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| Nipawin - March 31, 2001 - by: Mario deSantis | |
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hijacked |
Adam Smith defined trade as our natural propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one |
| thing for another, but with the globalization of our economies, trade has been hijacked | |
| by the big multinational corporations. | |
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patent |
On Thursday, a Federal Court has ruled against farmer Percy Schmeiser of Bruno |
| Saskatchewan, for violating Monsanto's patent right(1). This ruling comes at a time | |
| when European consumers are refusing Canadian honey and as our beekeepers | |
| become worried about their bees pollinating genetically modified crops(2). | |
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not |
Percy Schmeiser has always contended that Monsanto's canola seeds contaminated his |
| crop by blowing from neighboring fields. However, Justice Andrew MacKay ruled that | |
| even if the canola did blow onto Mr. Schmeiser's field, he was not entitled to reuse it | |
| without the permission of Monsanto. | |
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lost
50 |
Schmeiser expressed his outrage to the court's ruling by saying |
"I've lost 50 years of work because of a company's genetically |
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altered seed getting into my canola, destroying what I've worked |
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for, destroying my property and getting sued(3)." |
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property |
On the other hand, Trish Jordan, a Monsanto spokeswoman, has stated that |
"this case has always been about the protection of intellectual |
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property rights." |
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globalization |
So this judgement affirms the subordination of the natural right to labour on our own |
| land to the manufactured intellectual property right. As we progress towards a stronger | |
| globalization of our economies, so I acquire the understanding that our justice system | |
| becomes global and manufactured. | |
| ------------References/endnotes: | |
| List of relevant political and economics articles http://ensign.ftlcomm.com | |
| Farmer reaps fines in fight over canola, Les Perreaux, National Post, with files from The StarPhoenix, March 30, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010330/516915.html | |
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| Europeans refusing Cdn honey because of GMOs, CBC Canada, March 30, 2001 http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/03/30/Consumers/bees_gmo010330 | |
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| Sask. farmer loses to biotech company, CBC Canada, March 30, 2001 http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/03/29/monsanto_schmeiser010329 | |