Quebec, asphalt land

At the head of the Coalition pour la protection du territoire agricole, Christian Lacasse, also president of the UPA, regularly alerts Québec on the issues related to the disappearance of agricultural territory. We see him here in press conference in March 2009, with Sylvie Cloutier, President and CEO of the Conseil de la transformation agricole et des produits de consumé du Québec (CTAC), Pierre Laliberté, political advisor to the FTQ, and Réjean Parent, president of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ). n msé said not to cultivate my land anymore.

This would make it easier to dezone!" says Édouard Desjar - dins, a proud 82-year-old farmer. His farm is set in a stretch between Highway 15 and the village of Saint-Janvier, Mirabel. Over the years, the rows of houses have quietly grumbled the five farms that separated his property from the clo - dear of the village church. And he had to abandon the breeding of cows, because the smell of manure bothered his new neighbours.

Today, life has become "infernal" and mountain bikes are driving on its leased land, destroying part of the maize and soybean crops. When it is not snowmobile drivers who cut off its fences to make a trail in its fields, traffic that has become unceasing on the road separating its house from its barn has made it crêche - dre for the life of its three children.

No one wanted to take over. This worthy farmer, who has "O Condos, residences, highways... the main tool of farmers, the land, disappears at a frightening speed, especially in the fertile plain of the St. Lawrence, the food basket of Quebecers. Does the government of Quebec intend to govern to stop the bleeding? Text and photos of Nicolas Mesly Québec, a land bought at a high price his own lands expropriated in the saga of Mirabel airport, only wants to see one thing: that his fields disappear under a dasphalt language.

And he handed his land over to a real estate agent "who will take care of the de-zoning." Sold by square foot, his 34 hectares rap - would carry the bottom word $10 million. Of course, Édouard Desjardins would not be able to receive the entire sum. But only part of that money would allow him to enjoy the rest of his life.

In Boucherville, along Highway 20, a producer points out Le Carrefour de la Rive-Sud, a huge commercial complex including an Ikea store, saying: "Until 2000, I was growing these terres." In mid-Fifty, this grain farmer, who prefers to keep anonymity, explains: "If someone arrives with two or three times the value of 400 hectares, it makes a pension fund." This producer does not encourage his son to take over.

A multitude of factors have been the reason for his passion for the profession: the lack of recognition of this occupation, the low price of cereals for 30 years, the difficult cohabitation with the city dwellers, etc. So that sooner or later, a battery of May - sounds will rise on the lands surrounding this mall. But can we blame the producers for the disappearance of their main tool of work, the land? This phenomenon accelerates particularly - especially in the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (CMM), the food basket of Quebecers.

Everywhere in the north and south crowns of the metropolis, the scenario of the Carrefour de la Rive-Sud or the Quartier Dix30 is repeated. The promoters are pushing a cinema, a "horse of Troy", to which a real estate estate is attached, on the best agricultural land in the province. Moreover, the economic recovery plan of OttawaQuébec, with an envelope of $4 billion and focused on the construction of highways and viaducts, nibbles the meagre bank of agricultural land of the Belle Province. Not to mention the gas pipelines or LNG ports promoted by Quebec, which also amputate the land-farming.

"Agricultural soils are a non-renewable resource, and once under bitumen, they are irrecoverable!" explains Professor Martin Chantigny, President of the Association québécoise des spécialisants en sciences du sol (AQSSS). "Each hectare sacrificed for a vocation other than agriculture represents a net and irrevocable loss of our food capacity." "It is insane!" says Sylvie Cloutier, President and Director General of the Conseil de la transformation agroali-mentaire et des produits de consumé du Québec (CTAC).

The CTAC members, which has 400 companies and 1,400 establishments, generate 72,000 direct jobs and $20 billion in turnover annually, and the dispersal of agricultural land is likely to be falsified - a dear grass under the foot of the first employer in the manufacturing sector in Quebec. If Québec contains France three times, only 2% of its territory is arable – two million hectares – 14 times less than Hexagone. Aware of this vulnerability, Quebec nevertheless had the Agricultural Territory Protection Act (AQTA) in 1978 and a guard dog, the Commission sur la protection du territoire agricole (CPTAQ).

"It's more like a dezoning commission!" mocks 30 years after Jean Garon, the father of LPTAQ and former Minister of Agriculture under the Pequist government of René Lévesque. Despite these two tools "that help avoid the worst", the small northern garden queé - becois is amputated at 4000 hectares per year, that is the area of the island of Mon-trail every 10 years. Since 1994, more than 56,000 ha have been excluded from agriculture, most of which in the CMM. "It is all the more unacceptable that an almost equivalent extent (30 000 hec - tares) is still available in a white area for urbanization in the triple crown of Montreal," denounced the president of the UPA, Christian Lacasse, who is also at the head of the Coalition for the Protection of Agricultural Territory, a vast grouping of the living forces of the Belle Province (La Coop fedéréée, CTAC, CSQ, FTQ, Fondation québécoise en envi - ronnement, etc.).

Why this voracious appetite for agricultural land in the CMM? "Agriculture is perceived by municipalities as a barrier to development. We are able to draw on land as well as on a cheese plate. Yet, the agricultural sector is as important an economic lever as a nanotechnology park," says Jean-Robert Grenier, former mayor of Calixa-Lavallée, a village of 500 inhabitants located northeast of Montreal, on the South Shore.

Former Chair of the CMM Agricultural Advisory Committee, Robert Grenier imputes the 40 Le Coopérateur agricole , FEBRUARY 2011 Société FEBRUARY 2011: The Agricultural Co-operator 41 Édouard Desjardins, de Saint-Janvier (Mirabel), wishes only one thing: to dezone his land in order to be able to sell it to a real estate developer. Mandated by Québec to reform the Agricultural Land Protection Act (AQPL), Bernard Ouimet advocates the end of piece-meal dezoning and a collective dezoning. To protect the land in the fertile plain of Saint-Laurent, the former President of the Commission de la protection du territoire agricole (CPTAQ) proposes that Québec impose "a moratorium on residential construction".

PHOTO : JUDITH RANDLETT PHOTOS : ISTOCK When customers think they don't have the space for a guest room, the decorator always manages to offer them a solution. Although she sometimes needs to opt for a double-function room (room-room or living room), she thinks that it will always be more pleasant for visitors to sleep in a real room than on the sofa bed in the family room! The privacy of guests is then better preserved and the guests are not deprived of the use of an important room, explains Randlett.

She says it is not necessary to have a large room, but she needs to be able to accommodate at least one double bed, a bedside table and a dresser. If space is really limited, it is always possible to opt for a sofa bed or a sofa bed, which have the advantage of freeing up a larger surface on the floor."Escamo - table or not, the bed must be comfortable for guests to spend a good night there," the decorator recommends. She also recommends that extra cover and pillows be provided.

Depending on the length of the stay, guests will also be grateful to be able to properly store their personal belongings."Place in the drawers. Leave hangers free in the closet. Plan a place to store the suitcases without bulking the room," she advises.

It is also important to dress the window with an opaque canvas. This will preserve the privacy of the occupants in the evening and will prolong the dark period at daybreak. Indispensable, when you watch late! Adding a bedside lamp will also create an intimate atmosphere, while avoiding guests to stand up to turn off the light or light up.

Decoration On the decoration side, a certain uniformity in style is required. "Otherwise, the room will be messy," warns the specialist. Since people of different tastes will stay there, she recommends choosing neutral, soothing and soft colors, such as white, cream or gray, which is very trendy at the moment. Since the room will be used mainly after sunset, she recommends bringing the sample of paint to the house and looking at it in the evening room, under artificial lighting.

Without too much to load the decor, you should also think about cushions, curtains, carpets and other decorative objects, which will add a touch of color."A gentle and warm bed down under your feet will dress the room without bulking," she said to give an example. Once these essential elements have been fixed, you will only have to make available magazines, books, a morning wake-up and toiletries, such as a bathrobe, bath towels and a toothbrush.

Finally, a bouquet of flowers, a candy tree or a basket of fruit will be a charming final touch. However, by taking as much care of their comfort, visitors may not want to leave! As members of the same family are increasingly scattered over the four winds, being able to offer a room to guests often contributes to the pleasure of meeting again, says Judith Randlett, decorator at the INOV shop at the Unimat Renovation Centre in Windsor. "In our era of zero tolerance, responsible guests will be able to keep their guests overnight after a well-watered dinner," she adds.

The House of Friends disappears from agricultural land under the current tax regime, which encourages unbridled competition between municipalities: "When a developer presents a project for the construction of 300 to 400 houses, it means illico transfer rights, and then annual revenue revenues. Moreover, the construction of public services, such as sewers and electricity, is at the expense of the promoter. It is not only an attractive dish, but also a recipe for a re-election!" CMM NAGE IN SENS CONTRACTOR Claude Marois, professor at the Département de géographie de l'Université de Montréal, surprised that the urban "wild" re-a- nesses in a context where the growth rate of the Quebec population is rather slow.

In addition, according to this geographer, periurbai agricultural land - not only has a strong economic and commercial vocation, creating short circuits close to major markets, but also plays a role in conserving biodiversity. In addition, agricultural land, according to FAO, can be a weapon for the fight against greenhouse gases (GHGs), by sequestering CO2. In this sense, many major cities in the world – Berlin, San Francisco, Toronto, etc. – have a green belt.

Nearly 58% of the CMM's territory, or 220,000 ha, is agricultural land, "a unique phenomenon in North America," says Bernard Ouimet, former CPTAQ president."Instead of asking if we need shopping centres or real estate lots to develop, we should ask ourselves what are the good agricultural land we want to keep within 30 to 50 years," continues the man who was mandated by Quebec to modernize the CMMPA, as part of the laying of a new agricultural policy.

This latest agricultural policy is now in the hands of Laurent Lessard, who combines the roles of Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Municipal Affairs, Regions and Land Use, who inherited a tool that could perhaps save the agricultural land of the CMM: Bill 58 on Planning and Urban Development, passed in June 2010. This bill is a tool that calls on the CMM to make its agricultural land sacred and to concentrate on urban sprawl.

She is expected to present her action plan in Quebec City in the fall of 2011. "I don't believe it," says Mr. La CMM has had 10 years since its inception to present a development plan and has never done so. The only way to enforce this new schedule is to impose a moratorium on residential construction.

Can we realistically expect Laurent Lessard to impose a moratorium on residential construction on the president of the CMM and the current mayor of Montreal, Gérald Tremblay, to stop the bleeding of the best lands in the province? By 2021, if the trend continues, Quebec will lose, in the midst of a global food crisis, an extent of nourishment land equivalent to the area of the island of Montreal. FEBRUARY 2011