Reading Time: 2 minutes Canadian National Railway (CN) wants binding arbitration after its unionized conductors and yardmen narrowly voted to reject a second tentative labour agreement. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), representing about 3,000 CN conductors, trainpersons, yardpersons and traffic co-ordinators working in Canada, reported Thursday its members had voted down the deal, reached Feb. 5, by a […] Read more
CN conductors again reject tentative labour deal
Mosaic chief to stay on through treatment for cancer
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Canadian-raised CEO of U.S. fertilizer firm Mosaic Co. plans to stay on the job but cut back on travel while undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Mosaic on Thursday disclosed Jim Prokopanko, the company’s CEO since 2007, was “recently” diagnosed and is undergoing treatment. The company did not elaborate on what type of cancer Prokopanko has. […] Read more
Pigeon Ponzi scheme nets seven-year sentence
Reading Time: 2 minutes Ontario’s Pigeon King has been sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding farmers in a Ponzi scheme running across Canada and the U.S., according to regional media. Arlan Galbraith, founder of Waterloo-based Pigeon King International (PKI), was sentenced Tuesday by Justice Gerry Taylor in Superior Court in Kitchener, following Galbraith’s conviction for fraud in […] Read more
Vancouver truckers to be ordered back to work
Reading Time: 3 minutes The British Columbia government is set to legislate unionized container truckers serving Port Metro Vancouver back into the cab. The province said Wednesday it would introduce back-to-work legislation as early as Monday (March 24), with a 90-day cooling-off period, for 250 truckers represented by Unifor-Vancouver Container Truckers Association. The work stoppage at the port involves […] Read more
World conservation ag congress coming to Winnipeg
Reading Time: 2 minutes “We are running out of dirt, and it’s no laughing matter.” So says Dr. David Montgomery, professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, and author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. Montgomery, who sees the recent rise of no-till farming as “the hope for a new agricultural revolution that […] Read more
Man. storage listing for ‘at-risk’ grain near launch
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Manitoba government expects to have an online service up by the end of this week for farmers rushing to get unbinned grain up off the ground. “Our first priority is getting this grain moving, but secondly, we need to ensure we have ample space should farmers need emergency alternate locations for at-risk grain in […] Read more
Heavy ice to keep eastbound grain landlocked for now
Reading Time: 2 minutes Even under federal government pressure to get more Prairie grain moving by rail to Vancouver and Thunder Bay, crops that make it to the latter port aren’t going anywhere this week, shipowners warn. The Canadian Shipowners Association, the Ottawa-based group for Canadian companies with domestically-flagged vessels, warned in a release Tuesday the Great Lakes and […] Read more
Ont. colleges to run Alfred ag campus
Reading Time: 2 minutes Two Ontario francophone colleges plan to step in to keep French-language agriculture and food science programming rolling at the University of Guelph’s Alfred campus — in certain cases as early as this fall. Sudbury-based Le Collège Boréal and Ottawa-based La Cité announced last week they will partner with the U of Guelph, the provincial training, […] Read more
Ont. racehorse breeders suing OLG over slots program
Reading Time: 3 minutes Over 30 of Ontario’s standardbred racehorse breeders are set to sue Ontario’s Crown gaming agency for $65 million over the loss of the provincial Slots at Racetracks program (SARP). The breeders, who filed their notice of action March 11 against the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. (OLG) in the provincial Superior Court in Guelph, said […] Read more
Same EI premiums, no benefits for seasonal farm workers: study
Reading Time: 3 minutes Foreign workers brought to Canada for seasonal farm employment are seeing no employment insurance (EI) benefits for what they and their employers pay into the EI program, a union study shows. While the workers — who come to Canada for specific jobs and are shipped home at the job’s end — don’t usually qualify for […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
