Saturday, April 26, 2008

Good things USED to grow, in On - ta - ri - o!

(click on photo to see how Jim Bradley makes the earth a better place)


Mr. Jim Bradley, MPP, St. Catharines:

As my MPP, do you have any comments to make regarding your Liberal government’s failure to broker a deal to enable the CanGro plant to at least get this year’s crop processed?

Can you explain how your Greenbelt has helped these Niagara fruit farmers?

Do you have any comments to add to Peter Down’s April 26, 2008 story in the St. Catharines Standard, “How the deal went SOUR”, where growers Bill and Kim Duffin claim your government walked away from helping them save the plant, blaming your Liberal government for "selling out" the tender fruit industry?

(That reminds me of the time Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, fishing for votes in a hospital during the 2007 election, just walked away from a cancer patient who complained about your Liberal’s health-care policies: how smug and arrogant.)

Downs reported that Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello did not respond to the Standard’s interview requests. Instead, spokesman Eric Shapiro - who wasn’t even directly involved in any of the negotiations - was left to say that your government “did not walk away from the table”.
Who, then, was at these negotiations, Mr. Bradley? Was saving the plant an actual priority for you? Were you there, at these negotiations, personally representing your constituents as a senior cabinet minister from Niagara? Or did you just provide platitudes?

Mr. Bradley, why did you not take the opportunity to explain to the press your exact role in ensuring that this CanGro fiasco be averted? When did you actually first learn of the possibilty that this cannery could close?

Did the Standard not request your comments on these recent developments? Or did you just refuse to make any statement? Were you simply too overwhelmed with your duties managing the transport portfolio, to actually inform your constituents of what steps you did, or didn’t take, to help out growers such as the Duffins?

So - how exactly did your Greenbelt help these growers, anyway?

Can you explain why the Greenbelt bureaucracy regularly wastes money on ads, such as the one above? (in Niagara This Week, Apr.25, 2008)

What “possibility” grows in the Greenbelt?

Is it possible that your Liberal government is simply peddling Greenbelt propaganda?

How does abandoning fruit farmers in the Greenbelt help ensure “fresh, local food”?
Jim, maybe you should be the one "inspired to look at our world differently": your government is killing the farmer to save the "greenbelt" - or is that your intention?

(What, by the way, was the “carbon footprint” left by Pupatello’s trip to China, I wonder? Will Ontario import more canned fruit from China instead?!)

Is abandoning a fruit cannery just the price we must pay for the Liberals to hold onto their 416-vote-buying Greenbelt illusion?

The “abundance is right here in our own backyard,” alright: an abundance of Liberal fertilizer of the most vile kind.

Once again, thanks for nothing, Jim.

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