The dollar costs proposed......to be paid as indemnity payments to European farmers (re: E. coli outbreak) should alone be a wake-up call to North American Governments. Hope the "copy & paste" below works...
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- The European Commission may make an “improved proposal” for aid to vegetable growers faced with slumping demand following a deadly outbreak of E. coli in Germany after some member states balked at an initial offer of 150 million euros ($220 million).The commission, the European Union’s regulatory arm, may set out the revised proposal as early as tomorrow following objections to the level and total amount of support, EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said at a news conference in Luxembourg today. The commission may look again at “the rate of indemnization and the total available envelope,” he said.
Not to mention the above E. coli outbreak had killed 23 as of June 7 (with over 2,000 sickened).
Now is the best time yet to write to our CDN Government to have them show leadership and be proactive with a "preventive" program against a future E. coli outbreak here in Canada. Even if we just start against the O157:H7 strain with an already "approved" treatment. Will it take another Walkerton crisis here to have them push this through?
Only talking about $30 million as a subsidy to cattle ranchers to mandate a vaccination program using Econiche (I seem to recall this figure but not certain it is right). And, it's produced at a plant the governments have already helped to fund. Conservatives missed this very small addition to the budget announced on Tuesday.
On my list of "must do" by end of week.
Have a good one, rg