Reply to the radio Call In show on Bill 81 and Nutrient Management broadcast February 12, 2003 by CKNX Wingham.

Hello,

What a tremendous disappointment that your radio station has such broad coverage among the rural community and yet you chose to stack the deck in favour of Helen Johns. While she did not admit an election is on the way, or even admit she would run again, what other reason would you have for agreeing to such biased coverage?

You relegated two dissenters to the end of the program and cut them both off.

What service does this provide your average listener who is concerned about the water they drink, the value of their property, and the future of not only their farms but the farms that surround them.

You allowed Grant to be cut off but chastised him when he stood his ground. You allowed everyone on the panel to respond to Grant but you did not allow him equal time for rebuttal. You allowed the Helen Johns' supporters who called in to provide their credentials but when Tony provided his you dismissed them as ancient history.

Helen Johns has taken Nutrient Management Guidelines which were meant to help farmers minimize fertilizer cost, and maximize plant growth, and is trying to convince us they are the answer to Justice O'Connor's 93 recommendations.

She says we need more science. Who will pay for it? Why does she dismiss all the current science that disagrees with her?

Grant suggested the OFA no longer represents the average farmer. Many in rural Ontario would take that a step further. Not only does the OFA not represent the average farmer, Helen Johns, OMAF and the MOE have become lobby groups for the food processors. And they do it with tax payers money. Helen Johns only wants a low cost source of product for the major food processors so that they have low cost exports. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is no longer about farming. It is about low cost food processing for international markets.

Well number 5 in Walkerton did not go away, even though those who drilled it 20 years ago knew it should never be used for municipal water. And sadly, if these regulations which allow an unlimited size liquid manure tank to be built a minimum of 1/2 metre above the aquifer, 15 metres from a well, a well that is only 6 metres deep, this issue will not go away.

It is not about nutrient management, it is about our health, how a contaminated environment affects healthcare, and about not waiting until people die before you accept the science.

Dan Gieruszak
One of Many
concerned citizens in Rural Ontario