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Food, Fuel & Fertilizer

Aug 4, 2022 | 1:11 PM

“The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Pattison Media and this site.”

As I travel Saskatchewan Rivers constituency this summer, it is heartening to see beautiful lush crops in the fields. While conditions vary in the province, our region is producing abundantly.

Over the last decade or so, Saskatchewan has become known for supplying the world with “Food, Fuel and Fertilizer”. The three are tightly interconnected, with food production reliant on fuel to farm, and fertilizer to grow.

Our farmers are under attack however, by their own federal government. In recent years they have had to figure out how to mitigate the extra costs carbon taxes have created for them. Then this year, the price of fuel skyrocketed (arguably due to federal policies). A third dagger cutting into any hope of profit for farmers is a recently announced (again federal) Fertilizer Emission Reduction Program.

While the latest program is touted as another tool to save the earth from climate change, it very well could have the opposite effect. With less fertilizer used, more land will be needed to grow the same amount of food. Using more land means farmers will need to use more fuel to farm that extra land, which means more emissions anyway.

To his credit, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe spoke out publicly against the fertilizer program stating “thanks, but no thanks,” on Twitter. For that he endured a barrage of probable twitter-bot assaults and maybe a few legitimate dissenters. Others thanked him for his stance against this destructive federal policy.

But the Premier did not explain how he would resist the federal government on this one. The closest he got to doing that was to state on the Roy Green Show, “We’re just simply not going to pay attention in any way to what his (Trudeau’s) environment minister is talking about on the fertilizer reduction piece.” and “Saskatchewan isn’t going to be part of any of this type of policy as we move forward…”

Mentioning how Saskatchewan farmers already employ environmentally sound policies, Premier Moe also discussed the federal environment minister’s fertilizer emissions reduction document. He noted that, “all of his (Minister Guibeault’s) information is based on experiment, in some cases the data isn’t accurate, in other cases there has been a lowering of emissions, and in other cases there’s been an increase in emissions, so the whole document is null and void and is really an ideological policy …. that the (federal) government wants to push through with no science behind it.”

These assurances would be comforting except for one problem. What leverage could the Prime Minister hold over the Premier to force the province to implement this policy?

A year ago, Premier Moe promised Saskatchewan people that coerced injections and vaccine passports would not be imposed on Saskatchewan people. Yet only a few weeks later, after meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau, Premier Moe did indeed impose those mandates, even calling them a ‘choice’ while Saskatchewan people lost their careers, friends and family relationships. Some were even denied health care because they refused to be coerced.

Ironically, this too was part of an experiment using products that still are not fully tested and, we now know, have horrific side-effects including death. The ‘science’ was not, and still is not, allowed to be officially debated.

Medical and scientific dissent from qualified professionals is silenced through censorship, sanctions and/or firings. Just ask Dr. Francis Christian, a former surgery professor at the University of Saskatchewan whose crime was to publicly question the use of these products, especially for youth. He was terminated by the U of S and the Saskatchewan Health Authority from multiple positions because he did not parrot the official doctrine. A clear case of “wrongspeak”. Dr. Christian has also publicly called for Premier Scott Moe to promote wellness protocols for citizens as strongly as it promotes pharmaceuticals.

Instead, the Sask Party government is still pushing citizens to go get a third and fourth dose, (with no fulsome science proving efficacy behind it). This is despite an abundance of information now available, even from the drug manufacturers, of the devastating side-effects that many have experienced.

At what point will this government independently look at ALL of the data and boldly act accordingly to protect citizens? Or, if its hands are ‘tied’ by the feds, will it at least disclose what leverage the federal government holds over its decision making? Saskatchewan farmers will want to know as pressure builds to adopt the fertilizer emissions reduction policies.

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