SOUTHEAST TRADER
EXPRESS
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
Member Canadian Community Newspapers Assoc. Member Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Assoc. Audited by Audit Bureau of Circulations.
SOUTHEAST TRADER
EXPRESS General Manager: Brant Kersey Editorial Staff: Peter Ng Norm Park Chad Saxon Jordan Baker Josh Lewis Advertising Sales Manager: Cindy Beaulieu Advertising Sales Representatives: Glenys Dorwart Deanna Tarnes Kristen O'Handley Teresa Hrywkiw Production Department: Melanie Tribiger Jodi Gagnon Trinda Jocelyn Manuela Fors Accounting: Kim Schoff Reception: Gayle Worsnop Classifieds: Carol Toth Published weekly by Prairie Newspaper Group Limited Partnership, 68 Souris Avenue N., Estevan, Saskatchewan. Postal address: Box 730 Estevan, Saskatchewan, S4A 2A6 Advertising rates are available upon request and are subject to change without notice. Conditions of editorial and advertising content: The Southeast Trader Express attempts to be accurate in Editorial and Advertising content; however, no guarantee is given or implied. The Southeast Trader Express reserves the right to revise or reject any or all editorial and advertising content as the newspaper's principals see fit. The Southeast Trader Express will not be responsible for more than one incorrect insertion of an advertisement, and is not responsible for errors in advertisements except for the space occupied by such errors. The Southeast Trader Express will not be responsible for manuscripts, photographs, negatives and other related material that may be submitted for possible publication. All of the The Southeast Trader Express' content is protected by Canadian Copyright laws. Reviews and similar mention of material in this newspaper is granted on the provision that The Southeast Trader Express receives credit. Otherwise, any reproduction without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Advertisers purchase space and circulation only. Rights to any advertisement produced by The Southeast Trader Express, including artwork, typography, photos, etc., remain the property of this newspaper. Advertisements or parts thereof may not be reproduced or assigned without the consent of the publisher. Published weekly in Southeast Saskatchewan by the Prairie Newspaper Group, a subsidiary of Glacier Media Inc. The Glacier group of companies collects personal information from our customers in the normal course of business transactions. We use that information to provide you with our products and services you request. On occasion we may contact you for purposes of research, surveys and other such matters. To provide you with better service we may share your personal information with our sister companies and also outside, selected third parties who perform work for us as suppliers, agents, service providers and information gatherers. Our subscription list may be provided to other organizations who have products and services that may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to participate in such matters, please contact us at the following address: The Southeast Trader Express, Box 730, Estevan, Saskatchewan, S4A 2A6; or phone (306) 634-2654. For a complete statement of our privacy policy, please go to our Website at: www.estevanmercury.ca The Southeast Trader Express is owned and operated by Prairie Newspaper Group, a subsidiary of Glacier Media Inc.
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Perspective
Page 4
Rugby World Cup full of hakas and beards In a barbarian’s game played by gentlemen, Canada’s gentlemen are The Beardos. The Rugby World Cup kicked off a week ago in New Zealand with two ceremonial, pre-match challenges: the New Zealand All Blacks Haka and the Tonga Sea Eagles’ Sipi Tau. Both nations are from the south Pacific and the traditional challenges stem from those island cultures. Canada was the last team in the tournament to see action Tuesday night, and after facing Tonga’s Sipi Tau challenge before the opening kickoff, beat the 12th-ranked Tongans 25-20. Canada is ranked 14th in the world entering the contest. I love international competitions, whether it’s the World Juniors, the Olympics or the World Cup. The Rugby World Cup is no different. There are a number of things that I’ve noticed from the early matches so far: the game officials run the show, and they do not put up with gripe from anybody. The Japan and France game was spectacular. The score doesn’t show it at 47-21, but the Japanese team held their own against the fourth-ranked French team who capitalized on a few Japan mistakes. Down 25-11 at the half, Japan rallied to close the gap to 25-21 before the French scored 22 points in
Jordan Baker Thoughts From My Fingers the final 10 minutes. During the game, a player went down with an injury near where a scrum was to take place. The team medics ran onto the field, but because of the injured player’s close proximity to where the game would continue, the official told the player to get up. He then turned to the medics and said, “Move on,” waving them back to the sidelines. Norm Park doesn’t like the NFL because of the breaks allowing oxygen-deprived players to catch their breath. Well, he would love watching a sport where the game doesn’t break for an injured player. They just play around him. As they say, it is a barbarian’s game. That brings me to Canada’s barbaric beardos. Saskatoon’s Hubert Buydens, Adam Kleeberger and Jebb Sinclair complete this trio of burly, bearded brethren, who all played a big part in the win over
Tonga. Sinclair opened the game’s scoring with an early try. Kleeberger was voted man-of-the-match. A story on Rugby Canada’s website, titled The Beardos Cometh, says the three men are now under strict orders not to shave until the tournament has ended. Buydens and Sinclair have been playing together in Wales for the RGC 1404. Buydens grew his beard longer, and Sinclair decided to follow suit. Kleeberger’s growth is more like a mane, with his wild hair and Grizzly Adams beard making him the front-runner on any television show called So You Think You Look Like a Lion. At one point during the opening match, one of the commentators pointed out that Kleeberger is 27, but his beard is a few years older than that. Canada’s opener was a nail-biting match. Both teams missed opportunities to break out for tries. Canada was up 10-0 before the Tongans scored a try just before halftime, and then fell back 20-13 in the second. After a couple of impressive defensive stands, Canada scored two tries, missing one conversion to take the lead with just seven minutes to play in the match to a claim an opening-game victory. Cheer for Canada. Cheer the beards.
Food safety, resposibility of consumer It was interesting to see a recent story about the recent Cairns Group ministerial meeting in Saskatoon. It marked the first time group members discussed ways scientific innovations and rules-based trade may help meet global food security objectives. The idea of food security is one we should consider for a variety of reasons. On one hand, the basic idea is one we should generally embrace. Safe food is important for us all since food is one of life’s essential. On the other hand, the more rules established around food security, the greater the red tape and costs farmers are likely to face in marketing their crops and livestock. We have deemed food traceability a key aspect of food safety and that means all the way from the farm gate to the kitchen table. And while the processing sector will be able to pass on its costs to consumers, farmers are not likely to see new costs factored into what they receive from the marketplace. There is however, a growing question about whether we are maybe going so far in establishing rules that in the process, we are about to lose a huge part of our food heritage. I think about one of my favourite shows on television right now regarding food; Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. The host travels the world eating the weirdest foods he can find, possum and raccoon in the Ozarks; whole deep fried chicks and partially incubated eggs in the Orient; worms, bugs, tarantulas and in almost every country, some of his favourite foods are found being sold by street vendors. That has always been something I have
Calvin Daniels Trader Agriculture Columnist thought my city of Yorkton lacked, a street vendor selling perogies and hot dogs. Of course to operate such a business now in Canada is something where people need to be ready to work through a ton of regulations to make it a go. And it goes farther. A rib barbecue competition at the local summer fair took a long visit from health inspectors to get the go ahead. Yes, safety is important, but backyard barbecues are not exactly alien science competitors we’re foreign to. An upcoming cultural event in the city isn’t sure cultural foods will be part of the offerings because the regulations are simply daunting. Neighbourhood and community potluck suppers, and even the farmers’ market sale of cooked goods is becoming ever more difficult. Do we need rules? Well to say no would be anarchist talk, but at the same time I have attended a lot of rural fairs and sports days where I ate cold cut dinners, potato salad with eggs and salad dressing included, and I don’t recall an upset stomach, and that was in years before most of the current rules regime existed. I will grant that when I was a youngster,
food might well have been safer in the sense the potatoes in the salad likely came from the family garden of the cook, and the eggs from their chicken coop. The control over the food we ate was much more in our hands. We knew if a pig was sick, we never butchered that animal in the fall. We actually picked the animal out of the pen, shot it humanely and lifted it with a block and tackle and disposed of it ourselves. It was the same with chickens. And, most of the vegetables we ate came from the garden. They were canned, frozen or saved in cold storage for winter. Much of the fruit was even gathered blueberries, saskatoons and chokecherries in the wild, currants, raspberries, rhubarb, gooseberries and strawberries from the garden. I grew up eating food I helped raise and put up for winter. Now, I can tell you in my own case I haven’t grown a thing to eat in more than a decade, and with the exception of the occasional farmers’ market purchase from an area producer, I rely on food grown by others - often hundreds, if not thousands of miles away - processed by others, trucked by others, and handled by far too many others before I eat it. So I am left to wonder if rules that impact barbecue events, cultural food sales at local events, potluck suppers are what are needed for safer food? Or, do we need to take more personal responsibility for our own food, growing more of it, processing more of it, and cooking more of it?