Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about [...]]]> Marilyn Tower, owner of Abbotsford’s Tower Foods, with some of the products seized from Vancouver’s Home Grow-In Grocer by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency due to alleged inadequate labelling. Credit: Doug Shanks — From the Weekender

Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about (because it sells only local goods and supports organic growers and lets you “buy” stuff with a goodwill promise to pay later) is being hassled by our ever-diligent bureaucrats. Hard to believe, I know, but not entirely surprising, is it?

I’d planned to whip myself up into an appropriate froth for a sardonic response, but Herb Barbolet did it so well already I’m going to quote his post to the BC Food Networks listserve. First a link to the story in the Westender.

–
RE: GROCER’S STOCK SEIZED

Had George Orwell read this story he might not have believed it. It is Animal Farm and 1984 rolled into one.

The Canadian government refuses public demand for labelling of genetically modified foods, closes small abattoirs (putting farmers and ranchers out of business), lets Chinese food with melamine into the country and “watches over” Maple Leaf.
But if a small neighbourhood grocery is selling quality local products without proper French on the label… woe to them, the full force of the federal government will set things right.

Hell, “the store wasn’t even the target”. It was the supplier!
Makes sense from a government that shoved HST on to the province.

And the CFIA spokesperson has the gall to say that the rules are applied evenly and “we can’t be everywhere at once”.
Who is pulling the Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors’ strings?

Herb Barbolet
–

Not so with award-winning American journalist Amy Goodman. She not only got stopped on the [...]]]> It’s never fun getting stopped and questioned by the border guards heading into the States, even when you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s usually more relaxing coming back into Canada. You promise you aren’t carrying any forbidden fruit, and you’re in.

Not so with award-winning American journalist Amy Goodman. She not only got stopped on the way up to give a public speech in Vancouver. She was questioned for an hour and half about…her speech. The border guards, to her amazement, were not interested in her opinions on the economic meltdown, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They wanted to know what she intended to say about the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Is this  what the Vancouver Olympics are going to be remembered for?

We know we’re going to spend $1 billion on security, not just to keep terrorists from blowing things up but apparently also to crush the idea of free speech and eliminate the prospect of political dissent. I wonder how many gold medals it would take to get the bad taste of that out of our systems?

Here’s her report on the fabulous Democracy Now! show.