Frank Portman reads case law daily, at a volume that few lawyers match once they leave law school. It's integral to his job, which is in an area of law that is considered relatively fluid when compared to most other areas of practice.
He also works in a more grizzly area of practice - not for the faint of heart - health and safety regulation. You may remember this mid-2000s WSIB spot about a young woman being scalded while working as a sous-chef in what I consider the most NSFL PSA ever broadcast on television. Well, those accidents actually happen and the crown generally has something to say about the workplaces in which they occur. This is what Frank does.
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In an age where almost all Canadian grain/corn/soy/sugar/alfalfa is proprietarily grown and everything else is grown from seed that is imported from abroad, Aabir and the Bauta Initiative are saying that our seed system needs some help to retain characteristics like "regionally adapted," "open source," "biodiverse germplasm," and "secure seed". Aabir speaks clearly and with insight on how ecological vegetable farmers need some help and how the farer service as a producer of food and public good needs to be reexamined at a policy and legal level. Canada doesn't have a celebrity chef like Dan Barber to bring into the mainstream these major issues of agricultural policy. If we have more people like Aabir and his colleagues working on the issue, maybe that's okay. Maybe their voices will be heard.
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Liquor law is crazy stuff. Legislation has often had more to do with religio- and socio-cultural values than good public policy surrounding safety, certainty, jobs, and good government.
Joining us this month is Dan Coles, a litigator and specialist in liquor law from Owen Bird Law Corporation in Vancouver, to talk about the reform process and how it has affected British Columbians.
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Carly and Glenford discuss the Burnham Complaint, Jen Agg’s Kitchen Bitches Conference, Rene Redzepi and David Chang’s perspective on managing a kitchen, and examine some of the opportunities available to restaurant owners and managers to create a better workplace. about how to design a healthier hospitality kitchen by asking the question: are 21st century chefs still working in 20th century work environments?
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