
The problem with the whole local foods movement is that when it comes right down to it, consumers are slaves to their training: they resolutely search out the lowest possible price, and the kind of food everyone admits is good for you costs 30 to 40% more, so most people talk one way and then load up their carts at Costco with factory-grown chicken, pork, and imported fruits and vegetables.
This kills the market for local food. Of course it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about a cartload of Costco.
Then there’s the look on the faces of visitors to the sugar shack when they get their first taste of Canada tea, made with boiling sap and a tea bag. First it’s amazement at a new taste they haven’t encountered before. Then they look a bit bewildered: “Why am I so surprised by a new taste? Why does everything in my life taste the same? And this came from a tree?” Off they go to the woods to gather more sap.
Then there’s Christopher and his discovery of black walnuts. This pint-sized hockey player found that if he put his back into it, he could make the walnut press generate the 700 lb. of force it takes to crack the shells and give him access to delicious meats inside. He cracked a lot of nuts once he got the hang of it.
Roz and her friends have often told me that Kingston has a great deal to offer to those who live there, but the one big gap is the lack of a great, wooded park in which to wander. Christopher’s mom came back from gathering sap and enthused: “This is way better than walking around the trails in the Cataraqui Conservation Authority.”
It seems people think differently about prices when they are engaged in acts of tourism. Perhaps it’s because the thought process is longer with a vacation: tourists aspire and dream; they travel; they drink in the experience; they remember it and use it to shape their other experiences and world view. That’s much different from the immediate choice to buy pork chops or the frozen lamb at Costco.
The challenge for local food producers is to take their customers clean away from the cutthroat thought patterns of the supermarket shopper. They need make their products part of an enjoyable and memorable vacation experience to which their customers will want to return, with the price of the food a minor factor.
If individuals become tourists to explore and search for sensations lost through the commodification of modern life, why shouldn’t they find a fresh reality in the countryside? Why shouldn’t they discover the joy of fresh-picked corn, or spend a lazy afternoon under a mulberry tree, eating their fill of the strange, refreshing fruit?
How about a day picking grapes or planting trees, if extreme vacations are your thing?
My son tells me that there are no distances in air travel. The only directions are up, down, and hot.
Tourism involves a journey, but if there are no longer real distances, why can’t the journey be twenty or forty minutes to a vacation destination, instead of across the continent? Why couldn’t a garden plot provide a perfectly valid “other place” to which one’s soul can yearn to escape? Families travel to give their kids experience and understanding of their world, yet how many suburban children have ever milked a cow, planted potatoes, picked raspberries or gathered eggs? No parents would want to deny these experiences to their kids if the facilities were within easy reach.
How many of you remember biting into a fresh carrot which exploded its sweetness on the tongue? I tried a store-bought carrot a week ago and almost cried from disappointment. It was orange. That’s the best thing I can say for it.
40% more for the real thing? Sounds like a bargain — if I have stood in the garden from which it came.
A Very Canadian Day
February 28, 2010
The new snow had all the charm of a wet flannel shirt on a cold day. Mention of cleaning the driveway should bring visions of white, sparkling rooster tails arching to the treetops against an azure sky. What the week actually brought, however, were dull clouds and mud balls and a blower gagging out liquid snow, occasionally punctuated by a blast of gravel. There’s no satisfaction in this.
Charlie and his pals had tapped the woodlot last weekend. Of course the sap didn’t run because it was too early, but they were keen to experiment. Then on Friday it started.
So here I was with buckets overflowing in the woods and the kids coming on Sunday to make syrup. I decided I’d better pack a track around the woodlot so that they could gather with the Ranger. Two hours of work produced little gain. One area of deep slush was impassible for the tractor. Snow that you can’t pack into a road is just no good.
Then three carloads of crew showed up: Charlie, Anneli, Martin, Anne-Claire, Rob, Derek, Brian, Allison and Jeff. The sun came out and the temperature rose. Martin had acquired a large supply of 16 litre shortening pails with lids which he insisted could be installed and removed easily. He planned to gather the sap from the buckets in these containers, put the lids on, and haul them to the shanty in the back of the Ranger. Figuring I’d be soaked from slopping pails before long, I loaded Derek and Anne-Claire onto the Ranger and blasted back the crude trail to deliver the empties. The UV pawed its way over slush which had defeated the tractor. Interesting.
The crew swarmed around the maples, draining buckets into pails at a frightening pace. Where do they get the energy? Martin proved his point that the UV’s bed will hold more sap in pails than in a 50 gallon drum. They loaded them up and turned me around on the trail. Back we went to the shack to try out the new arch Peter Myers had made for us.
Fire-starter Rob laid a work of art in the cavernous firebox and set it alight. Before long the sap began to boil and we retired to the house for the 3 o’clock Gold Medal Hockey Game. We calculated that the optimum time to refill the firebox was every twenty minutes, so stokers alternated throughout the game. The arch worked very well.
Derek commented: “Here we are, boiling maple syrup, eating Tim Horton’s and watching a gold medal hockey game. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more Canadian.” Bet and Mom served a buffet during the third period.
Then the U.S. tied the game with a few seconds left.
I could taste the irony. Disasters travel in threes, right? I didn’t want #3 to be a U.S. victory, but I particularly didn’t want to have to admit that the pan burned dry because the game went into overtime. Out I went to check, and surely enough, the sap was down to ½”, a critical level. We quickly lifted the pan off the fire and returned to the game.
On our way back in to the house, Martin quipped: “If ever there was an appropriate time to let the pan run dry, it would be during overtime in a gold medal game.” But there’s never an appropriate time for that.
Surely enough, with disaster #2 averted, #3 didn’t happen, either. Crosby fired a blind shot at the net and Miller missed it. Canada had won gold.
Anne-Claire: “You couldn’t have scripted a better ending than Crosby getting the winning goal in overtime. When he was a shy teenager, I once served him a steak at The Keg in Halifax.”
Probably we’ll all remember where we were when Crosby fired the shot. We’ll have a hard time avoiding the day’s photos. Many of the crew had cameras along, and the light was good.
The kids may have tapped way too early and the snow was a drag, but we had a great afternoon. I wonder if some of them will come upon these photos in twenty or thirty years and marvel at the youth, vigour and beauty the camera captured in them on this day.
Check out Rob Ewart’s outstanding photos of the day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rewart/4397837947/in/set-72157623383980467/
An Interview with Stephen Mazurek, Liberal Candidate
February 22, 2010
Property values in Westport are higher than in Smiths Falls. What’s going on in North Leeds?
North Leeds is a wonderful place to live. It is an absolutely beautiful part of the riding. I know people from all over Ontario love the wonderful waterfront, fantastic shops and great dining in Westport. It’s no wonder many people, especially seniors and young families, are choosing to move to this community. I suspect this increased demand is what has driven up the property values in that area.
Smiths Falls has been through a challenging couple of years; there is no doubt about that. We need to bring good-paying jobs back to that community and I believe we have the right economic plan and the right tax package to do it.
Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty have jointly created the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax. Would you explain a bit about what the HST will mean to voters in Leeds-Grenville?
The HST is just one element of the Liberal government’s comprehensive tax package that, taken together, will create 600,000 new jobs, increase business investment and leave more money in people’s pockets.
We are beginning to see signs of economic recovery, so governments have a choice. They can either choose to act, helping businesses create new jobs — or choose to do nothing, stand back and hope for the best. I am proud to say the Liberal government has chosen to act.
Moving to a single, value-added tax like the HST allows businesses, large and small, to be reimbursed for the PST they pay on the items they buy every day to run their business. Decreased costs for business will mean lower prices for consumers. In fact, a study by TD Bank showed that 95% of business cost savings will be passed on to the consumer within 3 years.
While businesses start hiring as their tax burden shrinks, people in Leeds-Grenville will also benefit from the $10.6 billion in permanent, personal tax relief which accompanies the HST legislation. We have already lowered the personal income tax rate on January 1st, cutting income taxes for 93% of Ontario taxpayers. Ontario now has the lowest income tax rate in all of Canada on the first $37,000 of income.
And while it is true that some prices on some items will go up, it is nowhere near what’s being suggested by some of my opponents. In fact, 83% of the things we buy will have no additional tax after July 1st.
Things exempt from cost increases because of the HST include basic groceries, prescriptions, clothing, children’s clothing and footwear, books, home cable and telephone service, cell phone charges, municipal water bills, your morning coffee and newspaper, restaurant meals, furniture and appliances, movie tickets, mortgage interest charges, prepared food under $4 and automobiles, to name just a few.
And finally, the people of Leeds-Grenville will also benefit from permanent, targeted tax cuts offsetting the increases on the remaining 17% of purchases.
Starting this July, and an integral part of the HST legislation, the new, permanent Ontario Sales Tax Credit will provide up to $260 for every low and middle-income Ontarian, paid out quarterly like the current GST credit. We are also doubling the Seniors’ Property Tax Credit to $500, helping seniors stay in their homes longer. And finally we also created a new, permanent Ontario Property Tax Credit that provides up to $950 for residents of homes, whether they rent or own.
We need a strong economy to support the high quality public services like hospitals and schools that we’ve all worked so hard to build. The government’s plan adds up to more jobs, greater prosperity and a brighter future for Leeds-Grenville.
In a recent article Mr. Runciman ripped Mr. McGuinty for his green plan, claiming that Hydro will have to pay out astronomical amounts to homeowners with solar panels. He claimed McGuinty’s numbers are “the stuff of fantasy”. Can you provide a more balanced look at the Green Initiative?
I think we can all agree that the days of cheap energy are over. Whether because of the economic or environmental impacts, we must turn to new sources of energy, harnessing the natural gifts of the planet – the sun, the wind, and our crops.
It is always amusing to listen to the Tories discuss things like climate change and energy production. Runciman is now part of a government that seems to deny that climate change is even a fact, and was part of a government, under Harris, that fought to keep coal plants open. This attitude was wrong then and is even worse now.
The Liberal government knows how critical this issue is, and has responded. We have already reduced Ontario’s use of dirty coal by one-third and will reduce it by another third next year. This will clean the air we breathe and improve our quality of life.
We also recently announced that we are protecting an area in Northern Ontario larger than Prince Edward Island from logging, which in addition to the Green Belt and our 50 Million Trees Program, will go a long way to turning back the clock on environmental destruction.
Putting the environmental reasons aside, I believe Leeds-Grenville is uniquely positioned to harness our natural elements to create the highly-skilled jobs we want right here at home.
While solar and wind power are seen by some as a pipe dream, the reality is the green energy revolution is happening right now and it is happening all around us. I was pleased to visit Upper Canada Generation Limited with the Premier just last week. That is a great example of a company that is creating the kinds of jobs we want by using leading-edge technology to turn the natural bounty of this riding into usable energy.
We must remember that leading-edge technologies often have upfront costs. I remember how much more computers cost 10 years ago compared to what they cost today. Wind turbines, solar panels and ethanol processing plants are no different. I think it’s important that we look at the overall cost, both environmental and economic, rather than just the specific rate for generation of a new energy source. While an initial feed-in tariff is needed to encourage investment in these right kinds of technology, I am confident that over time we will see wind turbines and solar panels dotting our landscape and benefitting both the environment and our pocket books.
An interview with Steve Clark, Progressive Conservative Candidate for Leeds-Grenville
February 22, 2010
How would you describe the northern part of your riding to an MPP newly arrived in Toronto from Thunder Bay?
Westport is a tremendously unique municipality in Leeds and Grenville. We all covet its waterfront. North Leeds also has a unique commercial component with the high-end shops in Westport and Newboro. When our friends from all over Ontario come to visit, they often drive up to Westport and Newboro for the shopping experience.
But to explain anything about North Leeds you must begin with the people. Last week I walked into Kudrinko’s Grocery Store, and whether they were going to vote for me or not, they welcomed me with a smile. Friday night I dropped in at the Junior B hockey game at the Arena. Westport and Gananoque were in this fiercely competitive game, but the fans were just so nice to me. It was one of the highlights of last week’s campaign, going to Westport and spending an hour or two watching the game. It doesn’t matter whether people are supporting you or not, people in North Leeds are very welcoming. Visitors here can’t help but appreciate this.
In North Leeds you still have this tremendous rural component. I have fond memories of the plowing match. I have advocated for the municipality with regard to the illegal fishing issue. I have worked with Rideau Lakes on some police budget issues. Demographically, forecasts show an aging population in all corners of Leeds-Grenville. I’m committed to work with staff to provide more effective services for our community as needs increase.
Sawmill owner Kris Heideman recently told us at the Kemptville Woodlot Conference that some American mills are dumping red pine on the Toronto market for less than Ontario landowners get for their timber. From your point of view as an aspiring MPP, what are the issues here?
Here is how I would attack the issue:
1. I would meet with the local folks to get the details of this incident.
2. We would use our office as an opportunity to talk to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade to find out what Ontario Government policies are in place which have allowed this to happen.
3. Because it is an American company which is dumping the product, I want to sit down with Gord Brown to see what Federal Government policies are in place that allow this to happen.
In a recent article Senator Runciman ripped Premier McGuinty for his green plan, claiming that Hydro will have to pay out “outrageous” amounts to homeowners with solar panels. He described Mr. McGuinty’s pricing as “the stuff of fantasy”. Are you prepared to stand by Runciman’s hyperbole, or would you care to offer a more balanced view?
I think Mr. Runciman does make a good point. As someone who is CAO of a municipality, I have received information from the Provincial Government promoting the installation of solar panels on our buildings at a rate of return far exceeding market value. The bigger concern that I am hearing at the doors is from seniors and working families regarding the impact on energy costs of the HST and the installation of smart meters.
Your opponent Steve Armstrong claims that manufacturing is doomed in Leeds-Grenville. Care to comment on that?
We have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs in Leeds-Grenville, no question, and I think in the future we need to be aggressive in promoting the idea that Leeds and Grenville is open for business. We need to work together at the municipal level to realize that not every municipality is going to build an industrial park and become a manufacturing hub. We need to find what works, and then promote the daylights out of it.
What I mean by that is that the tourist sector may continue to carry some communities. Others may find growth around cultural pursuits. The Biosphere Project has possibilities. We need to look at more than the traditional manufacturing model to spirit us out of the current downturn.
What issues do you see emerging in Leeds-Grenville over the next ten years (and how are you uniquely suited to face them as our representative in the Ontario Legislature)?
In the next ten years Leeds-Grenville will have to be innovative in the way we run our municipalities and economic development. We need a representative who can forge alliances between groups who may never have worked together before. My example is the International Plowing Match at Crosby in 2007. When I first made the pitch to host it in North Leeds, people told me that it would be tough to get groups who did not know each other to work together on a project of that size. If successful on March 4th, I think I will be able to bring all corners of Leeds-Grenville together to work on projects which will sustain us in the future.
When as a 22 year old I first knocked on doors in Brockville in the mayoral race, people told me I would have to attend the school of hard knocks before I would be ready. But I won. Now at 49 I have the same way of thinking in this campaign that I had 27 years ago. The number one thing I do at the door is I listen. I hear some really innovative ideas. I am excited by the energy I see in our community and I hope I can be the advocate of those big dreams after March 4th.
Trailering the Polaris Ranger: a near-miss
February 19, 2010
I tow the Ranger on a 6X11 custom built trailer. A winch pulls the front wheels up against a solid “headache bar” at the front and the bar and the side rails hold it in place. That system had worked well for a year. And then it didn’t…..
It was time to clean the chainsaw oil out of the back of the Ranger, so I loaded it onto its trailer and headed for the local car wash in Elgin. The road was a bit bumpy with frost heaves and all of the sudden the tandem trailer started to sway. I pulled off and checked the load, expecting a flat tire.
The tires were fine, but the Ranger had unhooked itself and was on the verge of dropping off the back of the trailer. YIKES!
Chastened, I moved it back up into position, set the brake again, and checked the retaining strap. Turns out the cutout I had selected on the pan underneath the Ranger doesn’t allow the hook on the webbed strap to seat very well: there’s a beam welded to the upper surface of the plate about 1/4″ from the hole. I hadn’t noticed that, and had blindly hooked at the most convenient cutout. I certainly won’t do that again.
I re-hooked in a safer cutout and proceeded on to Elgin. When I got to the car wash the thing was loose again, though it had not come adrift this time. Why would this slick system go so wrong, so suddenly? Frost heaves on the road! The way I have the thing hooked, a bump which causes the front suspension to flex will temporarily loosen, and potentially unhook, the strap. Clearly I need to develop a more secure fastening system, and as well come up with an additional safety strap which I can monitor from the driver’s seat of the truck.
To get home I tied a stout rope to the bumper of the Ranger and to a cross bar on the A-frame of the trailer. If the rope got tight, I’d know I was in danger, but it would keep the UV from rolling off the back of the trailer until I could stop.
Once home I checked tire pressures. In mid-winter this is always embarrassing. Three of the trailer tires were low. All of the Ranger tires were below 5 p.s.i. as well. Much puffing later, the rig was ready for another cautious roll-out, but I’ll look for a snap system for that web strap which will hold securely without making a mess of the bottom of the Ranger.
The Newboro Ice-Fishing Derby
February 14, 2010
UPDATE, 10 February, 2011:
According to The Review Mirror, the derby is on this weekend, but cars and trucks will not be allowed on the lake due to the dangerous ice conditions. Organizer Doug Burtch encourages entrants to walk or use their ATV or snowmobile to get to their favourite spots, though.
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Lots of ice out there for the Newboro Ice-fishing Derby today. The turnout was very good, and the parking lot around the weigh-in station off McCaskill’s Island would put a local supermarket’s to shame. No sign of movement from the ice, though.
The fish actually bit this morning, with the winning northern pike weighed in at about five and a half pounds, if memory serves. A few good black crappie and perch came in, as well. To save space on the leader board, Doug Burtch, the organizer, will only write an entry up if it exceeds the weight of the current entry in that category. Thus my fishing buddy Tony’s 2 lb 13 ounce pike, like many others, failed to get onto the board.
The social part of the event centred around Mrs. Helen Burtch dishing out a pickup-truck-load of door prizes from local contributors. From a large barbecue a guy named Andre served a variety of hot dogs, chili, beef stew and such. Spectators and diners alike gathered downwind to enjoy the aromas. A charming young border collie named Molly had pulled her master’s sled to the festivities, then held court while the weigh-in ceremony revolved around her.
Not a bad morning, all around. Here’s hoping we get enough snow this week to allow the dogsled races to run next weekend.
Property values in Westport are higher than in Smiths Falls.
What’s going on in North Leeds?
Smiths Falls has lost several of their biggest employers. That would probably be the main reason.
Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty have jointly created the 13%
Harmonized Sales Tax. Its implementation weighs heavily on voters’
minds. What’s your take on this tax reform?
It is wrong. At a time when Ontarians are being laid off in record numbers and even people that are working are going further in debt, our leaders, Harper and McGuinty increase the people’s cost. To tax hydro, gas and other energy costs is unbelievable. These are items that people have no choice but to purchase. People have to heat their homes and drive to work.
The Progressive Conservatives under Bob Runciman initially supported the HST but then backtracked because of public outrage. Mr. Runciman and the Progressive Conservatives still believe it is a good idea but just not right now because of the economy. That is crazy, if the economy improves, he thinks it is okay to tax the working poor. Despite Mr. Runciman not “following” Mr. Harper’s wishes, he still was rewarded with a Senate job.
The NDP, both federally and provincially, have always stood side by side on this and are against the unfair tax. The least the Liberals and Conservatives could do is exempt items that people have no choice to purchase: hydro, heating fuel, and funerals, to name a few.
Mr. McGuinty’s 50 Million Trees Program sponsors the planting of
trees on privately owned land in Ontario. From your perspective as a
candidate to represent Leeds-Grenville in the Legislature, what do you
think of this and other green-shift plans?
Planting trees is obviously a good idea, but I really do not have enough information on this. I didn’t know that Mr. McGuinty had any green plans.
Should there be a bounty on coyotes?
Generally if coyotes or other wildlife become a problem, the locals (usually farmers) take care of it themselves.
What issues do you see emerging in Leeds-Grenville over the next ten years?
Mostly the lack of good jobs available and our healthcare is continuing to be under funded. Free trade has decimated Leeds-Grenville. As long as the Conservatives and Liberals continue to make new free trade deals, you can bet there will be almost no manufacturing jobs. Without a manufacturing base, Ontario will continue to be a have-not province.
Free trade has eliminated thousands of jobs. It has allowed hundreds of corporations to move to Mexico and the United States. We have to go back to Sir John A. MacDonald’s original rule: if you take natural resources out of Canada and then sell us the finished goods, we are going to put a big tariff on these products. The tariff will be lifted if you build the factories here. That is how all the major US companies came to Canada – Ford, GM, Chrysler, DuPont, Black and Decker, Hersheys, etc.
We had 95% free trade before NAFTA was signed. What this agreement really allowed, was for companies to just leave if they want to. Before, if they left, their products would face a big tariff coming back into Canada. Now, there is no reason for the companies to stay.
We have high waiting times at Brockville General Hospital and high infection rates. Our young people will continue to leave because of the lack of good jobs. Our communities will only be offering low paying service jobs.
Westport grocer Neil Kudrinko has earned the Green Party nomination to run in the March 4th by-election to replace Leeds-Grenville MPP Bob Runciman.
Property values in Westport are higher than in Smiths Falls. What’s going on in North Leeds?
Let’s face it. North Leeds is a great place to live. An increasing number of retirees look to the area around Westport, so increased demand has driven up the value of property.
As a business owner what concerns me about rising market values is the increased assessment which can lead to higher property taxes.
We need to ensure that people who have lived in the community all their lives don’t suddenly find themselves unable to afford their homes. We need also to be careful not to penalize owners for making improvements to the energy efficiency and comfort of their homes.
For example, in order to reduce the environmental impact of our grocery store we have recently spent a half million renovating and retrofitting to reduce the carbon footprint of our business by 26%. This was a long-term investment in local jobs and our ability to service the community. A tax increase because of the improvements would hurt.
We shouldn’t penalize businesses and homeowners through property taxes for making good decisions.
Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty have jointly created the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax. Its implementation weighs heavily on voters’ minds. What’s your take on this tax reform?
Quebec and the Maritimes have the HST now. Under its rules businesses can claim exemptions on investments on equipment and supplies that we can’t in Ontario. Ontario Farmers are exempt from the 8% PST but other businesses are not. This puts Ontario businesses at an 8% disadvantage right off the top, so the business community in general is very excited about the HST because it will reduce in some cases their cost of operation.
However, as a small business owner I don’t think the HST will create day-to-day savings that we will be able to pass along to the consumer.
For most people in Ontario the greater concern is the extra 8% on their heating oil bills and services from electricians and contractors. The Green Party position on the HST is that it cedes the province’s power of taxation and puts it into the control of the federal government. We feel as a party that is too important a role to leave up to another level of government.
What are the implications down the road? If we are so tightly integrated with the federal government that we have no leeway, we won’t be able to make changes in how we collect sales taxes without the approval of Ottawa.
Mr. McGuinty’s 50 Million Trees Program sponsors the planting of trees on privately owned land in Ontario. From your perspective as a candidate to represent Leeds-Grenville in the Legislature, what do you think of the plan?
We need to make reforestation of marginal land a priority in this province, but we need to avoid monoculture, the planting of a single species in a field, because we need the mix.
You’ll soon hear more about ALUS, or the Alternative Land Use Services Program in Norfolk County. This new program compensates farmers for taking marginal land out of production so that it can be replanted to extend the Carolinian forest in the area to widen woodlots and improve setbacks along river banks to create natural filtration systems.
It’s important that we make landowners partners in the process, and that we get the mix right.
Should there be a bounty on coyotes?
I like to eat wild game and I help my friends cut up their deer, but I wouldn’t personally go out and participate in a cull of a species I couldn’t eat. The coyote population is currently high, but nature has an interesting way of keeping itself in balance. We’ve all been concerned about fishers over the last few years. The coyote population will correct itself. There’d have to be a lot of science behind a large-scale cull of the coyote population. We shouldn’t leave this one to anecdotal evidence. That said, we must recognize and keep in mind the need for farmers to protect their livestock from predators.
What issues do you see emerging in Leeds-Grenville over the next ten years?
A continuing issue is energy costs and other costs of operating businesses in small towns. We need to make sure that we as a community — that includes municipalities, businesses, and home owners — are making the investments that are going to ensure that we can compete with larger centers in years to come.
All too often a small business ends up subject to regulations that were originally intended for big corporations. We need smart regulations that will differentiate between the two and not unnecessarily penalize small operators who were never the intended target of a regulation like the Nutrient Management Act. Take the example of Forfar Dairy. It had to stop cheese production because it could not comply with the Nutrient Act. And yet the true target of that regulation was not the small producer, but the large industrial scale producer like Parmalat or Kraft. The loss of Forfar cheese production has resulted in one less source of production for local dairy farmers.
The problem with the McGuinty Government’s approach to regulation is that it is focused solely on standardization. It fails to take into account the needs of individual producers.
Stalking the perfect classified ad
February 1, 2010
I love want ads. I love the way they come out each day or each week in the newspaper, and I also enjoy sneaking up on them online. Each classified ad is a story of failure or aspiration, of a beginning or the completion of a phase in someone’s life.
Shopping in the want ads section of the newspaper is much more fulfilling than a wander around a shopping mall. First of all, prices are much lower. The items for sale are already pre-selected, and the previous owner is usually able to provide useful information about the product in question.
Bet calls my sometimes frantic wild-goose-chases “Rod’s retail therapy,” but I love hitting upon an ad for something I want and then tracking it down before an other buyer beats me to it.
For anything good, speed is essential. Once I hopefully went to the office and picked up a copy still wet from the presses. Surely enough, it listed a snowblower which would fit my tractor. I called from the parking lot, asked directions, and then raced to a remote farm north of Lanark, beating several other contenders for a rusty, but lightly-used Lucknow snowblower for $300. What I hadn’t expected was the delightful conversation I had with the vendor, a retired executive from the CBC who had moved to the country years before. “When you start raising beef cattle, you don’t want to do anything else,” he told me in all sincerity.
Sometimes a victory comes as the result of determined driving, as well as good navigation. One Friday night I pushed through deep snow on a side road outside Carleton Place to find a year-old Aeron chair. Turns out that wasn’t the real challenge, though. The vendor was a woman living alone with two large dogs who were protective and not very well trained. I wasn’t entirely sure I would get out of the house with my hide intact, but at a third of its retail value the chair has proven an excellent acquisition.
People who sell things through classified ads often understand my need for a trophy, and I have made more than one unwise purchase. For example I laboured all one Friday evening to drag a band saw out of a stone house west of Perth. Lovely elderly couple, nice dog, lousy bandsaw, and I had a much better one at home. They had played me magnificently.
It’s also possible to blackmail a buyer into a rash purchase. One master salesman outside Merrickville conned me into paying $700. for a useless restaurant stove. I believed him when he told me that twenty people had called already, and that I had better get the thing out of there before he got a better offer. Tony and I strained our backs lifting this thing out of his kitchen and across a snow-covered lawn in the dead of winter. This was expensive tuition, and I still have to walk around the useless hunk of iron every time I enter the barn.
Sometimes technology works for the ad-stalker, and sometimes it doesn’t. In a mad scramble for a Massey Ferguson 35, I asked the owner for his postal code and lot number in an area off the main road outside Almonte. I made an appointment for between meetings and dashed out from Carleton Place. I searched and searched, and eventually limped into Almonte almost out of fuel. My cell phone had run out of battery from repeated calls, but I simply couldn’t find his house. MapQuest in this case had done me wrong, providing an elaborate route to the west side of the highway, while his home lay to the east. Bless him, the vendor waited for me, and the other purchaser, an ambulance driver and much better navigator than I, was a gentleman and let me have the Massey. One of my students borrowed his dad’s pickup, his uncle’s trailer, and brought it to Forfar. It’s been a fixture on the farm for the last six years.
Strangely enough, I have found that footwear purchased online fits me better than shoes I have bought in shops. Bet can’t believe that I can walk into a shoe store, drop a big chunk of money, and walk out with shoes that don’t fit, but it happens most of the time. On the other hand I have good luck on eBay. I bought a used set of hiking boots because I couldn’t believe the photographs. Nothing could be that ugly. The owner admitted that the boots squeaked and the plastic external arch supports and pale orange colour made them a poor choice for casual wear. The things turned out to be by far the best boots I have ever owned. With them I could actually hike considerable distances without going lame. Away I went with a backpack sprayer through acres of tree seedlings. The problem lay in replacing them after a few years. $435. I’m still combing eBay for another pair.
Then there was the guy who advertised a 3 pt. hitch cultivator in perfect condition at an address southeast of Merrickville. He proudly claimed to be 94 years old, and kept with this throughout the sales pitch. A similar delusion seemed to govern his attitude toward the cultivator. It wasn’t all there. After a while I realized the vendor wasn’t, either, and I made my way home from a long and fruitless wild-goose-chase. You can’t win’em all.
Serious People Protest Closing of Parliament
January 25, 2010
I remember a few years ago reading an essay about the Internet which claimed that it couldn’t really be used to effect social change because it is just several million people aimlessly tapping away about their individual interests and concerns. The atomization of discourse on the Internet, the way the individual is blinkered by extreme selectivity, makes the kind of group activity which brings about social change impossible. The author concluded that through unfettered freedom of expression, when everyone becomes a spokesman, no one listens to anything and we become helpless.
The essayist speculated that Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech would have had very little effect if it had been posted to the Internet. It gained its impact on American history from the presence of the 300,000 sets of feet on the streets of Washington to march for civil rights on that day in 1963.
Saturday, organized by an Internet Facebook campaign, Canadians walked out in the icy wind to show that they would tolerate no more abuses of their Parliamentary tradition, that vast, dusty, bureaucratic mess of contradictions by which we are governed. Simply put, Canadians decided that they had had enough of Stephen Harper’s chain-saw approach to the hedges of the Canadian legislature.
My son explained it: “With prorogation Stephen Harper sent our representatives home because he couldn’t be bothered with them. By extension he told us that he couldn’t be bothered with us. That’s an insult to Canadians, particularly to conservative voters who expected better.”
The CPC used a Facebook protest against last year’s threatened opposition coalition to back up the argument that, however legal the formation of a coalition was, Canadians were wholeheartedly against it. Harper went so far as to call the opposition leaders “traitors” on no basis other than 150,000 Facebook memberships on an anti-coalition site.
So Facebook numbers were good enough for the CPC War Room to use last year, but this year 220,000 Facebook members, almost half of whom are over 45 and 96% who claim to have voted in the last election, are just mouse-clickers who are not to be taken seriously.
That’s why the feet on the snow-covered streets of our cities Saturday were so important. In Ottawa people tore themselves away from an afternoon Senators game and turned up on Parliament Hill in droves to make it clear that the decision to prorogue the House tipped the apple cart. Canadians of all political stripes are angry at Stephen Harper and they have served notice. Attempts to minimize this grass roots demonstration as “a euchre party in Ottawa” as one Tory commentator called it — even in the face of photographic evidence and RCMP crowd counts of over 3500 people — simply won’t work this time. They just show the basic dishonesty of the Conservative spin machine.
Canadians want competent, conservative leadership, but they don’t want a dictator, and they showed that on Saturday afternoon. A protest organized on the Internet succeeded in putting feet on the ground on Parliament Hill, in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and many smaller centres across the land. The message was clear: “Stephen Harper, we are your employer. Ignore us at your peril.”
the Walnut Diary 