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Joel Harden

  • MPP
  • Member of Provincial Parliament
  • Ottawa Centre
  • New Democratic Party of Ontario
  • Ontario
  • 109 Catherine St. Ottawa, ON K2P 0P4 JHarden-CO@ndp.on.ca
  • tel: 613-722-6414
  • fax: 613-722-6703
  • JHarden-QP@ndp.on.ca

  • Government Page

I want to thank the member from Essex for his comments. I often find the member’s eloquence very entertaining, for sure. It was like a National Geographic commercial—a lot of anthropology trips down memory lane there.

The member made a case that the Premier we currently have is one of most environmental Premiers ever. I actually wonder, from one perspective, if he isn’t good at recycling our time, because we spent 72 hours in this place undoing legislation that the members opposite have proposed. Let’s go through it, shall we? Bill 124, Bill 28, the greenbelt fiasco, the urban boundary dispute. The Premier is famous for recycling—but recycling hot air in this place. I’m wondering if it’s embarrassing, frankly, to be part of a government that brings legislation into the House only to redo it later. I think it’s a waste of our time. I think it’s a waste of time to be using the lawyers hired to serve the province of Ontario to go fight court cases that are unwinnable.

So I’m wondering, because the member has talked about making life more habitable, if he thinks it wouldn’t be more habitable for this House to be working on legislation that doesn’t just have to get ripped up a few months later.

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I want to thank my friend from London for her comments.

I was inspired in particular by what you were saying about the practice of how we regulate organic food. I know the organic growers were in the building last week, and I had occasion to meet with them and really enjoyed the experience. But it was yet another reminder that for consumers who go to farmers’ markets—like the Lansdowne farmers’ market, which is where I was this weekend, picking up pumpkins to carve, vegetables to roast, and all that kind of good stuff. A lot of those folks who go the extra mile of preparing organic products for the marketplace don’t get the recognition they deserve. There’s no credential to prevent large operators like Loblaws or Metro from labelling their products as organic, despite not having gone to the same trouble.

So I’m wondering if the member could elaborate on how this bill could be improved to make sure that organic produce, organic food, is really organic.

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