November 29, 2000

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Nuclear emergency plan on the way to Pontiac: In the event of a nuclear disaster at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s Chalk River Laboratories (CRL), Pontiac MRC has no emergency plan in place, a shortfall that disturbs Allumettes Island Mayor Denzil Spence.

“We don’t even have a plan,” he said, “and the Quebec government won’t give us any money to implement one. “We’re forgotten people up here.”

Spence, who is chairman of the Pontiac MRC emergency defence committee, said the Ontario government offers financial support to municipalities within Chalk River’s primary zone, a five-kilometre radius from the laboratories.

The regional director of civil and fire security for Quebec’s Public Security agrees that a plan has to be set up for Pontiac and it will soon become law.

“As soon as the law is decreed (new Public Security Legislation, expected to be passed before Christmas or early in the new year) all municipalities of the MRC will have to have a security plan,” says Jacques Viger. “If those municipalities need help to prepare an emergency plan, they can call us.”

Producers want one milk board: On behalf of the Pontiac milk producers, Chris Judd met Pontiac MNA Robert Middlemiss on Nov. 15 to ask the government to meet their demand for only one milk marketing board for the export of milk.

Chris Judd, owner of a dairy farm in Shawville, wants Article 20 of the law on agricultural products to be modified. Under Article 20, introduced by the minister of agriculture M. Rémi Trudel, milk producers have to go through two marketing boards in order to export milk.

According to Judd, having two marketing boards breaks the basic principle of the system that allows the producers to market their milk through one board in order to have a fair and equal access for the producers and the processors.

“Both the producers and the companies that process milk don’t want to go through two marketing boards,” said Judd. “We [the producers] are afraid it will undermine the system and we don’t want milk products on the black market.”

Milk producers, like Judd, have contested that the unified marketing of milk in the province allows the producers to get a fair price for their milk without a subsidy from the provincial government, according to the income of farmers.

Also, stable income in Quebec, tax payers as well as the consumers benefit from the system. The access levy for volume increases for dairy producers is 18 per cent lower in Canada.