The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Edmonton - Alberta meat packers reported huge profit increases because of mad cow disease, but they didn't make money from provincial BSE aid intended for ranchers, the province's auditor general reported Tuesday. Profit (before interest and taxes) at three big packing companies, Cargill, Lakeside and XL Foods, rose by 281 per cent after the mad-cow crisis began in May 2003, Fred Dunn said. The three packers made $79 a head in the before the crisis, and $216.52 a head after. The single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy discovered in Alberta in May 2003 slashed the Canadian price of cattle. Export markets closed, flooding the market in Canada and driving down the prices packers paid for cattle. But consumer demand remained steady, so the packers didn't have to cut the price they charged. Vancouver - Three of Canada's major banks will have to defend the way they charge interest on their credit cards, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled. Cheryl Dahl and Donna Leis took the Royal Bank, CIBC and the Bank of Montreal to court, claiming they had violated the Consumer Protection Act and the Bank Act. The women say they should be charged interest on their credit card purchases from the date when the bank pays off the merchant where the goods were bought. They say the banks charge interest from the date of a purchase, but it can take up to five days for the banks to pay the merchant.
