Ottawa Puts End to West Coast, Montreal Port Disputes

Nov 13, 2024

The federal government is putting an end to the labour strife currently impacting ports in Montreal and on the west coast.

Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon announced Tuesday that is directing the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order the resumption of all operations at the ports and move stalled contract talks to binding arbitration.

"Negotiated agreements are the best way forward, but we must not allow other Canadians to suffer when certain parties do not fulfil their responsibility to reach an agreement," MacKinnon said in a statement. "It is my duty and responsibility to act in the interest of businesses, workers, farmers, families and all Canadians."

Although bulk grain movement was not being impacted at either port, the week-long lockout of approximately 700 port foremen at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert was affecting the shipment of pulse and other crops that move via container. Meanwhile, about 1,200 longshore workers were locked out Sunday night at the Port of Montreal, a key hub for Ontario fertilizer imports.

The federal government also intervened back in August after a contract impasse halted operations at Canada’s two national railways.

Russel Hurst, executive director of the Ontario Agri Business Association, said on Monday about half of all eastern Canada fertilizer shipments were already landed in place, but expressed relief port operations would be restored.

“These labour disputes are wreaking havoc on trade,” he said. “We have a hard enough time being competitive and adding these ongoing challenges to the supply chain is painful.”

Source : Syngenta.ca

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.