From
Locals Supporting Locals:
Monsanto coming to Richmond to try to overturn Council decision
This Tuesday Richmond Council voted unanimously at a general
meeting, with the Mayor and all Councillors present, to pass a
resolution to make Richmond the eighth GE free crop zone in B.C. The
wording of the resolution is on the Richmond Council website, at
http://www.richmond.ca/cityhall/council/agendas/gp/2012/052212_minutes.htm
Ten people spoke in favour of the resolution. This now has to go
through the formal process of being passed at a Council meeting, which
will happen on the 28th May at 7 p.m. at Richmond City Hall.
We've been informed that Crop Life, the Public Relations wing of
Monsanto and other biotech companies, will be coming to the Council
meeting on the 28th May. They have already begun their lobbying efforts
to try and get Richmond Council to change its mind.
If you are in or near Richmond, please turn out for the meeting.
Some Councillors may waver under corporate pressure, and a big turn out
of the public will make all the difference and hold them firm to their
decisions. Several Councillors spoke passionately about their concerns
with genetic engineering, and a big public showing will give them more
courage.
If Richmond becomes a GE zone this will have a really big impact on
other parts of the Province. As a large municipality with about 200
farms and where GE corn is being grown, people will see that if this can
be done in Richmond, it can be done anywhere in the Province. GE Free
BC is already getting emails from other municipalities where
environmental activists want to get a GE Free resolution passed. This is
why Monsanto is sending in the PR guys.
At the same time, apparently the BC government is tryining to slide through an Ag Gag law.
Legislation being proposed by the BC's Liberal government will make it illegal and punishable for a person, including citizens or journalists, to disclose information relating to reportable animal disease in the Canadian province. Bill 37, The Animal Health Act, over-rides BC's Freedom of Information Act, making it unlawful for the public or the press to speak publicly about an agriculture-related disease outbreak or identify the location of an outbreak such as the deadly bird flu or a viral outbreak of IHNV at a salmon aquaculture feedlot.
Who would this affect? Anyone. My significant other, author Paula Johanson, recently wrote a book titled Fish: from catch to the table which addressed the safety of farmed fish--this law would have affected her work.
Or the work she did in Fake Foods.Not because anything she said was wrong, but that she said anything at all.
We've seen this sort of thing before, in the
Howard Lyman case in Texas:
In April of 1996, Mr. Lyman (former cattle rancher and now President, Voice for a Viable Future)) was invited to appear on Oprah to discuss Mad Cow disease, food production, and the rendering process. He was part of a discussion of experts, including an expert from the beef industry, about food safety in the U.S. This included a discussion of potential health risks from e-colii and mad cow disease (which only weeks before was making headlines in Britain and throughout the world). When Mr. Lyman explained that cows are being fed to cows, Ms. Winfrey seemed to be repulsed by this thought, and exclaimed that it had just stopped her cold from eating another hamburger
Lyman was sued under an Ag Gag law, the Texas Food Disparagement Act, and it took four years and a heap of money to end the lawsuit brought by a Texas beef ranchers organization. Since then, there has been a pause, but these laws are back.
