Proroguement causes Liberal Jim Bradley to be subpoenaed in Greenbelt-quarry seat-saver scandal

Do you think Wendy Metcalfe's Liberal Friendly Bradley Bootlickers at the St.Catharines Standard will bother to follow-up or pursue their buddy, Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley, about this Oct.29, 2012 story "McGuinty prorogation enables subpoena of Premier & other Ministers in $275 million seat-saver scandal"??

Part of the story reads:

"...Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and other senior Cabinet Ministers will be subpoenaed and compelled to testify in the judicial review of the Liberal government's decision to kill the proposed Flamborough Quarry. The judicial review will help determine whether the government acted improperly in cancelling a quarry in the riding of Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin in advance of the 2011 provincial election. St Marys Cement has also filed a NAFTA claim based on the regulatory failure in this case, and is seeking damages of not less than $275 million.
In May, St Marys Cement served a Notice of Application to review the decision by the McGuinty Liberals to issue a Minister's Zoning Order and a Declaration of Provincial Interest to stop the proposed Flamborough Quarry. The provincial government brought forward a motion to have the application dismissed, a motion that has now been dismissed by the Ontario Divisional Court. The government has appealed this ruling.
Due to a common law principle that protects sitting members from being subpoenaed while the house is in session or on break for holiday, the decision by Dalton McGuinty to prorogue the Legislature presents the first opportunity for the Premier, in addition to Ministers Jim Bradley and Rick Bartolucci, to be forced to testify. The legal process will now be initiated with the full intention of hearing from key decision-makers around this decision to save the seat of a Liberal MPP..."

Well, it's not like this story hasn't been around for a long time!! I wrote about this issue back on Oct.6, 2011, and even then I was questioning why the disgusting Bradley Liberal Brown Nosers at the St.Catharines Standard weren't bothering to ask their pal Jimmy about this - when he was still a sitting Liberal minister.

Now, a year later - after Jim Bradley and his cowardly Liberal scumbags have callously and spitefully prorogued Queen's Park - Wendy's Water-Skiing, Wrong-Righting Bradley Sycophants, somehow, strangely, still have NOT BEEN ABLE to... umm... "find" their local MPP, Good Ole Jimmy, for an interview on this!! Reports are that Good Ole Jimmy will be subpoenaed on this, now that Jimmy's enjoying his self-serving proroguement.

Now, after the Liberals' seat-buying-at-public-expense gas-plant scams, we're hearing of even more Liberal seat-saving scams, this time that possibly the coffers of GreenFear-pusher Bradley's oh-so-highly-vaunted Greenbelt, were raided for partisan Liberal gain?! Say it ain't so, Jimmy. Sounds like the familiar sort of M.O. the Liberals used in their gas-plant seat-saver scam!

Hopefully for Jim Bradley, this will not be newsworthy nor important to Wendy Metcalfe's St.Catharines Standard JimmyBoyFanClub!
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Liberal Jim Bradley named in $275M NAFTA claim

Looks like Liberal Jim Bradley is in the news (but not the kind of news which the St .Catharines Liberal Shoeshine Standard would want to print about GoldenJim!) The Oct.7, 2011 Daily Commercial News writes:

"St Marys Cement claims interference on Hamilton, Ontario quarry

TORONTO

St Marys VCNA, LLC has submitted its claim for NAFTA Chapter Eleven Arbitration alleging Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty government was so politically motivated to secure a Hamilton-area provincial seat, and to benefit Liberal political insiders, that it used a Minister’s Zoning Order and Declaration of Provincial interest — for the first time ever in a quarry application — to kill the Flamborough Quarry.

St Marys’ claim alleges that: Jim Bradley, Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, took extraordinary and unprecedented steps to kill a proposed quarry that is adjacent to the home of his former senior staffer and the staffer’s wife, who was a senior adviser to Liberal Premier David Peterson; the government facilitated funding and legal assistance to the community group fighting St Marys’ quarry through the Greenbelt Foundation, chaired by former Premier Peterson’s senior policy advisor; and despite an exhaustive FOI request, the government records that were provided did not contain any scientific evidence that the quarry would compromise the watershed, water quality or quantity, wetlands, or the natural environment or any scientific reason to deny St Marys the right to a fair and impartial hearing.

The Liberals narrowly won the riding in question, Ancaster Dundas Flamborough Westdale, by margin of 6.7 per cent in the 2007 election.

St Marys is seeking damages of not less than $US275 million in compensation for the loss, harm, injury, loss of reputation and damage imposed by various governments.

In 2006, St Marys Cement Inc. (Canada), the Canadian subsidiary, took over an application for a license to extract high quality aggregate from a site it purchased in Flamborough. In April 2010, then Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Hon. Jim Bradley, imposed a Minister’s Zoning Order on the site. After St Marys Cement appealed this decision to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), the government issued, in April 2011, a Declaration of Provincial Interest which gave it license to overturn any OMB decision. "

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So this is how secretive Ole Liberal Jimmy operates!

Precious!

We're waiting for the Metcalfian wrong-righters at the St.Catharines Standard to look into this (why haven't they yet?!); to examine how the millions of tax dollars poured into the Greenbelt Foundation are being "utilized" for Liberal political purposes; to ask their buddy Jimmy all about it.

ha ha ha... as if ...

Get ready for more Liberal unaccountability, more Liberal lies, more taxes, more GreenFear, more Liberal despotism.

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St.Catharines Standard's Jim Bradley Fan Club workin' hard for Jimmy

Interesting to compare two stories in the St.Catharines Standard on Mar.31, 2011 - first story on page 2 by Don Fraser (Fruit, veggie growers get relief in budget) and the other story on page 3 by Marlene Bergsma (Ex-farmers seek another golf exemption). Note how at the end of Fraser's story, he writes that MP Rick Dykstra was unavailable for comment.
[Now wouldn't it be interesting for the Standard to tell us how many times, say, ohh... in the last three decades have they ever used that phrase when referencing provincial issues in which Liberal MPP Jim Bradley's comments would have been appreciated by readers? answer: not too FLICKING many...]
In fact, where was Liberal MPP Jim Bradley's OWN COMMENT in Fraser's story?! Fraser didn't say a damn word about Bradley, nor did Fraser tell us whether Bradley was available for a comment.
Funneee, eh?!
Fraser mentioned in his report that 'rising labour costs' were a significant factor in the farmer's concerns, but, isn't Bradley's Liberal government instrumental in setting and affecting labour rates in Ontario?
Why didn't Fraser attempt to contact Jim Bradley for a comment even on that specific issue; why didn't Fraser report that 'Bradley was unavailable for a comment' ?!!
Then look at Bergsma's story about the Kowaliks, former farmers whose lands were expropriated for the QEW-406 highway exchange, and whose remaining land is subject to highway salt damage, and is too small for viable farming; they can't sell the land for development due to "provincial greenbelt legislation".
Hmm: but whose government created this "provincial greenbelt legislation"?!?
Bergsma doesn't say.
Bergsma didn't even mention the word "Liberal" in this story!
Bergsma didn't bother to provide ANY comment whatsoever from local MPP Jim Bradley - who is Niagara's main cheerleader for the greenbelt!
Wow! Why... it's as if Good Ole Jimmy suddenly doesn't have anything to, um... do with the greenbelt!!! Or labour costs!! Or global-warming fear mongering!
Hey, there, JimmyBoyFanClub members: was Liberal MPP Jim Bradley "unavailable for comment"... or did y'all not even bother to ask?
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Another Greenbelt disaster from Liberal Jim Bradley

More signs protesting Jim Bradley's Liberal greenbelt disaster - see also here, and here - this time, in St. Catharines, on St. Paul St., just west of Ontario St.

Jim Bradley's Liberal green-washed Greenbelt disaster

above: Jun.23, 2009 - looking at the north-west corner of King St. and Ninth St., in west St. Catharines, where another protest sign in a farmfield reads: "Grape Crisis. Greenbelt Ontario government disaster." A sign at the front reads: "Growers forced to dump 15,000 tons of local grapes, while wineries import 40,000 tons. For info 1-800 Ontario."

So, what's St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Greenbelt Bradley's response to these signs of protest, right in Niagara, right in the farm fields of his own riding??

C'mon, Jim! Let's hear your hypocritical spin regarding these signs of discontent targeting your Liberal government's Greenbelt disaster.

(see also: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2009/06/signs-of-protest-in-niagara-against.html)

Signs of protest in Niagara against the McGuinty Liberal's Greenbelt disaster

above: Jun.22, 2009, looking at the north-east corner of Read Rd. and Lakeshore Rd., which is near the boundary between Niagara-On-The-Lake (represented by Liberal MPP Kim Craitor) and St. Catharines (represented by Liberal MPP Jim Bradley.)

The Greenbelt's hurting farmers. But do Liberals really bother to acknowledge this? Liberals pander to Toronto-centric urban greensheviks who think that the Greenbelt is 'good', in large part thanks to propaganda by tax-funded green-washers such as the so-called Friends of the Greenbelt (more like the friends of Liberals). The above sign comments on the sad local legacy of Jim Bradley's and Kim Craitor's green-washed Liberal socialism.

Let's hear Kim Craitor or Jim Bradley comment on this issue of their Liberal government's Greenbelt disaster, as it festers right in Niagara, right in their backyards.

Let's watch Jim 'n Kim ignore this sign of protest and discontent.

Let's watch how Jim 'n Kim downplay and slough aside the real concerns of people in their own ridings who are affected by the Liberal's greenwashed Greenbelt ideology.

Liberal free-trade hypocrites

The Hamilton Spectator wrote in "CanGro’s shock waves" (Jun.28, 2008):

“Kate Steifelmeyer, a research associate at the George Morris Centre, an independent think tank, conducted a comparative study of the U.S. and Canadian agri-food processing sector and found the Canadian sector needs an overhaul.
She said the Canadian tender fruit processing sector is suffering from regulatory, and to some extent, taxation issues. They’re also just not keeping up in terms of capital investment and automation.”

Sounds like she got that one down pat.

Interesting to see what Greenbelt Liberals such as Kim Craitor and Jim Bradley will do about lowering tax rates and regulatory burdens on the industry… probably nothing. (see: Good things USED to grow, in On - ta - ri - o!) Who cares about the mounting impact of Liberal greenbelt, taxation, and agricultural policies upon the farmer? They’re not designed for farmers…they’re designed to capture the Liberal urban vote! (see: Stealth MPP Jim Bradley's cloaking device - it's not science fiction anymore!) To Liberals, the farmer is secondary to the greenbelt, in the very same way that the patient is secondary to their health-care system. (see: Greenbelt vassals pay tithe to Liberal Lord Bradley)

As Craitor said in the Legislature (Mar.3, 2005): “Last week, this assembly passed the important greenbelt legislation to preserve the farmlands of Ontario. In my riding, the farmlands are primarily the finest grape and tender fruit lands in North America. With the greenbelt legislation, our government made an important first step to preserve the land, but now we have to take another step to preserve the farmer; for what good is one without the other?”

Of course, the Liberals didn’t think that far ahead when they enacted the greenbelt in the first place – so there are now more steps for busy little Liberal central-planners and social-engineers to ‘save the farmer’. Priceless … this flicking Liberal government’s interventions just don’t end. Just take their farms away and make them wards of the state, already – isn’t that McGuinty’s plan, anyway? This is all collectivization in slow motion.

The fallout from the closure of Cangro should have been anticipated a long time ago; one of the main problems was that it was a monopoly in that industry, there was no competition. Why was that? Shouldn’t the Liberal Jims and the Kims have been working diligently to create an Ontario economy which encourages competition, in all sectors?? (see: Trouble ahead for Niagara's fruit industry? )

Leaving the tender fruit sector to put all their peaches in one basket, to rely on only one processor, the only game in town, was an obvious hint of the potential problems to come should this one player close down. Whether it’s a health-care monopoly run by government, or a private-sector monopoly in a niche agricultural sector, the challenge is to create competition (not corporate welfare).

I wonder how the farmers are going to sell their crops largely as fresh market … one can only eat so much summer fruit. The whole point is to preserve this abundance of summer, canned or frozen, so it can be stored and shipped as a commodity during the rest of the year until the next year’s crop comes in. Fresh market can only take you so far.

This “buy local” fad is a crock, as well – you want to buy local, fine, but to what extent - will you then also give up your right to sell your product in other areas??? Come on!! ‘Buy local’ is quite meaningless. Will you whine when others deny you the privilege of exporting your produce to their market  - - - across the street; across the ocean??? You’ll have to limit all your exports (have NONE to spare) and live in some utopian commune, each with its own vehicle assembly plants, and canning plants and tractor factories…why, it’s socialist’s dream come true! OOPS – you had a good year, with an abundance of nice peaches, way too many for your closed village to eat, well, you'll just have to bury them! Exporting is forbidden!! And in the next village, which had a poor harvest, well, they'll just have to starve, because importing peaches from another village would be illegal! Sudbury would just have to grow its own peaches, and St. Catharines would have to mine and smelt its own nickel. This is the bizzarro protectionist world of the Greensheviks. (see: Liberal Jim "Aw, shucks" Bradley: Greenshevik Idol)

The Spectator story also wrote about Donald Ziraldo, (a member of the Greenbelt-creation task force, and co-founder of Inniskillin Wines):

“Ziraldo said the challenge before the fruit growers is much like that experienced by the grape growers in 1989, just after Ottawa signed the North America Free Trade Agreement.

“We were wiped out. We were told we were going to keep the beer industry and throw away the wine industry and give it to Ernst and Gallo. In 1990, we were given a grant to tear out old vineyards,” he said. “There are now about 120 wineries.””

But nowhere in this story is it mentioned who was making all these dire predictions about the wine industry, as much as there was of it in 1989.

Ziraldo doesn’t mention who was saying these things!

But we all know, don’t we, that it was MPP Jim Bradley’s Ontario Liberals, under David Peterson [along with their 'accord'-buddies, Bob Rae's NDP] who were whining about free trade!

We know it was federal Liberals under John Turner who were whining about free trade! To them this was the end of the world! Protectionist Liberals everywhere whined and whined about the wine industry being somehow ‘sold-out’. (see: Free trade a "bust"? Not for Niagara wines)

Now, as Ziraldo says, there are some 120 wineries – and that is with no thanks to Liberal rhetoric, Liberal fear-mongering, Liberal protectionism, and Liberal jingoism. Free trade wasn't the enemy, it was Liberal protectionism. (see: Obama blames Canada and NAFTA for Ohio job losses )

To mark the upcoming twentieth anniversary of their political-pandering against the wine industry, Liberals such as Jim Bradley should be awarded a token bottle of 1989 Niagara Chagrin - this ruddy vintage, from a bitter harvest of sour grapes, has subtle hints of hypocrisy, with overtones of duplicity, hints of lies, and a touch of irony, all with a bouquet reminiscent of an overwhelming stench of bad gas.

It nicely complements the eating of crow.
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[update: it's interesting to now hear (on Steve Paikin's TVO show, Apr.8, 2011) Robin Sears (former Ontario NDP'er Bob Rae's chief of staff in the late 1980's) actually admit that he personally believed in free trade, yet, nevertheless, Sears actively helped the socialists continue with their anti-free-trade idiocy - all of course, geared to smear conservatives, at any cost, no matter how wrong the socialists' own dogma was!!]
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Also interesting to see how writers in the future (in 2018, in Trump's era) create deceptive narratives about free trade, as the Toronto Red Star's Rick Salutin did in Aug. 2018, writing about how Mulroney was not a supporter of free trade. What Salutin fails to mention, is the nuance that Mulroney's position in 1983 - when he was still fighting for the Conservative leadership - was against unfettered free trade... a big difference to having a formalized trade agreement! Guess it's inconvenient for Salutn to point that out!! Salutin purposefully - deceptively - also FAILS to mention how a campaigning Chretien LIED about tearing up Canada's free trade agreement if he was elected - - -and, when he was elected, Chretien the Liberal liar, DIDN'T DO IT!!
Now in 2018 under Trump's Presidency,  we note the irony that Trump is doing what the leftists in Canada always wanted: to destroy our trade agreements! Yep: Trump's dong what Chretien, Peterson, David Suzuki, Salutin, Pierre Berton, Maude Barlow, Bob Rae, wanted  - getting rid of NAFTA. Irony of ironies for the drooling Trump haters, that Trump is carrying out their wet dream. 

Compare what the Toronto Star's Salutin wrote in 2018, to what the Toronto Star's Brett Popplewell wrote back in 2009, in NAFTA the nasty no more, Feb, 7, 2009 :

"...It was 21 years ago that the issue divided Canadians along party lines. The 1988 general election was fought over free trade, a policy championed by then-prime minister Brian Mulroney. He said Canadians would profit from lowering tariffs on exports to the U.S. Liberal leader John Turner charged that by enacting the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S., Mulroney had with one stroke of a pen signed away Canada's sovereignty.

But the forecasts of impending doom for Canada have not come true. In fact, many of the industries that some predicted would die (most notably Canadian wine production) have actually benefited from open access to the U.S. market.

While there have been problems, as when the U.S. imposed tariffs on our softwood lumber and we imposed tariffs on their dairy products, most agree the Free Trade Agreement of 1988, which later incorporated Mexico and morphed into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has benefited Canadians..."

It was Liberal pieces of sh!t such as Turner and Peterson who were fear mongering against free trade.

Here's what Fred Lum wrote about "Mulroney's Lasting  Legacy" in the Globe and Mail (Oct.23, 2012):

 "...Mr. Mulroney deserves a great deal of personal credit. Free trade was not an agenda he originated. It emerged from a Royal Commission appointed by the Liberals and headed by a Liberal, Donald Macdonald. But when his government decided to make freer trade with the U.S. a priority, Mr. Mulroney threw himself into it, at great political risk. His willingness then to roll the dice made all the difference.

Mr. Mulroney was a great campaigner and a tough negotiator, surrounded by a team of tough negotiators. The success achieved on Oct. 3, 1987 has shaped Canada's economic development and its place in the global economy for the better. As he points out, trade volumes have tripled, and while there were casualties of the FTA, it did not result in the end of industries many had feared, such as the vintners in Niagara and the Okanagan, who emerged stronger. In a speech in Toronto Wednesday night, Mr. Mulroney said the FTA had erased old doubts and fears about Canada in the world, in favour of confidence and ambition. He's right..."

Funny how in 2018 the Toronto Star hagiographer/revisionist Rick Salutin just kinda swept aside Mulroney's pivotal role!! Let's look back to when Mordecai Richler schooled the fear-mongering Salutin on BarbaraFrum's CBC show. Classic!

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Greenbelt vassals pay tithe to Liberal Lord Bradley

Below: visitors tour the peach orchard at Nokara Farms, on Lakeshore Rd. in St. Catharines, May 4, 2008.
Below, Joe Ferretti talks to visitors. A sign behind reads 'Good things used to grow, in Ontario'.
Below: a view of the crowd from Lakeshore Rd., gathered in front of the barn at Nokara Farms. About a hundred people attended two farm tours given that day.

I wonder if St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley has any comments regarding the May 3, 2008 story in the St. Catharines Standard, “Where do we grow from here?”

I didn’t see Bradley at Joe and Kathryn Ferretti’s May 4, 2008 public tour of Nokara Farms to view the acres of peach orchard, now in bloom, which the Ferrettis will be forced to pull out due to the CanGro plant closure.

Bradley hasn’t publicly explained how his “greenbelt” “helped” Nokara Farms … to bulldoze their own orchards!

Remember when good ole Greenbelt Bradley was smugly fear mongering that “The Tories can't wait to get the bulldozers revved up and start plowing this land." (St. Catharines Standard, Oct.19, 2005)?

Well, it is Liberal MPP Jim Bradley who is driving the bulldozers today, on farms right in Niagara; right in his own riding!

Remember good ole Greenbelt Bradley, bragging how his greenbelt would 'save the cucumber trees'?

 

I guess saving peach trees – or the farmers that invest, grow, and tend them – aren’t on Bradley’s priority list these days.

Maybe Bradley can run and hide from the CanGro closing by deferring it to Kim Craitor, because the plant is/was in Craitor’s riding.

Maybe Bradley can activate his magical cloaking device and vanish from view when it comes to respond to the Duffins, because they’re fruit farmers from Pelham. (They recently said Bradley’s Liberals “walked away” from the table when the Duffins were trying to save CanGro)

But Nokara Farms is in St. Catharines, in Bradley’s own riding – and still, Ole Greenbelt Bradley was invisible!

What's Bradley's excuse now?

Kalvin Reid wrote in “Greenbelt protecting endangered trees”, (St. Catharines Standard, Feb. 1, 2006):

“Ontario's greenbelt was established to protect rapidly-vanishing natural areas of southern Ontario, and that's exactly what it's doing, says St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley.

Particularly in the case of the red mulberry and cucumber trees, which are listed as endangered in Ontario and are protected within the bounds of the greenbelt.

"The greenbelt is there to protect natural areas of the province in perpetuity," said Bradley, the minister of tourism with responsibility for the greenbelt foundation. "Without it, urban sprawl would continue to creep out, step by step, onto environmentally-sensitive lands."

Yet today, under Bradley, the farmer is the one "rapidly-vanishing" and 'creeping out' of existence. Bradley’s greenbelt supposedly 'protects endangered trees' - but what does it do to "protect" the endangered farmer? Bradley's 'greenbelt' never mentions much about the actual farmer, does it?

"The wilderness we have out there would simply disappear without the greenbelt," Bradley rationalized then. Yet today, Bradley runs and hides when asked to provide details how his greenbelt “helped” the Ferrettis. Farmers and their trees are now 'disappearing WITH' Bradley’s greenbelt!

The “endangered species” is now becoming the farmer! Yet, where is Ole Jim Greenbelt Bradley’s voice?

The St. Catharines Standard editorial of Nov.25, 2003 wrote about the newly-elected Liberal government’s murky greenbelt plans.

“Niagara has a strong voice at the cabinet table in St. Catharines MPP and Tourism Minister Jim Bradley, whose desire to see tender- fruit lands preserved is well-known. Bradley vowed late last week that farmers will be consulted and he acknowledged the need to ensure viable farms if the land is to be frozen in that use.
We can be sure Bradley will make his voice heard, but we need to make sure others are equally vocal so Niagara's interests are well represented in development of the greenbelt commission.”

Where's that supposedly "strong voice" today?!

That “strong voice” of Jim B.S. Bradley today has become a muted whimper!

Today, Bradley has no song-and-dance routine with which to smugly bluff his way through this embarrassing blowback to his statist Liberal dogma.

Here’s some of the discussion from Ontario's Legislative Assembly on Apr.22, 2008:

“Mr. Tim Hudak: A question to the Premier: On Friday, the remaining 120 workers at CanGro in Niagara were summoned to hear the very unfortunate news that the deal to purchase and invest in the facility fell through, and they would be out of work. The Premier knows a private sector consortium, led by respected Niagara business leaders, was bringing about $20 million to the table to keep the plant open and was looking for provincial support. Premier, why did the province of Ontario walk away from the table and allow CanGro to close?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'll speak to the first question; I know my colleague will want to speak to the supplementary.

Let me tell you that we worked as hard as we possibly could to pull out all the stops, to find a way to bring parties to the table and to ensure that parties might be willing in terms of ensuring some kind of succession plan for this business. We know this is really tough on the families. We have a number of programs in place, close to $2 billion now by way of special programs, including our Next Generation of Jobs Fund. I know that the minister could speak to the details of this, but my advice to my colleagues was to do everything we possibly could to see if we might land some kind of a succession plan for this particular enterprise. Unfortunately, it was not there. We could not make it happen. It is with great regret that the ensuing result has been made apparent, but we will work as hard as we can with those workers in that community, and throughout Ontario, to find new jobs.

Mr. Tim Hudak: I say to the Premier that municipal leaders, business leaders and tender fruit growers would have a completely different view, indeed, about the lack of activity of the province of Ontario to try to save this plant. The Premier also knows that this impacts on some 150 growers representing 2,600 acres of pear and peach land in the peninsula. They're now being pulled out of the ground.

Premier, when it comes to the greenbelt, you have become an absentee landlord. You find a way to give Magna Corp. some $50 million, and they're paying their CEO some $40 million per year. Last week, you gave a foreign-owned pharmaceutical plant some $14 million, despite their $4 billion in international sales.

Premier, I ask you, why do you give big grants to foreign-owned multinationals, but walk away from tender fruit growers and workers in Niagara?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Hon. Sandra Pupatello: I'm very happy to address this, and I want to say first off that the very premise of the member's supplementary question simply is not based in fact. I have to say that we have had ongoing discussions on a personal level, both my ministry and the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, with Lord Mayor Burroughs. There are members who are leaders from the Niagara region who are in the House today who will attest to the work that we in my ministry have done on a personal level on this particular issue. We have worked very hard to try to keep CanGro in operation in the Niagara region as the last remaining canning opportunity here in Ontario.

When we were at the table, making the offers that we have made, we needed to have the company at the table with us. Unfortunately, CanGro was not in a position to want to work with the numbers of people that we brought to the table to try to do a deal. That's a very unfortunate outcome. We will work very diligently with the economic commission of the Niagara region, as we have in the past. The leadership is here today that will prove that that has in fact been the case and will continue to be the case, to find good jobs-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.”

That’s it ??

‘We tried …’ ??!

So what if some farmers suffer for the Greater Good that is “the greenbelt”? So what that the Liberals walked away from a deal, (just like McGuinty walked away from that cancer patient during the election)?

The St. Catharines Standard wrote in "Where do we grow from here?" (May 3, 2008): “Food sovereignity is the right of people, communities and countries to define their own agricultural, food, labour, and land policies that are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate for their circumstances.”

Well, that mouthful of rhetoric just about covers and explains everything, both for and against the greenbelt, environmentalism, statism, interference with free trade, freezing property rights, wage controls, you name it.…!

McGuinty has become more than just an "absentee landlord" – his Liberals have usurped our sovereignity. Farmers are now vassals to their Liberal master’s greenbelt, and paying their tithe to local Liberal Lord Bradley for the privilege.

The Greenbelt was “devastating” to his farm said Mr. Ferretti, who explained to the gathered crowd he had worked his farm since he was 25; and that only now had he and his wife got it to the point that they could leave something for their kids.

Standing in the orchard, amongst those thousands of doomed peach trees bursting with their pink-blossomed promise of spring, many of us in the crowd at Nokara Farms felt an overwhelming sense of loss.
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Farming in a closed bubble

Kate-Andres-Toal wrote in “Support our farmers by buying local”, (St. Catharines Standard, Jan.17, 2008) that “we’re in serious trouble, folks”…there’s a food “crisis” a-comin’, where we’ll be “faced with empty fridges and dead communities.” This is because we don’t support local farmers: “Another farm gone, another development we don’t need built over rich soil we can’t afford to waste.”

This is the fearsome, alarmist tone for the rest of the article. What, hasn’t Toal heard of Jim Bradley’s Greenbelt? Is she saying that Liberal legislation is NOT working…or is she saying it’s weak?! The farmland, according to the Liberals, is 'protected’! But, the farmer and the actual farm…? That’s a story the Liberals should tell us more about.

“Without local farmers, there will be no local food, and that means no future for our communities”, Toal states. Oh, come on.

“Society is blind to it,” she quotes a farmer saying. “Every time we buy strawberries from California or cheap tomatoes from Mexico for the sake of convenience, we are intensifying the problem,” Toal preaches.

Wow: so "convenience" is not a satisfactory consumer choice for Toal? How about buying for the sake of taste, or quality, or variety, or price, or even plain availability, for that matter?

Locally grown bananas and oranges aren’t available in Niagara. [Unless Al Gore, David Suzuki and Stephane Dion (the Gorzukions), pick up the pace of their airline flights so as to speed up that man-made global warming of theirs]

If a Mexican tomato is well-priced and better tasting than a local cardboard tomato, should we forced to buy the tasteless one? (or vice-versa) We do have to compare, as they say, apples to apples: seasonality, availability, variety, etc. Then there is the perishability factor of fresh produce, vs. the value-added factor of processing and packaging such produce for sale at a later time, or in a different place. And of course, there’s always the whim of the local weather…

In 2007, when early California strawberries arrived at the stores, they were wonderful, very tasty, and well-packaged in a see-thru breathable closed clam shell. As the season wore on, the Ontario berries then also arrived, of course, mostly locally grown. The difference was amazing: the Ontario berries were paltry looking, many of them squished in their green cardboard open-top containers, which spilled all over the display and the floor, leaving them half-empty. The berries were also dirty-looking, unwashed, caked with field mud. And, most amazingly, the Ontario berries were MORE expensive than the imports from thousands of clicks away.
Toal asks that we redefine what is “necessary”: “do you really need strawberries in January?” .
Toal treads on totalitarian terrain, fielding fancies of food fascism.
If consumers want strawberries in winter - so what? Should we be forced to buy whatever bruised offerings get thrown our way? Should we be limited to eating only local products? The self-righteous and the indignant will have another Mother Earth cause to rally about on this...yet the debate has been going on for decades in Niagara.

I’ve seen people waste money buying supposedly “organic” local cherries only to discover that they had white worms. I’ve seen farmers who could not find, let alone afford, farm workers…work that’s utterly unthinkable and beneath respect for a snobbish Ontario majority. Imported labour does our work!
I knew a hobby farmer on a once-typical small Niagara fruit acreage of grapes, apples, plums and pears; a lot of work went into maintaining those vineyards and orchards. No-one but the closest family - and reluctantly at that - would bother to come help for the harvests as they occurred throughout the year.
Yet when the farmer visited friends in the city, they would always say 'oh did you happen to bring a bushel of pears with you'?! As if the fruit was gown, tended, and picked expressly to be transported to the city, brought to their door, and then given away!!
Though the fruit would have been free to any friends who bothered to come and spend several hours picking, even that was not an incentive. Not wanting to see the orchards and vineyard go wild, the hobby farmer maintained them for the pleasure and the stewardship; most of the fruit was never picked. It just wasn't worth it, even free.

Protectionism and profitability is a two-way street. When your goal is to ban/restrict/overly regulate imports by trade intervention - you might find that your exports are treated in kind – if not in one industry, then in another.
Has Toal considered the terrible toll of her touted tyranny?

Not every local person has a penchant for Niagara ice wine, for example, although it is top-notch. So should we limit - or better yet, outright ban - its export to other areas? We certainly can choose local products, and be loyal to a certain individual extent. It's not a new concept. We should have choice as consumers, in our marketshare. But we have to innovate and build on our strengths. So, we need to find successful export markets; sustainability based on this "locavore" fad is quaint, but unrealistic. How local is local? Why a hundred km radius? What happens when the government decrees it to be fifty km, then, eventually, you’ll be limited to eating the politically correct diet which grows only in summer just in your backyard, where you can't even trade with your neighbours?? You can’t have a healthy economy within a closed bubble.

We need competition, not protectionism. Much of the Greenbelt lands sit “protected”, yet under used. What is that worth?

The same day as Toal’s article came out, William Watson wrote (in “Close more farms!”, National Post, Jan.17, 2008) that “'Buy local' is just the latest bid for protection from our tiny, shrinking agricultural sector.” Watson wrote “In absolute terms, half a per cent of GDP [which is what farmers actually sell] is a lot of economic activity. But it’s hardly the economic cornerstone – the vital lynchpin – farming’s advocates so often proclaim it to be.”

Watson even lists seven reasons not to grow our own food.

Liberal Jim "Aw, shucks" Bradley: Greenshevik Idol

Not a mention of freshly-minted Liberal transportation minister Jim Bradley's years of hypocrisy about Go transit's promised extension to Niagara in this Toronto Star story, "Environmentalists bet on Bradley", by Peter Gorrie (Nov.05, 2007):

"A surprise name comes up when environmentalists assess Ontario's new cabinet.
They tout Jim Bradley as the minister, among the half-dozen with a direct impact on green issues, who offers the most hope for progress.
Yes, that Jim Bradley – the gregarious 30-year Legislature veteran from St. Catharines who's been nearly invisible during the past four years in stints as the minister for seniors and tourism, and government house leader.
His new job, minister of transportation, isn't much more of a political powerhouse than those others.
But green observers say transportation policies will be crucial in deciding southern Ontario's environmental fate. They also expect Bradley to wield strong influence beyond the borders of his ministry.
They are pleased by the choices for all six ministries, announced last Tuesday, which include John Gerretsen in Environment, Gerry Phillips at Energy, Donna Cansfield in natural resources, Jim Watson in Municipal Affairs and David Caplan, returning as minister of public infrastructure renewal.
"None of the six is a lead weight; none are anchors," says Chris Winter, executive director of the Conservation Council of Ontario. "They all have the potential to move their agenda forward. We're miles ahead of where we were 20 years ago."
Advocates are also pleased by the government's apparent recognition that environment issues aren't separate from others – as, for example, with the recent report that linked the spread of diabetes to the sedentary lifestyle encouraged by car-dependent suburbs.
"You can see how these things fit together," says Julia Langer, of World Wildlife Fund Canada. Agriculture ministry support for local food buttresses the climate-change plan. Several ministries must mesh to ensure new housing is never more than an easy walk from a transit stop. "The cabinet has to have more than one environment minister."
But Bradley occupies a special place, partly because of his record as environment minister under then-premier David Peterson from 1985 to '90, but also because he's reputed to have been a quiet force since the Liberals regained power in 2003.
"Bradley is considered to be the father of the modern environmental government," says David Donnelly, a lawyer who works on issues such as urban sprawl, building standards and protection of Lake Simcoe.
Among other things, Bradley stared down nickel-smelting giants Inco. Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd. and other industries that caused acid rain, and, over strong business objections, pushed through regulations that reduced toxic pollution from sewer pipes.
Now, he's in charge of a ministry that's fixated on more and bigger highways and bridges, and that critics argue must shift to support public transit, cycling and walking.
"He does a wonderful 'aw shucks' routine," Donnelly says. But "very few people are shrewder.
"He holds a great deal of sway with the cabinet....I expect him to fight and, based on his past history, I expect him to win."
Winter adds: "He had a lot of spine back then (as environment minister) and I don't think he's lost it."
In their most optimistic moments, environmentalists picture Bradley killing plans for new expressways through the Greenbelt – the extension of Highways 404 and 407 and a new route along the Niagara Peninsula and across York Region's mid-section.
More realistically, they say he might reduce the scale of those massive road plans, which seem to fly in the face of the government's claim to want more compact, transit- and pedestrian-friendly communities.
A cautious Bradley, still busy moving to his new office, says he hasn't yet "turned my attention" to that issue. He is certain, though, that much of his effort will focus on how to spend the $17.5 billion Premier Dalton McGuinty has pledged for transit projects.
The other five ministers have reasonable green credentials but those with track records get mixed reviews.
Gerretsen, former mayor of Kingston, earns high marks for creating the Greenbelt over strong objections from developers and landowners. He's downgraded, though, for approving energy-efficiency standards for new houses that Donnelly calls "disappointing."
Caplan, with part of the responsibility for containing sprawl, is praised for general direction but considered weak on putting it into practice. Phillips strongly backed the creation of the Rouge Valley park on Toronto's eastern border."
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Liberal Jim Bradley phoned in his last four years in office
Bradley - as Ontario's Tourism Minister - gave up selling Ontario to all but other Ontarians.
Even the recent U.S- produced video showing the Horseshoe Falls as an attraction was an example of someone else doing Bradley's job.
Anyway, why should Bradley encourage tourism - those tourists waste gas getting to Canada!! Jimmy's against all this!!
This must stop!!
Tourism being down in Ontario is a good thing: right Jim?!? Who needs it?
The Star article glows about compact, pedestrian friendly development: well, we have a great proposal along those same lines in Port Dalhousie now, oddly, being taken by NIMBY greensheviks to the OMB, and Bradley is nowhere to be seen on the issue. It's up to our local Liberal senators - ie the St. Catharines Liberal municipal councillors who are also on Bradley's provincial Liberal riding executive - to act as proxies for Bradley.
Oddly, it's Bradley's Greenbelt that is spurring such infilling in St. Catharines, because Bradley allowed the greenbelt to completely surround the city and choke it from expansion.
Oddly, Bradley's new hospital will (eventually) be built on a farm on the edge of town, not in pedestrian-friendly downtown. As Bradley stumbles and bumbles his way through government, leaving the locals to deal with his policy messes, oddly, the Toronto Star is rediscovering and repolishing good ole aw, shucks - golly-gee - shazaam Bradley as possibly the new 'Saviour Of Mankind'. (...you must repeat this phrase with a loud echo reverb...)
Or something like that.
Bradley is now touted "the father of the modern environmental government"!
What the flick is that? Is that like a giant Liberal tax sinkhole? And who is the mother in this shot-gun arrangement? How's fruit of the loins baby Kyoto doing?
Now, as transport minister, Father Bradley can begin to waffle (to the Star's fawning delight) about all the different, various types of environmental assessments, consultations and studies he needs to do to orient himself about the needed Mid-Pen corridor highway, because Bradley , naturally, will want to postpone and delay it as long as humanly possible.
This way, we can clog the QEW more, and discourage not only tourists, but Ontarians from travelling.
Because that's what the carbon hatin', business loathin', tax-increase-lovin' greensheviks want.
And Jim Bradley, Liberal Kyoto-hypocrite, will oblige, dude.
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