by SUSAN MANN
Grain Farmers of Ontario plans to continue its fight against the provincial government’s newly released regulations controlling neonicotinoid-treated seed use and sales.
The regulations take effect July 1 and will be phased in over two years. The government’s goal is an 80 per cent reduction in acres planted with neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seeds by 2017. Currently almost 100 per cent of corn and 60 per cent of soybean seeds used in Ontario are treated with the insecticide linked to bee deaths, the government says in its June 9 press release.
The new rules are part of the government’s strategy to improve pollinator health in Ontario. The province will also develop a pollinator health action plan.
Grain Farmers isn’t planning any immediate action, chair Mark Brock says. But once it reviews and digests the regulations released Tuesday during a media technical briefing, the group will consider exploring “some legal recourse and see if there is an opportunity to challenge this regulation. With the accelerated time line it was brought in under, we feel like our voice wasn’t heard.”
Brock notes “our organization isn’t done pushing back against this.”
In response, Environment and Climate Change Ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan says “we will continue to have a dialogue with the farming community but the rules do come into effect July 1st. It is a phased-in approach.”
Brock says changes the government made to the final regulations based on what it heard during the consultations are superficial.
Some of the changes outlined in the government’s release include:
- Allowing farmers additional time to take integrated pest management training.
- Encouraging early participation in integrated pest management training by offering it free for the first year until Sept. 2016. After successfully completing the training farmers get a certificate that’s valid for five years.
- A commitment to publicly reported amalgamated sales and seed treatment data for neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seeds to track the regulation’s effectiveness.
- Allowing professional pest advisers to supervise other people to conduct the pest assessments.
| Comments don’t endorse new regulation says OFA president |
| by SUSAN MANN
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s comments within the government’s press release announcing the new neonicotinoid-treated seed regulations is not an endorsement, says president Don McCabe.
He made the statement in response to Grain Farmers of Ontario saying in its June 9 press release the government’s regulations released Tuesday and becoming effective July 1 are the result of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change relying on “anti-agriculture special interest groups surprisingly endorsed by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.”
McCabe says his quotation within the government’s June 9 release “is very clear on endorsing the need for more work. The reality is we are not endorsing the regulations. We informed the government when the regulations first came out they were unworkable.”
McCabe says he was asked to supply the quotation for the government’s press release.
The federation has worked with the government to make changes to the regulations and “we have seen some,” he says. “We want to see more. But the reality is this is a majority government and regulations are going to come.”
The federation’s work has helped to ensure neonicotinoids will still be available for farmers rather than the product being entirely banned. “We will continue to make sure farmers’ voices are heard,” he adds. BF |
Stephen Denys, Pride Seeds vice president of sales and marketing, agrees with Brock the changes “were very minor.” The regulations are still very onerous for farmers and seed sellers, who will have to get a new treated seed vendor’s license along with meeting other requirements.
“What the government has said with these regulations is they do not trust farmers to make their own decisions,” he notes. “Now they’re going to use seed companies as part of an audit trail to ensure that farmers abide by the law.”
Denys says there are wide-ranging repercussions with the new Class 12 the regulations establish under the Ontario Pesticides Act for corn and soybean treated seeds. The Ontario government “can unilaterally now put any product under Class 12” without considering the federal regulatory system or consulting the province’s own pesticide advisory committee.
The herbicide “glyphosate could be targeted and put under this Class 12 without any other review federally or provincially,” he says by way of example, adding the government seems to be moving in a direction where farmers won’t be able to use any input products on their farm without government permission.
Denys explains farmers have been busy planting this spring and likely haven’t been paying much attention to the consultations for the regulations. Once they have a closer look and see what the regulations mean for their farm, “they’re going to get mad. I don’t think the government has felt the full anger of the rank and file farm unit yet,” he notes.
The Ontario Beekeepers’ Association says in its June 9 press release the government did the right thing to bring in the regulations. The association commended the government for “having the courage to act in the face of intensive lobbying and pressure from the AgChem industry seeking to protect their profits.” BF
Comments
As near as I can figure out, any given farmer will still have the ability to use neonicotinoids on 100% of his/her crop, regardless of the damage caused to nearby bees, as long as he/she can demonstrate the need.
Or, to look at it another way, government is doing the agricultural equivalent of making an over-the-counter medication available by prescription only and, in terms of responsible public policy, there isn't much for farmers to get angry about except the usual anger vented at the loss of any entitlement.
I mean, really, when compared to the hoops and hurdles anyone who does custom spraying in Ontario has to surmount when getting, and keeping, our Pesticide Operators Licence(s), the neonicotinoid regulations seem tame and fairly-benign by comparison. These spraying regulations have, I suggest, been environmentally and societally beneficial and, as such, even though I don't like paying close to $1,500 annually in fees and extra insurance, agriculture and the environment are better for it.
Come on, GFO, stop behaving like you're the only farmers who matter and the only citizens who matter, and get with the program helping government and the OFA implement, monitor and review these regulations.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
The neonicotinoid issue isn't by any means the only instance where government is seen to be, or actually has acted hastily and/or in the real or imagined absence of sound fundamentals (in some cases science, in most other cases economics) when making broad public policy changes - but, again, making changes in public policy, whether hastily or not, is what we elect them to do.
It is entirely possible that we, in the ag economics community, have become jaded and overly-familiar with the use of "bad economic science" by some sectors of the farm community, and government itself, to justify the economic and societal millstone of, for example, supply management and, to an equal extent, ethanol.
Therefore, economists are easily able to see that the grains farming community is on the receiving end of what, for example, hog farmers have long-since faced while on the receiving end of the flawed economics of both ethanol and supply management, and ag economists are, therefore, a tad more taciturn about the matter than grains farmers because we've seen it all too many times before.
As well, for those of us who also wear an accounting hat, even though the P2/P2 inventory valuation policy of the OWFRP and successor programs was simply dead-outright wrong, nothing anyone in the farm accounting community did was able to influence government for the next seven years - in the vernacular, the P2/P2 inventory valuation policy was the accounting equivalent of trying to "pee into the wind" yet government remained immovable.
As a side-note, the neonicotinoid saga kind of looks good on GFO because they did absolutely nothing to remedy the P2/P2 inventory fiasco, even though a motion to do so was passed at one of their semi-annual meetings.
GFO is learning a cruel yet valuable lesson - the "high-card" of political science always outweighs the "full-house" of both traditional science and economics.
It's a lesson apparently (and seemingly obviously, given the loose-cannon tactics of GFO in the last 6 months) taught in only the ag economics buildings at agricultural colleges.
Even more pointedly, GFO has yet to figure out that they can't have it both ways - GFO can't expect to get away with the continued use of half-truths and flawed economics when promoting and defending ethanol mandates, yet complain when government appears to use GFO's own tactics against them when it comes to neonicotinoid restrictions.
The door of both "good science" and "good economics" swings both ways - GFO has little right to complain when the ethanol "door" they pushed open comes back covered with neonicotinoids to hit them in the face.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Solution for economists rants.
Simply have an Integrated N.A. Ag policy. Then we would have the same Farm Bill policies for Ag subsidies, ethanol mandates, plus pesticide integration including several registered in Ontario but not available this year. Then again, some on this site would probably continue to "pee into the wind" about P 2 plus 70% margin coverage and Supply Management" regardless.
Anonymous comment modified by editor.
Developing an integrated North American ag policy would be stupid and futile (as well as imaginary) because:
(A) we, in Canada, would still have farmers who insist on regressively picking consumers' pockets by using protectionist measures such as supply management.
(B) we, throughout North America would still have farmers who insist in picking the pockets of other farmers via the use of ethanol mandates.
Eliminating the mind-set of trying to always have it both ways starts one farm at a time and one concession at a time - however, it's going to take a long, long time to eradicate the belief held by farmers, but held especially-fiercely by farmers who are on the receiving end of legislated privelege that "We're farmers, the rules don't apply to us".
As for rants, they don't come from economists, they come, especially on this site, from anonymous sods who stand to lose things they typically didn't deserve to have in the first place and who, because they don't know what else to do, shoot the messenger.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
When were these changes made or brought in . I don't remember hearing about it ?
If I recall correctly, OWFRP was first established in 1999 for the 1998 year and, therefore, a 7 year delay in getting it right would have meant that the 2006 AgriStability program would have been the first year when both Ontario and the Feds (thanks to Chuck Strahl) used P1/P2 but, even then, only for market livestock - breeding herd livestock still stayed on P2/P2 even though P2/P2 contradicted both common sense and Canada Revenue Agency guideliness for reporting income on an accrual basis (if for no other reason than because P2/P2 doesn't reflect reality).
Just as frustrating was that for 1999, the feds decided P1/P2 to value inventory while Ontario stayed using P2/P2, but then went back to using P2/P2 in 2000, thereby elevating stupidity and obtuseness to a level rarely seen in agriculture, even when defending supply management and ethanol.
Therefore, after the feds used P2/P2 for 1998, went to P1/P2 for 1999, and went back to P2/P2 for 2000, they never even attempted to explain their double flip-flop and left it to the dullards at OMAFRA to explain the perfidity of P2/P2 to the mathmatically-challenged farm groups who, alas, bought into it hook, line and sinker.
The reason nobody heard about the change to P1/P2 in 2006 was because government simply wasn't prepared to even suggest that P2/P2 may not have met any tests of sound accounting developed over some 500 years worth of double-entry accounting.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
You may be right as for when the change was made . It sure wasn't at a GFO meeting because GFO is only 5 years old . Really not impressive math for a book keeper economist there now !!
Also believe you may have your memory shorting out as to which org did not want to support the change . Think it might have been some other Ontario Farm Org !
Memory short indeed, more like an Alzheimer moment. It was the OFA who did “absolutely nothing” according to Stephen. See:
Better farming story on October 24 2014 link: http://www.betterfarming.com/online-news/farm-groups-ask-province-explor...
Stephen posted : an online visitor replied on October 24, 2014 - 10:36pm Permalink
The farm groups did hold up the process, and almost always do
Right at the get-go of OWFRP, I protested to OMAFRA about the inventory valuation process, believing it to be a typing error - in response, Ken Linington phoned me to boast that P2/P2 had been approved by accountants - I told him that if he could find any accountant who had approved of the P2/P2 process, I wanted to know who he/she was so I could report him/her to the CICA ethics committee - it was a short conversation, and Linington, quite-wisely, has never been stupid enough to try to BS me ever again - in fact, he's also quite-wisely never even tried to talked to me again, and I don't mind that at all.
In addition, quite early in the OWFRP process, I met privately with then OFA President Ed Segsworth and OFA Vice President Ron Bonnett in the office of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture - I explained the proper methodology of inventory valuation at great length, exactly the way I would explain it, and have explained it many times, to first-year Diploma students. I explained at great length exactly what was wrong with the OWFRP inventory valuation process, and with respect to the dead, and with no respect to the living, I might as well have been talking to the wall because I'm advised that Bonnett revealed years later, albeit not to me, that both he and Segsworth had been tricked by OMAFRA who told them that because I wasn't an "accountant", I didn't know what I was talking about.
Even though I was completely vindicated seven years later, the OFA never could bring themselves to publicly, or even privately to me, admit that they were, for seven years, dead-outright wrong, and that their unwillingness to pay attention to any accounting practitioner had cost OFA members millions of dollars in stability benefits which could have easily been prevented if OFA, or any other farm group, had exercised any due dliligence, and/or had paid attention to even one farm accounting practitioner at all throughout the entire process.
Furthermore, the Huron County Federation of Agriculture did, quite-early in the process, pass a resolution calling for the end of P2/P2, and it did pass at the OFA, who promptly did absolutely nothing, ever, thanks to the apparent willingness of Bonnett and Segsworth to be stooges to OMAFRA and the "very supportive Ministry accountants" former Deputy Minister, Frank Ingratta boasted about having, but, couldn't produce, even when I went through the Access to Information Act to find out who they were, when they met, and what minutes were kept of whatever meetings they had.
In addition, a resolution from Huron County to end the linkage between RMP and AgriStability did pass at the OFA a number of years ago, and once again, the OFA, not surprisingly given their intransigence about P2/P2, promptly did absolutely nothing.
Simply, and accurately stated, the Huron County Federation of Agriculture is the only farm group in Ontario to have taken timely, and responsible issue with the design of both OWFRP and RMP - every other farm group did absolutely nothing, ever, and thereby did absolutely nothing to help their members.
Therefore, that every farm group in Ontario except the Huron County Federation of Agriculture has taken seven years to discover what we knew, and tried to do something about years ago, is, given the sad and sorry history of the continually-demonstrated ability of Ontario's farm groups to screw up things that were handed to them on a plate, no surprise at all.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
• reply
In the posting I made on this site and which was cited immediately above, I wrote -
"Simply, and accurately stated, the Huron County Federation of Agriculture is the only farm group in Ontario to have taken timely, and responsible issue with the design of both OWFRP and RMP - every other farm group did absolutely nothing, ever, and thereby did absolutely nothing to help their members"
For the above anonymous poster to ignore that in order to try to absolve the Grain Farmers of Ontario and/or its predecessor organization, is chutzpah in the highest order and, alas, all-too-similar the chutzpah rife at the highest levels of GFO at the moment.
The above posting also indicates the extreme lengths to which anonymous posters on this site will go to "shoot the messenger" rather than admit the truth of the message which is that GFO's penchant for "burning bridges" is rapidly getting them into the position of being as little liked as supply management, as well as rapidly getting them to the point where GFO would not be missed.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Somebody out there actually has the time to filter through all the past articles over last year to prove Thompson had the right or wrong group. I don't really care which group it was and it doesn't dispute Thompson's point it just another "shoot the messenger" ploy. If someone out there has so much time on their hands then come on over, I've got lots to do keep you busy.
I am amazed.
D. Linton
Nonsense!
It takes less than 5 seconds to Google Better farming and Thompson inventory valuation problem and what he said about OFA a few months ago verses what he claims now.
My posting of earlier today makes abundantly clear that while the above dutifully-anonymous poster may have taken only five seconds to find a particular posting of mine, he/she obviously, and seemingly-typically given the vacuous acuity of anonymous posters, didn't take any time at all to read it.
In my original posting of late last year, I made it abundantly clear that EVERY farm group in Ontario with the exception of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture acted like complete weenies in response to the P2/P2 inventory valuation abomination foisted off onto the farm community in the first OWFRP program.
However, as usual, and as always, that was then and this is now - While the OFA, on occasion, can and does bungle an issue, and it did when it came to P2/P2, it has demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate that it has well-more than redeemed itself by becoming, indeed, "a rose among thorns" in the ongoing neonicotinoid farce/melodrama.
On the other hand, GFO appears to have dropped the ball so many times, it seems doubtful that even if they could find it again, they would either be able to pick it up or know what to do with it if they did.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Editor: Comment will be published if resubmitted and signed.
Every now and then, anonymous posters simply amaze - the two words published by the above anonymous poster are candy to the eye!
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Editor: Comment will be published if resubmitted and signed.
That's 5 seconds wasted "shooting the messenger"...isn't it?
Anonymously at that!
D. Linton
More like 5 second direct hit!
Editor: Comment will be published if resubmitted and signed.
Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) members received a letter from GFO today titled "Important notice to farmers who host beekeepers - protect yourself".
While the thrust of the letter appeared innocuous enough, the wording, the timing of and the inferences of the letter were abundantly clear - GFO members are pissy and want to get back at beekeepers without making it look like it's just out of pissiness.
For example, the wording of the one-page memorandum from lawyers Wilson Spurr LLP enclosed with the GFO mailout used language not normally used by law firms - it is, I suggest, irresponsible for lawyers to state "prohibiting treated seeds will leave most grain farmers with no alternative but to return to traditional spraying for pest control/crop protection" because instead of a "prohibition", there is to be an availability based on demonstrated need which is a long, long way from a prohibition.
If anyone, a law firm's partner should know the substantial difference between a prohibition and a restriction - for Wilson and Spurr to either not understand this vital difference and/or gloss over it for no apparent reason other than out of a sense of mis-placed zeal, is not responsible advocacy and a complete waste of GFO's legal budget.
For exactly the same reason, the use of the term "the seed treatment that has been banned" is also misleading, irresponsible as well as dead-outright wrong - but it is up in the air as to who is more irresponsible, the law firm for writing it, or GFO for not objecting to it - in any event, this statement also reveals a complete wasting of GFO's legal budget as well as, I suggest, a woeful dearth of talent at GFO itself for not realizing the substantial inadequacies of the Wilson and Spurr memorandum and burying it instead of releasing it.
However, the most objectionable aspect of GFO's letter is the patronizing way GFO tries to capitalize on what it sees as "respect" between beekeepers and grains farmers notwithstanding the way Tibor Szabo, President of the Ontario Beekeepers Association recently referred to the tactics of GFO as "deny, delay, distract" as well as the way GFO has tried throughout the process to spin half-truths like trying to infer that neonicotinoids were benevolent because the number of hives in Ontario has increased by 60% since 2003 - a claim which completely ignores the reality that there is no connection between the number of hives and what goes on inside those hives.
If nothing else, watching the continuing kindergarten-level antics of GFO is, alas, like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
There is something I seem to be missing in this whole bee neonic controversy. If bee are livestock and need a certain kind of feed to survive and produce honey, why aren't the bee keepers providing the feed instead of relying on the rest of the farming community to do it. I grow and purchase the feed that my animals need to thrive, I don't expect my neighbours to do it for me. I think it would be a very reasonable for bee keepers to buy 100 acres seed the land down to what ever mixture of plants produce the best honey, put their hive in the middle of that field and I can only expect that these bees will stay in that area to forage on what they love. Lets be honest the bee keepers should be providing their livestock with feed just like the rest of us do for our livestock.
So...then you would be willing to pay for the "pollination" services provided? A government committee should be formed to decide the rules and fees.
Have you ever tried to fence in a bee...or build a barn to confine them?
Are you really a farmer or one of these suburbanites that has no idea where their food comes from?
That funny that you ask if he is a farmer . Do you know any thing about bees and polination yourself ? Do bee keepers own the wild polinators ? If bee keepers have hives , they are hybrid bees , considered to be the bee keepers livestock . Or should all bees be considered public property and any one can go take them if and when ever they want ? If they are privately owned and cared for then they ( bee keepers ) are responsible to look after them . If they take too much honey and replace it with a substandard substitute and strave them , then they ( bee keepers ) are to blame . If their hives are weak and not healthy they should like other livestock farmers , have their stock taken away from them .
Once you've perfected the "bee fence" get it patented...you'll make a fortune.
I don't need pollination services for corn wheat and soys. Which is a very large percentage of the crops grown in Ontario. I suspect that if hives are put in the middle of a 100 acre field with the forage they like they won't be visiting corn or soy fields.
So you don't need the bees...unfortunately for you the Ont Gov't and quite likely most taxpayers disagree with you. They seem to want the bees. I guess you just have to suck it up and keep collecting those gov't/taxpayer funded benefits...RMP, AgriInvest, Agristability, crop insurance...I likely missed a few benefits, but I'm sure there are more.
The latest "pushback" by at least two county units of the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), is the issuing of a letter which, among other things, claims the "image" the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) has portrayed by continuing to deal with government when GFO refused to do so, is "one of betrayal to GFO and the grain farmers that pay voluntary membership to the (OFA) organization".
The letter goes on to ask the OFA to "back down" from this perceived position of "taking the lead" and act, instead, as a "supporting organization to GFO rather than the lead".
GFO doesn't seem to even want to consider that the OFA never sought the role of perceived "lead", but, instead, inherited it because GFO refused to continue dealing with government some six months ago.
It's like this, anyone who, like GFO, abdicates his/her responsibility has no right to criticize anyone who "picks up the reins" and tries to get to the destination responsibly.
In addition, anyone who abdicates his/her responsibility has ABSOLUTELY no right to accuse someone who "picks up the reins" of betrayal, yet GFO's county organizations, with, ostensibly, GFO's blessing, have started to do just exactly that.
For the life of me, I can't understand why the OFA would subordinate itself to any organization whose sole purpose seems to be to make life as miserable as possible for beekeeper members of the OFA. More to the point, I would never subordinate myself to anyone or any organization who publicly suggested I was guilty in any way of a betrayal, and I urge the OFA to do likewise.
In addition, why would government, at this point, listen to anything GFO might have to say, assuming, of course, GFO reverses it's "vow of silence" when it comes to dealing with government, given that GFO has done nothing but harass and attempt to intimidate government at every turn on this issue, right back to, and including, "sandbagging" the Premier when the OFA helped beekeepers lobby the Premier to set up the very-first pollinator task force several years ago when she was also the Minister of Agriculture?
I do admire the OFA for putting up with (at least for now) this petty, senseless and vicious harassment from GFO and I urge OFA to continue to be a "rose among thorns" in this sordid drama if, for no other reason than to show OFA's beekeeping members, as well as the rest of the farm community, that somebody cares for them and will act responsibly when doing so.
If the OFA stands up for its beekeeper members rather than kow-tow to the GFO bullies, the OFA will have demonstrated its willingness and ability to represent all of its members and will, thereby, continue to enjoy the respect of farmers and government, as so it should.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
We all dislike petty, senseless and vicious harassment.
So...the Grain Farmers of Ontario is saying to the OFA, "come and pout with us".
What the heck? This soap opera just goes from crazy to wacky. Grow up GFO!
GFO is asking OFA to to do the right thing and to follow policy from the Grenville resolution .
Stephen is the one saying GFO is pouting in the corner . What will happen if OFA looses up to 28,000 members ! Don't confuse your self . There is no way Stephen is speaking for GFO .
Dredging up the so-called Grenville Resolution is little more than a "red herring and/or "Hail Mary" ploy by anonymous GFO Quislings within the OFA to have the OFA bow to the bullying tactics of GFO.
As I understand it, about 30 years ago, the Grenville Federation of Agriculture foolishly thought that some sort of supply management might work in the beef industry and brought a motion of that sorts to the OFA which approved it - cattle producers were furious at OFA's interference and OFA backed down.
The above poster, in a twisted leap of convoluted logic, claims the Grenville resolution sets a precedent, which in some way forces the OFA to always defer to producer groups to represent farmers who are affiliated with that producer group, regardless of how stupidly, foolishly and or/recklessly that producer group may act,, but the OFA's actions following the furor over the Grenville resolution sets no hard and fast rule which must be followed forever. It was an isolated circumstance with isolated issues and was resolved based on the issues and circumstances at the time.
The Grenville resolution was passed by a local Board which didn't understand basic economics and passed by an OFA Board which didn't know anything more - two stupids don't make a smart.
The difference is that the Grenville Board at that time was just-simply poorly informed and the OFA Board at that time didn't understand the consequences of their actions.
In this instance, the OFA Board fully understands the consequences of their actions while GFO are simply acting like world-class idiots and buffoons - to say that OFA must, by virtue of the Grenville Resolution, bow down to GFO's demands that "we'll tell you when to pout" is nonsense and just as bad as GFO telling its members to avoid the pollinator public participation process.
Another way of looking at the matter is that trying to invoke the Grenville Resolution is another way of avoiding any discussion about the present-day competency of GFO to represent anyone - why would the OFA bow to the tenuous connection of the long-ago and irrelevant Grenville Resolution, but more importantly, why would OFA bow to people who haven't done anything in the last six months except antagonize everybody and who are, at the moment, easily the most-reviled professionally managed organization in the Province?
While it may be tradition to have the OFA defer to producer groups in matters ostensibly affecting those producers, common sense dictates that tradition can easily be, and should be overruled when that producer group acts, as the GFO is now, like blithering idiots.
Let's face it folks, the Grenville Resolution was in 1986 when producer groups actually tried to impress government and work with the government - we're in 2015 and the biggest agricultural producer group in the Province doesn't understand either concept and seems Hell-bent to go out of their way to do exactly what they want and use perjorative words like "betrayal" as if they had a God-given right to do so.
The nub of the issue is that GFO has run out of options and is trying to use the "tradition" ticket to bully the OFA because they know (or will soon learn) they've lost all the political capital they ever had at Queens Park and, out of spite, want to implement some sort of "scorched earth policy" to destroy the OFA's reputation along with their own - having Quislings within the OFA trying, in a last-ditch and mis-guided effort to support GFO, to apply the Grenville Resolution to this matter does nothing more than pander to GFO's ever-increasing paranoia and wildly-erratic behaviour.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Editor: Anonymous comment will be published if signed and resubmitted.
Ontario has some 13 - 14 million residents, and if polling numbers can be believed, some 90% would seem to support some sort of restriction on the use of neonicotinoid insecticide.
Therefore, an opposition bloc of "28,000 angry old white men" isn't a demographic that appeals to any political stripe.
Indeed, after the way GFO has savaged the present government for over seven months, no political party has any use for GFO because they're just too toxic.
In addition, after the way GFO is currently savaging the OFA, no farm group has any use for GFO for exactly the same reason.
Therefore, anyone who thinks GFO has any effective power base, either at Queens Park or at the offices of Ontario's farm organizations, is dreaming in technicolour.
In addition, at the moment, the OFA need do nothing but smile like the proverbial "Cheshire Cat" because they know the only effective voice grains farmers have at Queens Park for the next three years is through their membership in the OFA.
It's too bad that GFO is going to effectively pay the ultimate price for not understanding the first two rules taught in Kindergarten:
(1) play well with other students
(2) don't be rude to the teacher
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
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