Agriculture Department inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28.
The margarine is butter yellow, which makes it illegal for sale in Quebec.
The measure is intended to protect the province’s 3,000 dairy producers.
Andre Menard, spokesperson for acting agriculture minister Laurent Lessard, said 44 of the contraband margarine containers were seized at the Levis Wal-Mart, across the river from the capital.
Another 28 were discovered at a Wal-Mart in the borough of Beauport, he said.
“In Quebec City (proper), we think they withdrew them before we came,” Menard added.
On Thursday, Maxime Arseneau, agriculture critic for the Parti Quebecois, tabled a margarine tub in the National Assembly and charged that Unilever Canada Inc., which makes Becel, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Canada were conspiring to bring yellow margarine into the province.
“This is serious,” Arseneau chided reporters who found the situation humorous.
Related: Hitler’s stance on margarine.
It seems odd that only WallMart was noted in the story… a little socialist payback for union-busting perhaps?
Nazi du margarine a la Quebec.
(Or something like that anyways)
The Quebec Margarine Nazis.
I’m all for eliminating “industrial plastic” masquerading as food.
If it comes out of a factory, it’s adulterated…scrap it!
Hydrogenated crap…phooy!
Good for Quebec!!!
That used to be a law in Alberta as well. I remember my mother mixing margarine (which came in a white block) with a package of dye (which came with the margarine) if you wanted it to look more like butter, although it ended up looking orange (bright orangey-yellow). I don’t know when the laws changed; I’d guess late 60s, early 70s? Because Becel et al aren’t illegal anymore.
Someone should mention to the Quebec farmers that we’re in a new century. People will choose butter or margarine based on their preferences and/or their health, and colour will have little to do with it.
Kate, that German article on margarine was very, very interesting! I had no idea!
Thank GOD!!!…for the Agriculture Inspectors of the mighty Quebecois.
Just who the hell do the powers of Walmart think they are.
That was close!
We almost had $179.00 dollars worth of yellow margarine purchased by an unsuspecting shopper, obviously unprepared for the horrors of the colour corn yellow
Phew!
Hey isn’t Quebec were all the Biker gangs and mafia head quarters are????
Hitler on the Butter vs Margarine
Here Lessons learnt include the fact that Hitler allowed a Jewish scientist named Imhausen to live and flourish – and made him a hero, honoring him with medals, and officially treating him like an “honorary aryan” – who developed alternative…
Well I guess this means the butter in Quebec in is an excellent source of vitamin P. I think you would have to be Israeli understand what I mean by this. Free open markets a capitalist concept.
The obsession of the fascists/socialists with the colour ……. Yellow. >>>>>> The natural end result of National Socialism: seizure of private property, e.g., yellow margarine from Wal-Mart , seizure of humans, death in extermination camps. Yellow….Death.. >>
Nazis Order Jews to Wear Yellow Stars
At The History Place – Part of the Holocaust Timeline.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-star.htm – 2k
All this discussion and the real criminal here has not been fingered.
EXCESS!
Butter is perfectly safe as long as it is used sparingly. I have seen toast delivered in restaurants dripping in butter. Overloading on buttet while you have the habit of eating heavy foods like bacon, sausage and fat laden meats will cause problems that can not be blamed only on butter.
Also, If you try to follow the government rules for healthy eating, you will very likely end up as big as a house.
The government just wants to get every food producer’s vote in the country. TG
and don’t forget, these are the same dairy farmers who currently have 40+ % of the Canadian milk quota , who also strongly support an independent Quebec BUT who insist that the country of Quebec would still keep their milk quota in Canada.
Gotta love these moonbats . . they have been living off the rest of Canada, protected from competetion by the supply system ( READ SUBSIDY) for so long they actually believe they will be able to manipulate the government of Canada after they leave.
They need a remedial course in bullshit removal from the stalls.
Quebec’s dairy industry has been an ( excuse me) “sacred cow” which has required landmark SCC rulings on jurisdiction and constitutional private sector operational modes ( the margerine reference)Let’s also recall the feds have the Dairy industries in ROC subsidizing and protecting Quebe’s local dairy industy for the past 50 years. I am in shock that the Francophonie margerine nazies are still as militaristic towards synthetic butter as they were in the 1950’s.
The real message here is not that Quebec still hosts outdated isolationist marketing police, but the fact that Quebec culture is still partially immersed in 19th century Jean Jaur�s trade/market economics. As far as this westerner is concerned that makes them incompatable with the ROC and the NAFT bloc. We note that most of the complaints from the Americans over NAFTA have involved the unfair subsidies Quebec’s socialist kleptocrats dole out to their local patronage business catels. No Province in Canada has more isolationist/restrictive trade practices and anti-laissez faire market control bureacracy.
The Margerine flair up is a glimpse at the nationalist-socialist economics of Quebec.
“I’m all for eliminating “industrial plastic” masquerading as food.
If it comes out of a factory, it’s adulterated…scrap it!”
Look, if you don’t want to eat it, don’t buy it. Given my heart condition, I need to stick with Becel for health reasons. Keep in mind that some of us not only like the product, but have valid health reasons for using it. Forcing your love of butter on others could have deadly consequences.
Candice said: “That used to be a law in Alberta as well. I remember my mother mixing margarine (which came in a white block) with a package of dye (which came with the margarine) if you wanted it to look more like butter, ”
That is the direct result of the 1949 Quebec Margerine reference to the SCC. Quebec’s protected isolationist dairy industry was paranoid over the appearence of improved margerine on the Canadian market and pressured Ottawa to outlaw it. Fortunately for Canadians (and their constitutional rights) this was challenged by private interests outside Quebec who made a constitutional jurisdictional case of it arguing that the regulation of common consumer commodities such as margerine did not come under the scope of the federal criminal law making power….funny how margerine was the trigger point which saved Canadians from a Quebec-controlled federal government exerting criminal law powers to make power-grabbing incursions into the most mundane provincial jurisdictions.
At any rate, the compromise was that margerine in Canada was not to “look” like butter,… thus the Canadian margerine consumer outside Quebec had to endure the yellow food dye pellet that mixed into his bag of white margerine to make it look more palatable. Over the years most provincial agriculture departements ignored this federal directive and allowed margerine makers/importers to make the synthetic spreads look and taste more like butter, turning the choice ( outside Quebec) back to market forces of the consumer demand curve.
I would advise all SDA readers to read the arguments in the SCC margerine reference to see for themselves just how accomodating Ottawa is of Quebec-based policies when they provide an impetus to grab more provincial jurisdictions in ROC under some loopy Franco-statist premise.
Personaly I don’t begrudge Quebecers the right to put up with insane machinations of their politically inbred totalitarian statist policies such as “margerine nazis” and “language/sign gestapo”, but I’ll be damed if I see this type of perverse anti constitutional Jacobin statism corrupt constitutional jurisdictional restraints on Federal power. The first step will be by removing the current Martin-Chretien Quebec mafia from federal power.
I kissed the friendly brown-eyed cow, that gives us milk and cheese.
I’m laying in my nursery now-with a politically incorrect disease.
The petty socilist mind at work.
Ontario also carried margarine with a colour blob in it in the 60s. I don’t recall the world coming to an end once it came pre-mixed.
Butter may be natural and may even be healthier for some in the long run, but I can’t stand the stuff. I’ll continue to use margarine, some can continue to use butter and we’ll all be happy.
Tip for restaurant toast – ask for it dry with butter/marg on the side. You’ll never have to wring your toast out again.
This makes my smuggling of coloured margarine to my mother in Montreal all the more enjoyable – along with wine from Ontario. Wine costs about 15% more in Quebec. I then bring German or Dutch beer (bought at Costco) back into Ontario and save about 33%. The economy at work.
eastern paul:
Not all margarine is hydrogenated – Becel isn’t. Recommended by my doctor.
FWIW – Unilever took the Quebec government to court over this issue based upon a test case of a store selling coloured margarine. I believe Unilever lost.
http://www.unilever.ca/corporate/index.asp?section=news&archived=0
Mark Steyn demonstrates why Quebec is truly hopeless (and a lovely slash at Martin too):
“A separatist fantasyland: Quebecers are having too much fun to secede from Canada”, Western Standard, Nov. 14
http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=1207&pagenumber=1
Excerpt:
‘M. Boisclair is almost too good a personification of the phenomenon: a coked-up gay “party boy” routinely described as having “matinee idol looks.” One met such figures in older societies, usually dissolute aristocrats, scions of duchies and marquessates squandering the wealth of centuries. But M. Boisclair doesn’t need to do that. The “party boy” has been in government since his election to the National Assembly at the age of 23.
A government-funded hedonist defined by his appetites is, in every sense, “the new face of Quebec politics,” though I wonder what some of the old faces from the first generation of Quiet Revolutionaries would make of him. As I wrote here a few months back, “In the sixties, Quebec separatists made the strategically disastrous decision to reject both the Queen and the Pope, the Crown and the cross–and, because they disdained the latter, they’ll never be rid of the former.” Young Quebecers trend separatist, but there aren’t enough of them. Had the province’s Catholics maintained traditional birthrates, they would have won their country. Instead, the glorious r�publique slips a little more beyond their grasp within each census.’
Mark
Ottawa
Margarine is for QUITTERS.
~B
let them have their own country, I like my yellow marg!
I can’t believe people still buy into the marketing propoganda that margarine is healthier and good for us. Margarine is about the worst food product one can consume. It is an artificial product similar in structure to plastic and is made by forcing hydrogen gas through liquid vegetable oils under extreme pressure/heat with highly toxic nickel metal to complete the reaction and harden it into a consistency of butter. This results in an astounding high content of TRANS FATTY ACIDS.
Dr. Johanna Budwig originally blew the whistle on TRANS FATTY ACIDS and margarine in Germany.
Dr. Mary Enig is the modern day authority on this killer.
The key to consuming large amounts of fats in our diet and remaining healthy is to consume fats and oils raw. You can consume as much raw butter, raw coconut cream, and extra virgin olive oil as you want. I consider people who have researched the subject of TRANS FATTY ACIDS and continue to consume them in margarine and shortening to be suicidal.
Jack Layton may be out to lunch on many things but his past proposal to ban TRANS FATTY ACIDS is a sound one because if we continue to consume these our health care budget for cancer, heart disease and diabetes will become unmanagable.
Corey:
For God’s sake man, do your research:
“If using margarine, choose a soft tub margarine. Soft tub margarines tend to contain less trans fat than harder margarines. There are some soft tub margarines thatare non-hydrogenated and have no trans fat. Some examples are Becel�, Olivina� ,Our Compliments Supreme�, 7 Reasons Non-Hydrogenated�, Fleischmann�s Non-Hydrogenated� and Fleischmann�s 10% Olive Oil�.
http://www.toronto.ca/health/pdf/nm_transfat.pdf
I like Imperial myself just because it tastes the best. My mother recommended Country Crock as a healthier alternative, but the darn crap just made my toast soggy. This was mentioned earlier, but moderation is the key. Enjoy life. If the butter don’t get you, something else will.
putting the raid on margarine on one side of the country, handing out free needles on the other side.
does anything make sense anymore??
It’s a wonder the taxaholic Liberals didn’t just put a “sin” tax on it so you would have to pay $10 for a tub of yellow margarine. It’s the Canadian way. Oooop! I hope the PM and Ralph Goodybag don’t read this blog.
John B,
Yes, you are correct, there are available, “non-hydrogenated” vegetable spreads out there. My comment was directed to the majority of hard stick margarines available and shortenings which can be over 60% trans fat.
I didn’t really want to get into it over this blog but yes, I have done my research on nutrition and especially fats and oils. Starting with Udo Erasmus who earned his nutrition Ph.D thesis on fats and oils and ending with Aajonus Vonderplanitz who has consumed an exclusive all raw animal food based diet for over 30 years. The reality is that all the brands you mentioned still have been processed, that is heated, deodorized, fractionated, preserved and colored.
They may not contain appreciable amounts of trans fatty acids but they are not healthy. They no longer exchange ions, they are devoid of any enzyme content, stripped of nutrient co-factors like vitamins, contain lipid oxides and peroxides and lack essential electrochemical properties of cellular transduction.
I consume the Primaldiet as espoused by Vonderplanitz now for almost 5 years and consume a minimum of 1/2 pound of either raw butter or raw, fresh made coconut cream or both daily with at least 2 pounds of raw flesh(beef, venison, seafood) I have done my research and can piss biochemistry with you all day on this subject if you like.
Corey:
“consume a minimum of 1/2 pound of either raw butter or raw, fresh made coconut cream or both daily with at least 2 pounds of raw flesh”
Geez – how much do you weigh?
Personally, I prefer extra virgin olive oil – and yes, I do use butter for cooking.
John,
I do not become obese because I consume very little carbs. Carbs are the culprit in weight gain. Another reason I do not gain a sloppy, cellulite like watery fat is because the fats I eat are all raw. The body can fully utilise these raw fats. If the fats were cooked they would not be properly metabolised.
Extra virgin olive oil is used by the body primarily for cleansing. The unsaturated nature of this oil and others like flax and sunflower act like solvents in the body, penetrating scar tissue and softening organs. They do not replace saturated fats which are vital for soothing irritaing substances and fueling the body. The body requires approx. 80% more saturated fat than unsaturated fat like olive oil.
The best affordable brand of olive oil that is truly cold pressed and raw is made by Spectrum Naturals(tm) They make a pleasant tasting organic variety.
I am astonished that Wal-Mart would try such a horrible scheme of infiltration! Appalled!
How dare they attempt to sell YELLOW margarine to unsuspecting Canadians? The unmitigated gall!
Thank God the Canadian Government is on guard against such heinous crimes!