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Each year, some of the food industry’s most influential minds descend upon Toronto to speak at the Terroir symposium, which takes place today. We had the chance to speak with three of the event’s speakers. On Friday, we brought you a Q&A with chef Ben Shewry. Today, we present five things each that we learned from talking to sustainable seafood champion Barton Seaver and natural wine advocate Alice Feiring.
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All stories relating to shark fin
The Anti-Ford: Kristyn Wong-Tam believes Toronto is in better shape than you’re being told
In her first year on city council, Kristyn Wong-Tam hogged the spotlight with proposals to ban shark fin soup, save bike lanes and found a municipal bank. She’s a charismatic lesbian immigrant art lover who once lived on the street—the exact opposite of our mayor in every way
(Image: Naomi Harris)
The first time Kristyn Wong-Tam clashed with Rob Ford, she lay down on the carpet outside his office in protest. It was March 2008, and Ford was a councillor from Etobicoke, an outspoken character on the fringes of city politics with a talent for alienating his colleagues. Earlier that month, Ford had famously delivered a rambling speech in support of the economic advantages of holiday shopping hours that could have been cribbed from a 19th-century pamphlet about the Yellow Peril. “Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines,” Ford said on the floor of council, punching the air with his fist for emphasis. “I’m telling you, the Oriental people, they’re slowly taking over.”
That last phrase rankled Wong-Tam. At the time, the 36-year-old Chinese-Canadian was a successful realtor with no ambitions to become a city councillor, a job she saw as demanding far too much time for too little compensation. She did, however, have a long history of rabble-rousing—for gay rights, for women’s equality, for immigrants’ rights—and she believed that Ford’s comment was a xenophobic stereotype that needed to be corrected. She decided to ask for an apology.
After her emails and phone calls went unanswered, Wong-Tam brought a group of around 20 Asian protesters down to city hall. Showing a talent for media-friendly political theatre, they walked down to the press gallery wearing white dress shirts and ties, what Wong-Tam called the “Asian office uniform,” and announced they were looking for Councillor Ford. “Essentially, we’re a group of people who are working very hard,” Wong-Tam quipped, walking to Ford’s office as members of the press trailed behind her. When they found that Ford wasn’t in the building, the group brought out various contraptions—blenders, sewing machines, toasters—and lay down to sleep beside them. Cameras flashed. The video ran on loop on CP24 all afternoon.
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Richard Branson gives Toronto props for its shark fin ban
A note to the business owners and city councillors concerned about the legal, cultural and ethical implications of the city’s recent ban on shark fin: Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson says it’s cool. The professional rich person and global do-gooder has endorsed Toronto’s prohibition of the product, and he wants the federal government to follow suit by banning the importation of shark fin, according to Tribute.ca. Branson says he became interested in the plight of sharks after watching Sharkwater—you know, that documentary made by “David Suzuki with a six-pack,” a.k.a. activist filmmaker Rob Stewart. Perhaps next Branson could weigh in on other vexing questions plaguing our city, like how much to tip for a fancy, $14 cocktail. Read the entire story [Tribute.ca] »
La Palette brings back the horsemeat
La Palette’s horsemeat hiatus didn’t last long—viande chevaline will return to the menu at the Queen Street bistro as of this week. Co-owner Shamez Amlani stopped serving the French delicacy late last summer after the Toronto Star exposed questionable sourcing in the horsemeat industry, but he didn’t let the matter drop. “We’ve spent the past six months doing as much research as we can,” he told Post City. “We’re very certain that we’ll be serving our customers high-quality meat.” So what makes him think the meat is now safe? One reason could be that President Obama recently lifted the American ban on horse slaughter, meaning American workhorses would no longer be mixed into the Canadian food supply. We have a hunch this isn’t the end of the story, though—horsemeat, like shark fin and raw milk, always seems to stir up controversy. Read the entire story [Post City] »
Mississauga council puts the brakes on its shark fin ban
Back in October, Mississauga beat Toronto to the punch in banning the sale of shark fins, and on Wednesday, it beat Toronto to the punch in repealing that ban. According to a bylaw passed by council, the ban is no longer in force “until June 30, 2012” so that officials can meet with the federal government and allow business owners to adjust. “It gives us time to do our homework,” Pat Mullin, the ban’s biggest champion on council, told the Toronto Star. However, she wasn’t sure whether the bylaw would apply immediately in June or whether it would require a new vote. Stephen Chu, president of the Mississauga Chinese Business Association, believes the delay it is the first step toward a permanent repeal. “They listened to us,” he said. Toronto banned fin products just two weeks after Mississauga; hopefully for the sharks, a repeal isn’t already in the works here, too. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
Chinatown restaurants receive threatening letters over shark fins
Ever since the city banned shark fin products in October, the Toronto Chinese Business Association has received hundreds of hate-filled emails and messages. Nothing, however, has come close to the letter received on Tuesday, which claims members of the “Animal Liberation of USA/Canada” were “in your Chinatowns spreading rat poison on meat, fish, fruit and vegetables.” The letter asserts that Chinese people are “barbarians” and “animal killers” for continuing to use shark fin products, which are still legal in Toronto until September. Apparently the American “head office” will be supplying lethal E. coli bacteria to the offending restaurants. We doubt the threat is genuine; still, the Toronto Police hate crime unit says it’s taking the letter very seriously. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »
Toronto bans shark fin products; sharks everywhere rejoice
This photo has not been digitally altered (Image: John Michael McGrath)
Yesterday city council voted in favour of banning the sale of shark fin products within the limits of Toronto. The proposal passed easily, with a vote of 38 to 4, despite a warning from the city staff that Toronto may have difficulties not only enforcing the bylaw but also dealing with citizens who feel the city is intruding on their rights and freedoms. Several councillors made impassioned speeches on both sides of the issue, but our favourite moment of the meeting came long before the shark fin debate even began, when Glenn De Baeremaeker, ever the council chamber prop master, released an inflatable shark balloon into the air.
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Council to vote on shark fin ban today
(Image: Robert S. Donovan)
City council is set to vote later today on whether to ban shark fin products in Toronto, an issue that came to our attention when Brantford blazed ahead as the first Canadian city to prohibit the sale of the product. CBC News reports that as many as 300 people took part in a protest at city hall yesterday to oppose the proposed bylaw. Councillor Doug Ford is also in staunch opposition to the ban. “I won’t be voting for it,” he told the Globe and Mail. “I’m a big supporter of the Chinese community; if that’s part of their culture then we shouldn’t interfere in that.”
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Mississauga bans shark fin products
It’s official: Mississauga has beaten Toronto to the punch. While city council here has been having a hard time banning shark fin products, Mississauga councillors unanimously adopted a bylaw this morning that prohibits the possession and sale of shark fins in the city, jurisdictional issues be damned. The move makes Mississauga the largest city in Canada to outlaw the controversial seafood. Brantford made a similar decision earlier this year, and Oakville banned shark fins back in July, effectively cornering the city of Toronto from the west (of course, more shark fins are probably served north of the city). Toronto city council meets tomorrow to address the issue. Mississauga councillor Pat Mullin told the Toronto Star she hopes the city’s move will create momentum for a ban in other cities across Canada. “I hope Toronto, tomorrow, uses Mississauga as an example,” she said, which we believe would officially turn this week into no-shark week. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
City staff: banning the sale of shark fins pretty much impossible for Toronto
An anti–shark fin soup display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Image: cephalopodcast)
After the City of Brantford banned all foods that included shark fin—an ingredient culled from endangered species and traditionally served at Chinese weddings and other banquets—Scarborough councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker was quick to introduce a similar motion for Toronto. However, a report by the executive director of Municipal Licensing and Standards, Bruce Robertson, has thrown cold water on the proposal. Apparently it’s just not possible: “Although staff have identified clear concerns with the shark fin industry, no clear municipal purpose—mainly health and safety, consumer protection, or nuisance control—exists. The matter is one that clearly and more properly rests with more senior levels of government.”
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50 Reasons to Love Toronto: No. 24, Rob Stewart is the new Jacques Cousteau
(Image: Courtest of Sharwater Productions)
Nine years ago, Rob Stewart, then a 22-year-old Toronto biologist, boarded a plane to Ecuador with his brand new underwater video camera. With no experience making movies, he spent the next five years documenting how sharks are hunted for their fins. He met poachers, pirates and police, and contracted dengue fever, tuberculosis, West Nile virus and flesh-eating disease. The result of his adventure was Sharkwater, a gripping documentary that provided some seriously good PR for a species that had never really recovered from the Jaws effect. The movie won dozens of awards—Canada’s Top 10 at TIFF and Best Documentary from the Directors Guild of Canada, to name two—and the young filmmaker’s passion proved contagious. After seeing Sharkwater, Galen Weston Jr. asked Stewart to dinner, and was persuaded to order his Loblaws stores to remove shark fin soup (an Asian delicacy) from the shelves. A Grade 3 class on the tiny fishing island of Saipan was so impressed by the movie that it successfully petitioned the government to endorse a bill that bans the shark fin trade.
Glenn De Baeremaeker proposes city-wide shark fin ban, taking a cue from…Brantford?
A delicious bowl of species endangerment and cruelty (Image: avlxyz)
A couple weeks ago, the city of Brantford—yes, that Brantford—raised eyebrows when city councillors voted unanimously to ban all foods that include shark fin, making it the first city in Canada to outlaw the controversial ingredient. Although the city had a grand total of zero restaurants serving shark fin, the council intended the ban to act as a model for cities like Toronto, where shark fin can actually be found. Amazingly, it looks like it’s working.
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