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News Advertiser
JULY 31, 2019
www.NewsAdvertiser.com
Innotech Alberta Invites Community for Field Day Emily Mailhot Reporter – Vegreville News Advertiser
On July 25, close to 170 registered guests braved the cold for the rare chance to venture out on a field day and crop tour at the Innotech Alberta research facility west of Vegreville. Clad in rain gear and curiosity, the participants crowded the shelter of the office foyer as early as 8:30 a.m. to grab a cup of coffee and network with others at the event. Some of those in attendance included Agriculture industry representatives such as agronomy firms, hemp, barley, and canola farmers, and hemp and cannabis industry representatives. Among these was Chromtec CBD Pruification Inc. CEO Eric Cong, who is heading the project to open the Chromtec cannabis plant in Vegreville. Innotech Alberta Head of Research, Jan Slaski, said that he was happy to see
viewpoint - CONTINUED from PAGE 6 true rather than questioning such horrendous verbal overstatement. In fairness, those who produced the inquiry report might have believed it was a fitting word for centuries of appalling mistreatment of Indigenous inhabitants. But any reasonable historical con-
so many guests at the field day this year, including dignitaries Mayor Tim MacPhee of Vegreville, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville MLA Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, and CEO Alberta Laura Kilcrease, and excited to show them what the facility has to offer to the agricultural community at large. “This event is sold out, and I think
sultation would have determined genocide is simply not the appropriate word for Canada’s past and present state policy toward Indigenous peoples. We are not Rwanda. This is not the Holodomor. It’s not the Holocaust. It’s not even British imperial policy in Ireland in 1847. Why, then, say we stand among those accused and
that very many people showed up today,” said Slaski, “As always, our plant sciences team has put together presentations… This field day is not only to show the results of our great work but to show you that we are working with the industry, for the industry.”
found culpable in all of the above? Because we have all become habituated to howling for political effect. We shout incessantly because we can’t be sure we will otherwise be heard. We have lost the art of rhetorical restraint because we have forgotten that the hard work of democracy demands much more than merely delivering the latest head-splitting mar-
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keting message. So is our democracy in its death throes? That would be at least a slight exaggeration. There’s still time to lower our voices, choose our words and stop talking long enough to listen to our neighbours. The clock is ticking, though – hard as it might be to hear beneath the political noise at 11 enveloping us.
