Republican congressman rips Texas GOP for suggesting secession and says 'my guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no'

© Associated Press 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who represents Illinois' 16th District, said in a tweet the Texas GOP should immediately delete their statement.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election.

In a statement, the Texas GOP chairman suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution."

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the statement should be immediately retracted and the people involved fired. "My guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no," he said.


Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election.

In a statement, the Republican Party of Texas decried the court's decision, with Chairman Allen West suggesting that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution."


Kinzinger, who represents Illinois' 16th District, said in a tweet the Texas GOP "should immediately retract this, apologize, and fire Allen West and anyone else associated with this."

"My guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no," he said.

Kinzinger has also criticized President Donald Trump, dismissing his election-fraud claims as baseless.

Brought by Texas, and joined by other Republican-led states, the lawsuit the Supreme Court rejected was the latest attempt by Trump allies to subvert the results of the election. The effort was seen as a legally dubious attempt to have judges interfere with the democratic process.

The loss is the latest in a string of defeats for the Trump campaign and Republican officials, who have not won any of their lawsuits brought since Election Day.

Read the original article on Business Insider

 

#POPULARFRONT

Lincoln Project Co-Founder to Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez: 'We Need to Work Together' or We'll 'Lose America'
Reid Nakamura

© TheWrap Steve Schmidt Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


ANTI SOCIALIST, HISTORICAL REVISIONIST, 

PRO CAPITALISM APOLOGIST

Steve Schmidt, the ex-Republican and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, tweeted a lengthy thread on Friday night reaching out to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal critic of the group in the past. His proposed goal: joining forces to prevent "losing this country to Autocrats."

"I have an idea. Let's approach each other and our points of view with good faith," he wrote. "We say the following with respect and seriousness Ma'am. Our hand is open and we need to work together or we are going to lose America. The fight will last for many years."

STEVE PROMOTES THE STALINIST POPULAR FRONT
Schmidt proposed unity between his group and Ocasio-Cortez against "nationalists, white nationalists, fascist proud boys, militia groups, conspiracy theorists ect. [sic]"

"We are the left and right flanks of a broad coalition. Should we buckle, they will win. We must not," Schmidt wrote.

Also read: Lincoln Project Ads Failed to Turn Battleground State Republicans Into Biden Voters, Study Says

Founded by Schmidt and a group of other anti-Trump Republican strategists in 2019, The Lincoln Project raked in tens of millions of dollars in the last election cycle to help defeat Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. However, the group has been met with skepticism from Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left who are suspicious of the effectiveness of the group's viral video-centric messaging.

Back in November, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that The Lincoln Project was "def in scam territory" and advised that they should "take the L and publicly pledge to give a lot of their fundraising to the people who actually made a big difference."

Video: Steve Schmidt: We are ‘one election away… from losing our democracy’ (MSNBC)

A recent study by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA came to a similar conclusion, finding that the more popular a Lincoln Project ad was on Twitter (measured through likes and retweets), the less likely it was to persuade a battleground voter to vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.

Read the full thread below or click here.

Popular front - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_front

A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, usually made up of leftists and centrists. They are very broad and sometimes include centrist radical or liberal forces as well as social-democratic and communist groups.

• Overview
• Comintern policy: 1934–1939
• Soviet bloc
• List of popular fronts
• List of national fronts
• See also
• Footnotes

Popular fronts are larger in scope than united fronts.

In addition to the general definition, the term "popular front" also has a specific meaning in the history of 1930s Europe and the United States and in the history of Communist Parties. During this time, the front populaire referred to the alliance of political parties in France that was aimed at resisti…

Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license

Popular front | European coalition | Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/topic/popular-front-European-coalition

Popular front, any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties united for the defense of democratic forms against a presumed Fascist assault. In the mid-1930s European Communist concern over the gains of Fascism, combined with a Soviet policy shift, led Communist parties to join with Socialist, liberal, and moderate parties in popular fronts against Fascist conquest.

Popular Front and Stalinist Terror, 1934–9 | SpringerLink

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-25024-0_4

Abstract. The era of the Popular Front occupies a special place in the historiography of the Communist International and has for many years stimulated a rich controversy. The Comintern’s apparently sudden volte-face in 1934–5, abandoning the sectarian tactics of the Third Period and embracing broad anti-fascist alliances with socialist and liberal parties, has been seen as the result of Stalin’s direct …

• Author: Kevin McDermott, Jeremy Agnew

• Publish Year: 1996

Defending Democracy: The Popular Fronts and Stalin ...

https://thamesdarwin.home.blog/2018/11/26/defending-democracy-the...

2018-11-26 · In the case of Spain, George Orwell perhaps made the most eloquent case for Stalinist intrigue being a major culprit in the failure of the Popular Front government to successfully withstand the coup of the generals, although to attribute Franco’s victory entirely to Stalin 

Perdue, Ocasio-Cortez spar on Twitter over Georgia races
Kaelan Deese THE HILL

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sparred Saturday over the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs, with the progressive congresswoman urging Democrats to turn out to vote and the GOP senator pushing the liberal firebrand to go to Georgia and campaign in person.

© Getty Perdue, Ocasio-Cortez spar on Twitter over Georgia races

The back-and-forth began after Ocasio-Cortez this week encouraged supporters in Georgia to vote for the two Democrats running in the Jan. 5 runoffs in order to help the party secure a Senate majority and advance progressive priorities such as a $15 minimum wage and expanded access to health care.

Perdue shared a report about Ocasio-Cortez's remarks, adding, "our offer still stands - come on down to Georgia, we'll buy your ticket!"

The GOP senator had urged the progressive lawmaker to visit the state last month and campaign for his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, telling Fox News then, "I want to buy her ticket. I want her to come."

Ocasio-Cortez fired back on Saturday in a tweet referencing scrutiny Perdue has faced this year surrounding his stock trades during the coronavirus pandemic, something Democrats have hoped will sway the race in favor of Ossoff.

"And what money are you going to buy that ticket with, Perdue? The curiously 'well-timed' stocks you've cashed in on while in office?" Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

The Georgia senator pushed back, writing, "I thought 'free' stuff was your thing?"

"Either way, I'm in Georgia talking to voters. We'd love to have you," he added.

Ocasio-Cortez has been campaigning in support of Georgia Democrats over the past several weeks, with her team reporting raising over $600,000 for outside groups seeking to elect Ossoff and fellow Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock, according to Politico.

Additionally, other members of "The Squad" of progressive congresswomen - Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) - have reportedly worked to boost Muslim voter turnout in the state, including with robocalls, the newspaper reported.

Neither Ossoff nor Warnock back "Medicare for All," a top priority among those in the party's liberal wing such as Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Still, progressives have joined efforts to boost the Georgia Democrats as part of a push by Democrats to secure a Senate majority, and thereby total control of Congress.

"Bernie Sanders wants there to be a Democratic Senate. If we're going to see any progress on Joe Biden's pro-worker economic proposals, we need to have a Democratic Senate," Jeff Weaver, Sanders's longtime adviser, told Politico.

Democrats would need to win both Senate races in order to hold a majority in the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. However, Republicans would maintain their narrow majority if at least one of the Georgia GOP candidates, Perdue or Sen. Kelly Loeffler, pulls out a win.

Perdue, Ocasio-Cortez spar on Twitter over Georgia races (msn.com)

CHEEKY

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses Republicans of defunding the police by refusing to send aid to state and local governments

insider@insider.com (Eliza Relman) 1 day ago

© Bill Clark/Getty Images 

Protesters march down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol as George Floyd police brutality demonstrations and marches are held around Washington, DC, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Republicans of effectively defunding the police by opposing sending federal aid to states and cities as part of Congress' COVID-19 relief package. 

"You want to know who's actually trying to defund the police? Republicans," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Because Republicans are trying to block state and local funding so that those budgets dry up." 

By turning "defund the police" back on Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez, who has embraced the left-wing calls, appeared to concede that the slogan is unpopular and controversial, even among Democrats.

She acknowledged on Thursday that sending aid to states and cities would help fund police in the "short term."

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday attempted to redirect criticism over calls to defund the police to Republicans who oppose sending federal aid to state, local, and tribal governments amid the pandemic.

Ocasio-Cortez, who supports left-wing activists' demands to reallocate law enforcement funding, made the case that Republicans are effectively defunding law enforcement across the country by refusing to support the aid during an Instagram livestream on Thursday night.

"One part of this COVID package is to get states and localities money so they can keep paying their police officers," Ocasio-Cortez told tens of thousands of her online followers. "Everyone's talking about defund. You want to know who's actually trying to defund the police? Republicans. Because Republicans are trying to block state and local funding so that those budgets dry up."

The freshman Democrat explained that the federal funding Democrats want to include in the relief bill would help pay for frontline workers, including teachers, firefighters, healthcare providers, in addition to police departments.

Outside of the progressive left, there's broad consensus among Democrats that an embrace of calls to defund the police hurt Democratic candidates down ballot this year. President-elect Joe Biden, who has called for police reform but rejects the "defund" language, recently privately told civil rights leaders that Republicans "beat the living hell out of us across the country" by accusing Democrats of pushing to defund the police.


By turning "defund the police" back on Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to concede that the slogan is unpopular and controversial, even among Democrats. She acknowledged on Thursday that sending aid to states and cities would help fund police in the "short term."

The congresswoman has been heavily criticized by members of her own party for embracing calls to defund the police over the last year. But the Bronx native has largely rejected this criticism, insisting that New York City spends far too much on the police, particularly in comparison to social services, and that Democrats should listen to activists' demands.

© Mario Tama/Getty Images 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

A battle over popular aid for states and cities

State and local governments have suffered from dramatic drops in tax revenue as unemployment has soared, and from tourism and retail as governments have been forced to close businesses throughout the pandemic.

Congress sent $150 billion to states and large cities and counties as part of the $4 trillion CARES Act last March. But experts predict states will collectively lose at least $500 billion in revenue over the next few years as a result of the pandemic and economic crisis. While the federal government can deficit spend, states must balance their annual budgets and are forced to make spending cuts if their revenue falls.

State and local leaders have requested between $500 billion and $1 trillion in additional aid as the virus surges across the country. The House included $500 billion in aid to cities and states in the $2.2 trillion it passed in October. Over the last several months, a handful of major cities, including New York and Los Angeles, have announced budget cuts to their police departments.

But while Democrats insist that state and local funding must be part of any pandemic relief package, Republican lawmakers are staunchly opposed to such aid. President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of wanting to bail out "poorly run states."

"Tennesseans are very much opposed to having their hard-earned dollars ... used to bail out states who have chosen not to be fiscally responsible," GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said on Friday. "They say above all else, do not bail out these states, these cities, these pension funds."

Polling has found that the vast majority of Americans, including large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support federal funding for state and municipal governments during the pandemic. A CNBC/Change Research poll conducted at the end of July found that 68% of Americans in six swing states supported such aid as local governments are forced to lay off workers and defund important services and projects.

At the same time, just 32% of swing state respondents supported the GOP proposal to shield corporations and schools from liability.

A national Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted in April found that 74% of Americans - 65% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats - said the federal government "should be responsible for providing financial support to states during the coronavirus pandemic."
Read the original article on Business Insider

AP Interview: Vaccine maker sees pandemic as 'wake-up call'

Fri., December 11, 2020



NEW DELHI — The coronavirus pandemic is a “wake up call” for governments to invest more in health care, says Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines.

The Serum Institute has taken on a vital role as the largest company licensed to manufacture the Oxford University-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. It is increasing its production capacity by the end of 2021 to over 2.5 billion doses a year to cope with future disease outbreaks, Poonawalla said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Poonawalla's company now has an annual capacity of 1.5 billion doses. That is more than the billion doses that China, home to the most vaccine makers in the world, says it manufactures in a year.

Looking beyond the pandemic, he said he anticipates more diseases jumping from animal to human hosts, driving huge demand for vaccines, so the extra capacity is likely to be useful in coming decades.

“I think (the demand) is going to keep growing even more exponentially, compared to the last five or ten years,” Poonawalla said Wednesday.

Loss of forests and human incursions into wild habitats create more opportunities for such pathogens to make the jump. That was true of COVID-19 and other illnesses such as SARS, MERS and HIV-AIDS.

Existing research indicates that India, with its high population density and biodiverse forests, is among the most likely places for the emergence of such new diseases.

For now, the Serum Institute is focused on the coronavirus. It has committed to supplying the Oxford University-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to developing nations through COVAX, an ambitious global initiative to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to countries worldwide.

Most of the vaccines that will be manufactured in the coming year have been reserved by richer nations, so Serum Institute's role will be “pivotal”, said Anna Marriott, a health policy adviser at Oxfam UK. “Where else might the vaccine supply come from?” she asked.

So far, the company has made 50 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine. It plans to make up to 100 million doses each month, starting next year, Poonawalla said. The company also has a deal with U.S.-based Novavax for their experimental COVID-19 vaccine but has not yet begun making it. India has indicated that it wants 300 million doses by July. After that, Serum Institute will be distributing vaccines to the world.

“It’ll still take two months (after it is licensed) before large volumes roll out,” he said.

In April, before it was known whether any vaccine could work against the coronavirus, Serum bet on several vaccine candidates and invested in building its capacity.

Like many Indian companies, it is family-run, founded in 1966 by Poonawalla's father and its current chairman, Cyrus Poonawalla, and so had leeway to take that kind of risk.

The younger Poonawalla said the company faced a “moral dilemma” over waiting to be sure a vaccine might succeed and risking millions of lives.

But the pandemic has highlighted the “power of vaccines” since they generally are affordable and can help prevent expensive hospitalization, he said. “It’s a cheap and good solution to health care.”

Countries spend too little on health care infrastructure, mistakenly viewing it as less important for the economy and political optics than investing in defence or space programs that highlight their growing might. That is particularly true, Poonawalla said, of developing nations like India, “Whether it's hospitals, drug discovery (or) vaccines.”

The pandemic should lead to greater support for research and health systems,. “I hope at least,” he added

___

Associated Press writer Maria Cheng in Toronto contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Aniruddha Ghosal, The Associated Press

THAT'S REALISTIC

GSK, Sanofi say COVID-19 shot won't be ready until late 2021

Fri., December 11, 2020

LONDON — Drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi say their potential COVID-19 vaccine won’t be ready until late next year as they seek to improve the shot’s effectiveness in older people.

The companies said Friday that early-stage trials showed the vaccine produced an “insufficient” immune response in older adults, demonstrating the need to refine the product so it protects people of all ages. They said they now expect the vaccine to be available in the fourth quarter of 2021.

GSK and Sanofi, based in London and Paris, respectively, said they were confident of the vaccine’s ultimate success due to positive results from other tests.

In adults 18 to 49, the vaccine produced an immune response comparable to patients who had recovered from COVID-19, the companies said. In addition, they reported positive results from a “challenge study” in which non-human primates were intentionally exposed to the virus.

“We have identified the path forward and remain confident and committed to bringing a safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccine,” Thomas Triomphe, head of Sanofi’s vaccine unit, said in a statement. “Following these results and the latest encouraging new preclinical data, we will now work to further optimize our candidate to achieve this goal.''

The Associated Press

The Current IPO Craze Is Starting to Look a Lot Like 1999

Joanna Ossinger
Fri., December 11, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- Initial public offerings have been doing extremely well lately, bringing to mind the excesses of the tech bubble in the late 1990s.

Shares in Chinese toymaker Pop Mart International Ltd. jumped as much as 112% in their debut Friday, after home-rental platform Airbnb Inc. closed 113% above its IPO price in New York. JD Health International Inc. surged 56% in its debut Tuesday while DoorDash Inc. soared 86% in on Wednesday.

The FTSE Renaissance Global IPO Index, which tracks the performance of offerings worldwide, is up 82% this year, compared with a 12% gain for MSCI’s all-country equity index. Comparing the current period with the dot-com bubble is hard to do directly because the Renaissance IPO Index didn’t start until 2009, and a Bloomberg index that was around in the dot-com boom became defunct in 2017.

There are some pretty clear similarities between the Bloomberg index versus the S&P 500 in 1998-99 and the Renaissance gauge now, noted Cameron Crise, a macro strategist at Bloomberg. The performance after that in the late 1990s was even more dramatic. If IPOs were to follow the same pattern now, they would have a huge jump still to come -- before a pretty spectacular drop.



“The action in these names is definitely a concern for us,” said Matt Maley, a strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., speaking about the U.S. IPOs.

“However, we’d also note that experience tells us that froth in the IPO market tends to be a ‘leading indicator’ for an important top -- not an ‘immediate indicator’ of a top. In other words, yesterday’s action in the IPO market probably tells us that we’ll see a meaningful correction at some point over the next six to nine months, not necessarily over the next few days/weeks.”

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©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Coal Mining Accidents Tests China’s Control of Its Cheapest Fuel

Bloomberg News Fri., December 11, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- At China’s biggest coal event in the mining hub of Shanxi, the industry’s top executives signed deals over three days for more coal than other nations typically use in a year.

But the bustling deal-making signals deeper problems in a market vital to the smooth-running of the world’s second-biggest economy. A series of deadly mining accidents has hit output, while self-imposed import restrictions -- including on key supplier Australia -- limit shipments from overseas.

The result is a supply crunch at a time when winter demand for heating is peaking and industrial activity is surging. The price of coal used in power plants has soared far beyond the government’s tolerance levels to record levels. The market for coking coal used by the steel industry isn’t far behind.

Even as China’s climate ambitions drive an eventual break with coal, the highly polluting fuel remains critical to powering its cities and factories, and the effort to revive growth after the pandemic. It provides half the country’s energy needs at an unmatchable price. Beijing’s response to the fatalities -- shutting mines and demanding more stringent safety inspections -- may benefit producers via higher prices, but it piles on the costs for utilities and China’s vast industrial base.

“Coal prices will remain high in the near term,” said Dennis Ip, an analyst with Daiwa Capital Markets. “This winter is expected to be a cold one and year-end stocking demand is increasing, so coal demand will likely be strong, while coal supply remains restrained as safety checks have strengthened due to coal mine accidents along with the continued ban on Australian coal.”

Mining Deaths

The industry has dramatically improved safety in recent years, with annual deaths falling from the thousands to the low hundreds. But fatalities have ticked-up slightly in 2020, and regulators are particularly concerned about a spate of accidents beginning in late September, when 16 people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a mine in Chongqing.

Two more fatal accidents in the southwestern city in late November prompted the authorities to shut down all its mines. Output elsewhere has been crimped by increased inspections, which require suspending operations.

The accidents have exposed illegal production, weak safety and inadequate supervision, a government official told the Shanxi trade fair. And the pandemic could be partly at fault, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michelle Leung, as smaller miners may have taken short-cuts to recover lost output after lockdown measures forced temporary shutdowns for lack of workers.

Those suspensions caused imports to surge in the early months of the year as power plants sought alternatives. Once domestic production had rebounded, the government reversed course by drastically curbing overseas supplies. On top of that, Beijing has responded to souring diplomatic relations with Australia by stranding millions of tons of its coal on ships off Chinese ports.

“Because of the deteriorating relationship between China and Australia, imports won’t be able to relieve the supply tightness this year,” Ip said.

Supply Hits

The hits to supply are coming at the beginning of what’s expected to be a chillier-than-usual winter because of the La Nina weather pattern. Demand for coal is rising as power plants try to stock up in anticipation of extra heating needs, said Jennifer Song, a Shenzhen-based analyst with Morningstar.

And that seasonal shift has been accompanied by a broader rebound in electricity consumption as China’s industrial sector completes a V-shaped recovery from the pandemic, which is “the primary reason driving strong coal demand,” Song said.

The Chinese government likes its coal market just as Goldilocks liked her porridge -- neither too hot nor too cold. It means keeping prices in a band known as the green zone that allows miners to make money without impinging on profits at power plants. But the current rally has busted the upper limit, and officials are starting to take action.

Price-reporting agencies last week suspended publication of some widely used indexes. That’s happened before when green zone limits have been breached, and the market typically takes it as a sign of Beijing’s displeasure.

The green zone band is typically between 500 and 570 yuan ($76 to $87) a ton, but spot prices are now well above 600 yuan and bids are closer to 700, according to analysts. Thermal coal futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange closed 1.1% lower Friday at 744.6 yuan a ton, and traded at about $34 a ton more than Australian supplies.

Runaway Prices

More consequentially, China’s top economic planning agency is looking at longer term fixes. Those include hastening so-called supply-side reforms that would concentrate the sprawling industry around larger, safer and more efficient producers, building more coal reserves, and promoting longer-dated supply deals to smooth price volatility.

Such contracts for 740 million tons were announced on the first day of the Shanxi trade fair. India, the world’s second-biggest consumer, uses about 585 million tons in a year. So far, though, such efforts haven’t been enough to stop the runaway rise in prices. “The government did take some actions, but the actions haven’t helped,” Song said.

The longer term outlook is much more bearish as the government champions renewable energy to meet its climate pledge of net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. While that’s helped drive the cost of wind and solar power to levels near that of coal, China is still building new coal power plants to ensure it can meet rising power demand.

As for coal prices, most analysts expect they will remain elevated at least through mid-February, as the cold weather and the need to stockpile before the Lunar New Year holiday will continue to stoke demand. “The weather is going to stay cold, and supplies are going to stay tight,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Leung.

(Updates price in 15th paragraph)

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CANADA'S OTHER NATURAL RESOURCE EXPORT

Maple syrup harvest hits record high in 2020; sales also rise




OTTAWA — Canada's maple syrup harvest hit a record high of 14.3 million gallons this year, despite shutdowns during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Statistics Canada said on Thursday.

This year's harvest was 8.3 per cent higher than the 2019 record of 13.2 million gallons, pushing syrup sales up 7.9 per cent to $558.5 million this year.

Exports of Canadian maple syrup jumped nearly 22 per cent compared with 2019 in the first nine months of the year, much faster than the gains of 3.2 per cent between 2018 and 2019, the report said.

Quebec producers saw the lion's share of the gains, with yields falling in 6.2 per cent in New Brunswick, 6.9 per cent Ontario and 20.7 per cent in Nova Scotia.

Cancelled local festivals and breakfast events took a toll on smaller sugar shacks, but Quebec firms were boosted by good spring weather and more taps, Statistics Canada found.

Quebec, where prices are controlled by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, produces almost three-quarters of the global maple syrup supply, and accounts for 90 per cent of Canadian maple syrup production.

While the price in Quebec remained at $38.55 per gallon, other producers saw prices fall. Sales of Nova Scotia syrup fell by a fourth to $2.8 million, in part due to lower prices for bulk syrup, the report said. In New Brunswick, prices fell $2.05 per gallon to $36.78.

Statistics Canada noted that like many other industries, syrup producers have had to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Quebec, harvesters reported new ways of delivering barrels and cleaning equipment, while other firms turned to online sales and phone banking with farm visits on hold in the spring.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2020.

The Canadian Press

Lab-Grown Meat Is Getting Closer to Supermarket Shelves

Agnieszka de Sousa
Thu., December 10, 2020

Lab-Grown Meat Is Getting Closer to Supermarket Shelves

(Bloomberg) -- Slaughter-free meat is finally starting to make the jump from the lab to the factory line.

As Singapore becomes the first country to allow the sale of cultured meat, more startups around the world are preparing to test production of lab-grown meats like beef and chicken in factories. While there’s a long way to go, it’s a crucial step in getting cell-based products ready for supermarket shelves.

Mosa Meat BV, started by cultured meat pioneer Mark Post, is among at least eight companies building or operating pilot sites. The Dutch company, which made the world’s first cultivated beef burger, has been raising funds for those efforts and plans to upgrade small-scale output in the first half of next year, before moving to a full industrial site as early as the end of 2022.

“We proved already in 2013 that we can make a hamburger,” Mosa Chief Executive Officer Maarten Bosch said in an interview. “Now it’s all about scaling up and getting the cost where it should be. That’s exactly what this phase is all about.”

Lab-meat startups have grown from a handful in 2016 to at least 60 now, according to consultant Lux Research Inc. The sector wants to make production more humane and environmentally sustainable and has attracted record venture-capital funding this year. Just last week, Singapore approved Eat Just Inc. to sell cultured chicken, at a time when interest in alternative proteins is growing.

There are still lots of challenges -- from cutting high costs and making large-scale production feasible to winning regulatory approval. With cultivated meat costing $400 to $2,000 a kilogram (2.2 pounds) to make, there’s still a long way until prices compete with conventional meats, according to Lux.

“Economies of scale are likely to help lower the cost in years to come,” said Harini Venkataraman, a Lux analyst in Amsterdam. “That is why these pilot plants are such important milestones.”

The cell-based meat market is projected to reach $140 billion in the next decade, according to forecasts compiled by Blue Horizon Corp. AG, which invests in alternative proteins.

Startups announcing test plants include Memphis Meats Inc., which has received backing from Richard Branson and Tyson Foods Inc., as well as cell-based seafood maker BlueNalu Inc. Aleph Farms Ltd., which this week hosted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to taste its beefsteak, is also working on a pilot plant. Companies such as BioTech Foods, SuperMeat and Eat Just have already started testing sites.

“It’s not a question whether this is feasible,” said Ido Savir, CEO of SuperMeat, which has started a test kitchen for cultured chicken in Israel. “It’s a question of how long it will take us to go from a pilot setting, where we’re at, to a commercial scale. Things are becoming very exciting now.”

(Updates with Aleph Farms in penultimate paragraph.)

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