Canadian mining corporations are seeking a $50 million, five-year government grant to reduce waste. The appeal coincides with federal funding for University of Waterloo research on clean-up of hazardous mine sites: “The industry desperately needs innovation”.
Television viewers who nitpick over news reports have no right to demand retractions, a national media monitor has ruled. The judgment came in the case of two networks cited for use of common nouns like “veteran”.
MPs will review use of Canadians’ personal information by political parties. The chair of the Commons privacy committee said MPs were aware of complaints that campaign organizations are a “Wild West” of alleged privacy breaches: “They have no legal obligation to furnish you with the information they keep”.
MPs last evening voted 205 to 79 to repeal two contentious Conservative union bills. One legislator said only a “miracle” would prevent the repeal from passing the Senate: “The focus on unions in both bills is suspiciously inequitable”.
Newly-released archives show Canadian officials dismissed one of the worst famines in history in approving grain sales to Maoist China. Trade officials found “no evidence” of mass food shortages, though millions starved to death. One visiting Canadian delegation in 1961 marveled that Chinese appeared ‘fairly well-fed’ and shops were full.
“There is no evidence to support a contention that the whole of China is suffering from conditions of starvation,” said a confidential foreign ministry memo The Extent And Impact Of Food Shortages In China. The country was “practically immune from the dangers of drought and flood,” the memo said.
Historians estimate 40 million people died in the period from 1958 to 1962 under a Communist Great Leap Forward campaign of collectivized farming and expropriation of crops by state planners. Reports by diplomats and trade officials who visited the country at the time have now been released by Library & Archives Canada under Access To Information.
The memo Food Shortages concluded while Chinese harvests appeared mediocre, “Under the Communist regime the increased efficiency of the transport system allied to the tight control of distribution has made large-scale famine on the traditional pattern less likely than in the past.”
“There is nothing new in the present scarcity,” the memo said; “The population is probably increasing by about two percent annually, and the ‘average’ harvest needed is therefore rising every year.”
Cabinet in 1961 sold 234 million bushels of Canadian grain to China in the largest export contract of its kind to that time. A Department of Finance memo noted the Chinese “made it very clear they wished to obtain the grain at the earliest possible date,” but discounted the possibility of famine.
“The advantages to Canada accruing from these agreements are obvious,” the finance department wrote. The contract for wheat and barley was valued at $362 million, the equivalent of nearly $3 billion today.
“A reason given by the Chinese to us during negotiations was that the purchase of Canadian wheat would enable China to export more rice, thereby resulting in a net foreign exchange gain because the international price of rice is higher than the price of wheat,” the department wrote. “There is some logic in this type of argument.”
Wheat Harvested By Hand
Modern-day researchers have uncovered evidence famine conditions drove China near collapse, documenting instances of homicide and cannibalism in the hardest-hit rural counties. Chinese state agencies to date have withheld official records detailing the extent of the catastrophe.
Canadian grain executives discounted reports of mass starvation. A confidential 1961 account of a three-week tour by the Board of Grain Commissioners said Chinese “seem fairly well-clothed, shod and fed”; “We ate bread in all five cities we visited,” wrote delegates.
“Building of new factories and apartments seems fairly extensive,” said the report Technical Mission To China 1961; “There is ample evidence of continued production of artistic work: brocades, embroidered silk, beautiful carving in ivory, jade, soapstone and wood; exquisite silver work and excellent jewelry.”
Technical Mission noted the touring Canadians were closely monitored – “two men traveled with us and heard all repeated discussions” – but dismissed evidence of unusual conditions. “In more than 24 hours of travel by train in daylight, we saw thousands of groups of 10 to 100 people or more, working in the fields with hand tools, only the occasional single animal pulling a cultivator between rows, and not a single tractor or farm machine,” Technical Mission said.
“Over a hundred people might be harvesting a field of wheat, handful by handful, with small sickles. Fourteen men were unloading a truckload of sacked grain at a mill elevator.”
“The colossal use of manpower in this operation, as elsewhere in China, was astounding,” the report concluded; “The extent to which manpower and womanpower replaces mechanical power and machines in China is remarkable.”
Other documents acknowledged Canadian delegations were restricted in their travels and invited to elaborate state banquets. One Wheat Board mission “saw virtually nothing of Chinese life”, said a memo. “Their time was completely regimented between negotiations and entertainment which included the Peking Opera, the world ping pong tournament, dinners, etcetera.”
By Tom Korski 
The Senate yesterday took up final debate on a bill mandating independent oversight of border security. It coincided with a federal lawsuit alleging the Canada Border Services Agency falsely imprisoned a resident for 39 days in a case of mistaken identity: “This case is unbelievable”.
The Senate will undertake a first-ever study of electric cars amid industry requests for subsidies. Lobbyists sought $3,000 federal rebates for buyers of plug-in electrics. One senator dismissed the proposal as taxpayer aid for the wealthy: “You can count on being grilled”.
A federal program to centralize government computer services including 493,000 employee email accounts is doomed to failure, says a cyber security expert. Analysts speaking at a Liberal Senate caucus forum yesterday criticized attempts to streamline the governments’ $5 billion-a year computer systems: “The question is whether it fails catastrophically”.
Two travelers who mistakenly boarded a flight for London, Ontario instead of London, England have no right to complain, the Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled. Regulators said the unfortunate mix-up was not the responsibility of the airline: ‘Wrong gate, wrong flight, wrong carrier, wrong destination’.
Cabinet’s planned $50 carbon tax may cost auto jobs, says an industry group. Automakers said the proposal to tax carbon emissions beginning in 2018 could further drive new plants to the U.S. and Mexico: “This is otherwise known as carbon leakage”.
Cabinet will finalize planned reforms for Canada Post within six months but cannot commit to restoring doorstep mail delivery, says the public works minister. A Commons committee examining the post office is to report by December 31: “Which is it, yes or no?”
Canadians have no interest in eating engineered fish, says an aquaculture trade association. An industry lobbyist yesterday told first-ever public hearings on licensing of lab-made animals the initiative meets no apparent market demand: “That’s really critical”.
Advertisers to children face another bid at curbs on marketing under a private New Democrat bill introduced in the Commons. The proposal follows a Conservative bill in the Senate to ban food ads to children under 13: ‘Parents should not be deceived, manipulated or misled into buying certain goods’.
Cabinet will review a private Conservative bill in the Senate that mandates prompt payment for contractors and trades on public works, says Public Services Minister Judy Foote. “No one should do work and not get paid,” Foote yesterday told senators.
Canada’s next astronaut is getting a pay raise. Cabinet approved an executive order for an $800 bonus for David Saint-Jacques, who is scheduled for 2018 take-off to the International Space Station. He will still earn a fraction of the country’s highest-paid public officials: “They really do put them through the mill”.
