From Norm Hall and David Spencer
Updated May 2, 2011
By the time you get this report Dave will be home from his trip over seas and will be getting his hands dirty both on the farm and with APAS.
I would like to say that this has been a particularly busy month, but it hasn’t. All months are busy and seem to be getting busier. Norm spent the last week of January in Ottawa at an Ag Canada Climate Change Fore sighting Final Workshop. Then February started off with an ALUS meeting. This was a meeting to form the provincial steering committee. You will be pleased to note that we not only have Delta Waterfowl there, our long time partner in the ALUS drive, but we also have Duck Unlimited sitting at the table with us. The Sask Wildlife Federation, another long time partner is there as well, but joining us as well is the Sask Assoc of Watersheds, SUMA, Wascana Upper Qu’Appelle Watershed and the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture. We have invitations out to a few other groups for our next meeting to be held March 1st. If you are wondering about SARM, they were invited, they had a presentation at their board by Bob Bailey and Brian Gilvasey in December and then decided that they were not interested in participating.
The governance committee met on Feb 8th and in your AGM packages you will find a few more bylaw changes and some more recommendations coming from that committee.
As stated in the last report Nial, Doug & Norm met with Minister Duncan on four basic issues, ALUS, Bill 126 – Carbon Reduction Bill, Ag Plastic Recycling, and the Sask Water Plan. The following day we met with Sandra Morin, Enviro Critic on the same issues. Both meetings were very productive. Later that morning, the Environment Committee met and had a very good discussion. Norm attended the final day of the Sask Wildlife Federation AGM on Sat. Feb 12th, they are involved in some very interesting issues.
APAS and FNA did a three day, six meeting tour of the southern half of the province with information meetings on Bill 126 – Carbon Emissions Reduction Bill. Greg, Doug and Aj did the first two days of the tour and Norm replaced Doug for the last. Bob Friesen and Jonathon were there from FNA. There was lots of good information and many good questions. Norm was attending RM meetings on Monday and Tuesday and was unable to make the tour the first two days.
Norm met with the RM of Indian Head on Wednesday the 23rd and then on Thursday Norm and Doug met with the Moose Jaw River Water Stewards, as they were expressing interest in ALUS and wanted more information on the project.
March 1st is the next ALUS Provincial Steering committee meeting and will be graced by the Canadian President of Delta Waterfowl, Rob Olson, as well as more participants from the Ministry of Environment and more groups.
Our next board meeting will be March 4th. The following morning Norm will be heading south for a week of sun and sand. There will be a short conference call the week of March 14th -18th, and then the AGM is the 23rd and 24th. Don’t forget to book you hotel rooms and fill in you AGM Registration forms that will be in the mail shortly.
Talk to you soon,
Norm and Dave
February 2011
It’s been a long time since we wrote to you on our activities, this is supposed to be a monthly report and it’s been nearly a year.
Both Dave and Norm had very active years last year. We spent time every month from November of 2009 to April of 2010 visiting RM councils either convincing them to stay or to join APAS. Of the 42 RM’s in District 4 we sat with 39 councils and discussed membership. Starting in November we started all over again with Dave meeting with a number of RM’s in November and December, while Norm didn’t start till January. It seems most RM’s are quite encouraged by what APAS is doing and is accomplishing, but find one reason or another not to join. This is very discouraging as we are the one group that sits on eight “national” boards, commissions or committees on behalf of Saskatchewan producers. On most of those boards, commissions or committees if APAS isn’t there Saskatchewan is not represented at all, and some of APAS’ greatest accomplishments have come from sitting at the national table as we represent 47% of the ag land in Canada. Dave sits on the National Forum on Seed and Norm sits on the Canadian Ag Safety Association (CASA).
Norm is chair of the Environment and Food Safety Committee and has spent an increasing amount of time there, as the file is growing by leaps and bounds. Some of the issues are ALUS (Alternate Land Use Services), Ag Plastic Recycling, Sask. Environment Regulatory Review, Sask. Carbon Emission Reduction Legislation, Climate Change, Migratory Bird Convention Act, Wild Life and its affect on agriculture and producers, Land Owner Surface Rights, Food Safety (President Greg sits on the National On Farm Food Safety Committee and is part of this committee), and now CFA is working on a National Food Security Strategy. Norm and President Greg along with Bob Freisen from the FNA Met with Minister Duncan in September on the Carbon Credit file, and Norm, Greg and Nial will be meeting with the minister again on Feb. 8 on a number of issues and then will be meeting with the Enviro Critic later.
See you all in March.