Alberta
Canadian dairy plant becomes unlikely symbol of defiance for Ukrainian farmers
KRASNE, Ukraine — The cows on Lyuba Pastushok’s farm are like her “cheeky children,” she explained in Ukrainian as she walked among her growing herd, gently cooing to them and softly petting their heads.
A few years ago there were only five cows on her small family operation in Holoskovychi, a rural community an hour and a half east of the nearest city of Lviv, in western Ukraine.
Now she tends to 25 cows, six of which she bought after Russian forces invaded the country.
Wrapped up against the cold with a kerchief tied over her head, the Ukrainian matriarch pointed out each by name, her voice full of motherly pride.
She credits her success to the creation of a Quebec-style co-op in her community, and said a new Canadian dairy plant in the area is likely to help the local industry grow even more.
The project has become an unlikely symbol of defiance in the face of the Russian invasion.
Russia is stepping on Ukrainian farmers, Pastushok said through a translator during an interview in her farmhouse kitchen, “but we are developing in spite of them. We are who we are — Ukrainians.”
The $3-million dairy plant, funded by Global Affairs Canada, will produce milk, yogurt, sour cream and hard and soft cheeses using milk from the local dairy co-ops. Those co-ops will also have a stake in the management of the plant, which will employ 30 to 40 people.
Construction was already well underway when war broke out last year and disrupted every aspect of life in the now embattled country.
Investors at first shied away from putting their money into a project in conflict zone, said Camil Côté, the project officer for SOCODEVI, the Montreal-based development agency spearheading the project.
The invasion put a stop to the work for about three months, until Canada offered another $2 million to get it started again.
“Just like the whole of Ukraine, we survived the winter,” Côté said in an interview from Nicaragua.
“We have (had a) few dangerous situations near the plant,” said Andriy Blinovskyy, who manages the project on behalf of a corporation of local dairy co-ops called Nabil.
“We have missile explosion near the plant, when the electricity transformer station was destroyed maybe 10 kilometres from the plant.”
That explosion late last year forced workers to continue building through the winter without heat, using a generator for power.
When it’s up and running, the plant will mainly supply the Lviv region with locally produced products. The equipment and the brand new, gleaming milk tanks in each room carry Canadian flags.
“The factory is perceived as our own. Our country, our home, our family,” Pastushok said.
SOCODEVI first brought the Quebec-style co-op to Ukraine nearly a decade ago. It allows local producers with just a few cows to band together to negotiate for better prices.
“The needs in Ukraine are very similar to to what they were in Canada 50 or 60 years ago,” said Erin Mackie, a program manager for SOCODEVI.
“They were created because farmers needed to have that collective response in order to get the value added and to be able to generate a better income for themselves,” she said.
Ukrainian farmers were initially hesitant to sign on, since the co-operative model conjured memories of state-run operations under the Soviet Union. Mackie said the development agency worked to convince them that the plans was, in fact, democratic and capitalist.
The model is based largely on Quebec’s Agropur, the largest dairy co-op in Canada.
“This is how Agropur started, with a small co-op where you process milk,” said Céline Delhaes, who sits on the co-op’s board of directors, in an interview from her farm outside of Montreal.
She said it’s much easier for farmers to negotiate fair prices as a group than to negotiate one-to-one with large companies to process and sell their milk. She also said the profits will stay in local communities.
Delhaes travelled to Ukraine several times before the COVID-19 pandemic to coach local farmers and help them with the administrative aspect of setting up their co-ops.
The Ukrainian programs were growing steadily, as more and more farmers like Pastushok signed on, before the war began.
“People started selling cows. Some due to their illness, while young people went to work abroad. And it turned out that it became very expensive to cultivate the land,” Pastushok said.
She hopes more farmers in the region will join.
“We need to unite. Like this proverb, ‘One man in the field is not a warrior,'” she said.
Mackie said the aim is to create a national movement in Ukraine, in line with Canada’s dairy industry, and Canada’s decision to continue with the plant’s construction is a show of faith in the country’s future.
“It’s faith in the Ukrainian people, that they would overcome this,” she said.
The milk plant is by far the most modern-looking building in the area, its white siding and black roof standing out in stark contrast to its wood and stone neighbours.
Blinovskyy said he hopes it will be ready to accept milk from local cows this spring.
“It’s very powerful sign for all — for our enemies, for our friends, that Canada supports Ukraine and that the plant will start producing,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2023.
Laura Osman, The Canadian Press
From LifeSiteNews
A judge ruled that businesses impacted by COVID lockdowns are allowed to claim compensation for harm and losses incurred due to the provincial chief medical officer’s illegal orders.
A class-action lawsuit on behalf of dozens of Canadian business owners in Alberta who faced massive losses or permanent closures due to COVID mandates has been given the go-ahead to proceed by a judge.
Lawyers representing businesses from Alberta-based Rath & Company announced in a press release on October 30 that it was “successful in its application for certification on behalf of Alberta business owners impacted by Covid-19 restrictions and closures imposed through Chief Medical Officer of Health (“CMOH”) Orders.”
“Justice Feasby of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta released his decision today certifying the class action in Ingram v Alberta, 2024 ABKB 631,” Rath & Company said.
Lead counsel Jeffrey Rath said the Alberta government has been placed on notice for its actions against businesses during the COVID lockdown era.
The Rath lawsuit proposal names Rebecca Ingram, a gym owner, and Chris Scott, a restaurant owner, as “representative plaintiffs who suffered significant financial harm due to (former Alberta Chief Medical Officer) Dr. (Deena) Hinshaw’s Public Health Orders.”
According to Rath, the class action seeks to certify that “affected Alberta business owners who suffered losses due to the CMOH orders, which were found to be ultra vires — outside legal authority and therefore unlawful — under Alberta’s Public Health Act (“PHA”).
“As a result, the Court Certified multiple claims, including negligence, bad faith and misfeasance in public office. The Court allowed affected businesses to claim compensation for harm and losses incurred due to the illegal CMOH Orders including punitive damages,” Rath said.
Any business operator in Alberta from 2020 to 2022 who was negatively impacted by COVID orders is now eligible to join the lawsuit. Any payout from the lawsuit would come from the taxpayers.
The government’s legal team claimed that the COVID orders were put in place on a good faith initiative and that it was Alberta Health Services, not the government, that oversaw enforcement of the rules.
The Alberta Court of King’s Bench’s Ingram v. Alberta decision cast into doubt all cases involving those facing non-criminal COVID-related charges in the province, allowing the class action to get this far.
As a result of the court ruling, Alberta Crown Prosecutions Service (ACPS) said Albertans facing COVID-related charges will not be convicted but instead have their charges stayed.
Thus far, Dr. Michal Princ, pizzeria owner Jesse Johnson, Scott, and Alberta pastors James Coates, Tim Stephens, and Artur Pawlowski, who were jailed for keeping churches open under then-Premier Jason Kenney, have had COVID charges against them dropped due to the court ruling.
Under Kenney, thousands of businesses, notably restaurants and small shops, were negatively impacted by severe COVID restrictions, mostly in 2020-21, that forced them to close for a time. Many never reopened. At the same time, as in the rest of Canada, big box stores were allowed to operate unimpeded.
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.
“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.
“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.
The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”
Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.
With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.
About the proposed law, Smith said that her government believes it is “vitally important to preserve the time” kids have as a “youth.” She added that she believes this is so kids can “gain sufficient amount of knowledge, experience, and perspective so that you can fully understand who you are, who you want to be and what opportunities you may want to have as an adult before making permanent life-altering decisions related to your body.”
While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”
This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.
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