Search Results for: Canada

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADA’S JTI-Macdonald Corp. has filed for bankruptcy protection following a Quebec Superior Court order that the company immediately pay the Quebec provincial government CDN$1.36 billion in taxes owed from alleged smuggling in the 1990’s. Under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), JTI will not have to hand over money to Quebec’s revenue coffers as long as they remain under protection.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A RECENT Ontario government review of its meat processing industry has recommended the Canadian province adopt a powerful new agency to enforce food safety, including using armed guards with the authority to arrest. Judge Roland Haines, the official judicial investigator, said the status quo for inspectors does not go far enough.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
PET store chain Pet Valu Canada (CORRECT SPELLING) has stopped selling postmen-shaped dog-biscuits after the country’s postal service Canada Post accused the company of being insensitive to the dangers posed by aggressive pets. The treats came in Parmesan, fish and chips, and garlic flavour.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RISK that American cattle are infected with BSE is high, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded, and without changes to US rendering or feeding practice, “the probability of cattle to be (pre-clinically or clinically) infected with BSE persistently increases”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL ban on importing fur into the European Union (EU) from animals caught by leghold traps (and others considered inhumane) could finally be written into EU law. The European Commission has proposed a directive transposing international agreements struck in the late 1990’s with Russia, Canada and the USA, committing these countries to phasing out certain traps deemed particularly painful.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A PUBLIC audit has cleared Alberta, Canada, meat packers of profiteering from CDN$402 million federal-provincial benefit packages distributed during the country’s recent BSE crisis. The probe concluded that packers legitimately tripled their profits during this time because cattle supplies exceeded packing plants’ capacity and the domestic and limited export-market remained strong.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BLOW to smaller developing countries far from key American and European markets from the abolition of protective quotas in January could be cushioned by the continuing use of preferential tariffs, a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) report has predicted.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RISK that American cattle are infected with BSE is high, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded, and without changes to US rendering or feeding practice, “the probability of cattle to be (pre-clinically or clinically) infected with BSE persistently increases”.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CONCERNS that rising Canadian car and property insurance premiums could have been caused by companies abusing dominant positions in particular provinces have been dismissed by a report from the country’s federal Competition Bureau.

Its review was launched in March 2004, after six federal MPs formally complained that insurers were not providing Canadians with reasonable and competitive insurance rates.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN federal government has announced tightened rules on animal feed that will prevent the use of risky cattle parts – associated with BSE – from being fed to any farm animals, including poultry and pigs. The measure is in addition to an existing 1997 ban forbidding cattle parts being fed to other cattle.…