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ILLEGAL MARGARINE
A nightmarish circumstance that may have exposed Quebecers to yellow margarine has been averted:
Quebecers will continue to eat white margarine, at least for now, after the Supreme Court rejected arguments from manufacturer Unilever which opposed provincial restrictions against the sale of yellow margarine.
During a brief oral decision, Justice Louis LeBel rejected all aspects of Unilever’s argument.
They therefore confirmed the rulings of the Quebec Superior Court in 1999 and the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2003 that validated the Quebec regulation which prevents the sale of margarine in the same colour as butter.
Is yellow margarine sold on Quebec’s black market? Do they eat it in marg-easies? Is it a gateway spread to other dairy substitutes? Does CSI Quebec focus on the daring antics of inter-province margarine runners?
White margarine! Well, what can you expect in a country where they put mayonnaise on their hamburgers.
(I’m quoting here from THE WHOLE NINE YARDS and have absolutely no way of knowing if this information is correct. McGeough is hereby put on notice that he will face serious competition for that award on 2006.)
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 03 19 at 01:43 AM • permalinkI’ve heard about the Wisconsin thing; it’s odd, since real butter tends to be pretty white anyway, at least in my experience. If Quebec has this law in place for the same reason, it seems like they’re giving their consumers a choice between a glutinous white stick and another glutinous white stick.
Wasn’t there someone who once tried to make it so that margarine would be dyed green or blue or something off-putting so nobody would buy it? Somebody with interest in the butter business, I’d guess. Unless that’s another of those urban legends that float around.
Hey! I like mayo on my hamburgers!
But I like yellow margarine as well. Nyah nyah nyah!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 19 at 02:25 AM • permalinkI guess Quebeckers are illiterate, being unable to distinguish “margarine” from “butter” (or whatever it is in Frogspeak) on the package, and thus buy their sandwich spreads on the basis of color only. Way to keep those “evil oleo barons” at bay, supreme court.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 03 19 at 02:45 AM • permalinkThe Quebecois ought to know why even other Canadians make fun of them…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 19 at 03:31 AM • permalinkskies of bleu
and eyes of green
eating yellow margarine…Posted by lewisinnyc on 2005 03 19 at 05:20 AM • permalinkAustralian’s have no reason to pay out on the Quebecois (apart from the fact that they are both french and canadian, of course) on this matter.
Back in the bad old days when ‘Black Jack’ McEwan ran industry policy, in order to protect dairy farmers from the evil margarine competition, manufacturers of margarine had strict quotas on how much they produced, were forced to charge a higher price, and last but not least, had to add food colouring to the margarine to make it PINK.I kid you not.
In one of the few decent acts of the Whitlam Government, this travesty of market despotism was removed.
There was controversy here too, as the major margarine company at the time was paying for a luxury apartment in Sydney for the use of the labor party, in the hopes the market restrictions would be removed. of course, this little fact, although well known by the press gallery at the time, was largely ignored by the media.So while little has changed with regard to the labor loving media, at least nowadays OZ has a modicum of honour on the agricultural trade front.
Hmmmmm…..thinking upon the matter further, is it possible that someone buttered up the Quebec judge?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 19 at 07:23 AM • permalinkQuebec regulates margarine color. The US save the world from Islamist terrorism.
We all have our roles to play.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 03 19 at 08:39 AM • permalinkI’m lost for words .............
But we can get Vegemite in Montreal.
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2005 03 19 at 10:24 AM • permalinkCSI Quebec!?!
When an off-the-cuff witticism like this is made by a guy who likes cricke in a country that has jars of vegemite available for purchase at the local superettet, you know the US has taken over control of the world.
You will be assimilated. But we’ll let you keep your local customs.
Posted by William Young on 2005 03 19 at 11:30 AM • permalinkYes, Wisconsin did outlaw yellow margarine in he 50s, 60s. When you bought white margarine in Wisconsin it came packed in a pliable plastic bag that had a “color pill” in it. You could squeeze the pill and get the yellow dye out of it and then knead the margarine until it was yellow. I grew up in Chicago and part of the family lived in Milwaukee. I clearly remember as a kid going up to Milwaukee on US41 to visit (pree Tri-State I-94) that when you reached the state line, the Illinois side was a solid mass of Yellow Margarine store with signs like last chance, get your yellow margarine here, and so on. Boy those were simpler times. The only complicated part of life was remembering when you were supposed to “duck and cover”.
A new advert jingle:
“If you think it’s butter,
But it’s not — !
It’s Hegemonic cultural imperialsm!Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 19 at 11:53 AM • permalinkOn the other hand, my wee wifey’s aunt, a professional cake decorator, used to have to drive to Wisconsin every so often to buy white margarine, because it was unavailable in the Chicago - Northern Indiana area.
Note by the way that the word margarine comes from the Latin, and means pearl. Once it is yellow the name is incorrect.
This from people who put cheese and gravy on their fries.
And I never got my vegemite either, goldsmith. I blame climate change (I refuse to use the term “global warming” while I’m sitting here in the Midwest, freezing my ass off).
I stopped eating the stuff when I found out that unscrupulous manufacturers were selling the leavings of liposuction operations as margarine.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 03 19 at 04:22 PM • permalinkRebeccaH — Have you mapped out your property for the Midwest heartland rice paddies for when the global warming kicks in? Because it’s coming. Real soon now. Any day. Really.
Ioxymoron — That would explain the Margot scalp hairs I found in that last tub…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 20 at 12:21 PM • permalinkAccording to DEBKAfile, the Canadians are secretly using the margarine ploy to grease the skids under the American economy…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 03 20 at 01:36 PM • permalinkWe won’t eat your yellow margarine
Yellow margarine, yellow margaineBattle hymn of the Quebec republic
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2005 03 20 at 03:27 PM • permalinkJust dropped back in to read comments added since I posted three days ago, and I’ve learned more about margarine and food colouring than I ever wanted to know in this or any other lifetime.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2005 03 22 at 06:59 AM • permalink
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Wonderful to know that such topics occupy the time of the Supreme court as otherwise they might devote it to the introducing of sharia law or the banning of the imports of israeli invented life saving drugs and medical equipment into Canada.