Canadians have the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to thank for this dubious distinction. One leading pollster, Alan Gregg, put it this way: “You can throw a rock at the Conservative [government] caucus, and possibly the cabinet, and hit a climate change denier.”

Canadians are not used to being international renegades, particularly on issues with a moral imperative. But Harper has given the clear impression since coming to power in 2006 that he doesn’t buy talk of a planet imperiled by human-induced global warming.

His government was initially content with not having a climate change policy. It restricted itself to pronouncing the 1992 Kyoto Protocol a failure, noting the previous Liberal government signed the treaty and then watched Canada develop one

The industry is reeling from high feed prices, a buoyant Canadian dollar, smaller exports to the United States and a disastrous association with the H1N1 flu outbreak that has closed some export markets.

“I’m living on borrowed time,” said Bill Vaags, who started raising pigs in 1964 and was once one of the largest pig producers in the western province of Manitoba. His 1,200-sow operation is one-third smaller than it was two years ago.

Without substantial government aid, Vaags said he’ll likely sell his Dugald, Manitoba hog operation by fall.

Getting out isn’t easy, though.

“There’s guys who want to get out but they’re not prepared to sell their barns for 25 cents on the dollar,” said Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council. “There are people prepared to buy but they say it’s a high risk.”

But sliding gold prices took the wind out of TSX gold producers, muting gains on the overall index.

The S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE was up 26.93 points, or 0.2 percent, at 13,418.79.

BCE added 66 Canadian cents to C$36.38. In the previous session, the stock fell amid speculation that credit financing for the takeover of Canada’s No. 1 telecom firm would collapse.

Those worries eased on Thursday after a Texas court ruling that may force banks to finance the $20-billion leveraged buyout of U.S. radio operator Clear Channel Communications (CCU.N: Quote, Profile, Research), was seen as a harbinger for the BCE deal amid the global credit crisis.

The review found that 34 articles, or 45 percent, used “appropriate” methods to analyze the results of trials of randomly-picked individuals, while 26 articles, or 35 percent, used “inappropriate” methodology, the researchers said in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

“We cannot say any specific studies are wrong. We can say that the analysis used in many of the papers suggests that some of them probably were overstating the significance of their findings,” said David Murray, lead author of the review and chair of epidemiology in the College of Public Health at Ohio State University.