Agriculture Committee on June 7th, 2010

[Kelvin Einarson]

Yes. The position of our association is that the three crops that are grown now should be grandfathered in. Anything new, including wheat, would have to come under this legislation.

Getting back to the forages, there is a difference. With corn, soybeans, canola, and wheat, you're putting GM seed in the ground to produce seed for sale. With a forage, you're not necessarily doing that. You have two types of producers.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's correct.

[Kelvin Einarson]

You can have guys wanting to put genetically modified seed in the ground for forage purposes with no seed being taken off it. However, the guy who does this risks contaminating somebody like me, who produces alfalfa for seed production. He's going to miss a little strip along the edge of the field. That will go to flower and the pollen will get transferred to the non-GMO varieties. This is a whole lot different from the crops that are being genetically produced at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Was there another comment?

[A voice]

No. That's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ms. Bonsant.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I want to come back to the science issue Mr. Hoback was talking about. But I will not be quite so aggressive.

Dr. David Suzuki, who is not a francophone, is a geneticist as well as a television host. He is always saying that any scientist who says that GMOs are safe is either extremely stupid or deliberately lying. The testing has simply not been done. No long-term comprehensive and independent study has been done.

GMOs are not any more nutritious, they are not any cheaper, nor do they taste any better. In my opinion, Mr. Shmon, you are right. They exist solely to kill insects. I will tell you what is in some tomatoes. I have cut out GMOs, as I was quite opposed to them.

More and more young farmers are going the organic route, but their crops are threatened because the wind blows from the west. GMO crops are jeopardizing these farms because bees move from flower to flower. It is very important, as they have worked hard to set up organic farms and produce organic cheeses. When this garbage is in the air or is spread by insects, it threatens their crops.

There have been laboratory experiments where scientists injected genes from a scorpion into tomatoes to make them resistant to insects. The tomatoes do not taste any better. Other kinds of GMOs are also being used to alter seeds. Human genes were injected into potatoes so they could grow in heavy-metal polluted soil. It is starting to be worrisome. That is why I, personally, am in favour of GMO labelling. We do not know what we are eating, and the Monsanto company does not care about what goes into our bellies; it cares only about what goes into its bank account.

Back to you, Mr. Shmon. You said that non-GMO products were worthwhile. In 2001, Chinese importers refused North American canola, rapeseed and soya. That decision was good for the Europeans' profits. Why would the market not be open to you, to those with non-GMO crops? I want you to talk about that. I will let you speak. I will not interrupt you. Nor will I attack you. I want you to talk about your farm, your survival and people's health—not just economic health.

[Jim Lintott]

I think the health issues unfortunately are something that are a little bit like tobacco; it takes a long time before we wake up and find out whether or not we're right or wrong. I have no idea what that answer's going to be.

What I do know is that between now and the time that science is able to give us some kind of definitive answer on that, I have to remain profitable. People have to feel good and safe about the food they're eating, so in the meantime I hope that we haven't made any colossal mistakes in the way we brought forward the science.

We're hoping as farmers that the science that is truly behind working with the DNA of any living organism can be understood and manipulated to our positive benefit, both for health and for economics. In the short term, we have really only been successful economically. But when you go to farm meetings, you hear a lot of reports about new exciting research that is focused on the health that the product will bring to the consumer, the person who is actually going to eat this food, and that's the part we're really excited about. That's the part that to us is where we want to be in 20, 50, or 100 years.

We see the requirement for market analysis as a part of all of that. I think that right around the corner there are all kinds of science that people are going to say is the best thing and they want it badly. Yes, it's being provided to us through technology that is used to generate today's GMO products, which is the combining of herbicide tolerance and the seeds, but that's strictly an economic approach.

There is a huge potential in our scientific community to bring us positive benefits. Farmers are waiting for those, and the market will say... Just as the Canola council does now, we'll be able to go to the world with, say, a wheat that is so far out in front of what they've ever produced, a wheat that is healthy for everybody who is going to consume a loaf of bread, that they'll say yes, it is GMO produced, but they'll accept that specific product on these wonderful market advantages.

That's the advantage we want. That's why we're in support of Bill C-474 and the producer- and stakeholder-controlled regulations that would be behind it. Those two things have to go hand in hand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has actually expired. I will give you a short comment if you want it. I'm pretty flexible with everybody.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Are you not afraid that playing with the DNA of plants, animals or soil could affect the DNA of humans?

[Jim Lintott]

Quickly, we have been playing with DNA on everything we've produced, from a chicken to a canola plant, through what we consider to be natural, normal and conventional plant breeding programs. The advantage of the science is that we can jump over time and other barriers and bring forward advantages that we haven't yet been able to do through conventional breeding programs.

If you look at the flower industry, we can make flowers to do just about anything. It's an interesting thing. I think the technology that's behind GMOs is important. We must not quash it. We must make it a working tool that's positive for us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for coming in.

I just want to follow up a little on some of the questions. There was one that you didn't quite answer, I don't think, or if you did, I missed it, so maybe you can help me with it.

In terms of doing the evaluation, of having the market analysis done, I didn't hear the answer on who would do that evaluation and what the protocol or the framework would be for that evaluation. Because you're looking at a broad section of a seed...

[Jim Lintott]

The really simple answer to that question is that when we bring forward a new GMO product for registration, it has already received acceptance in our major importing markets. This is exactly what the canola people are doing. We have no idea of what it costs us not to be in Europe. You know what canola is worth in Europe. It's worth a lot more than it is in Canada to the producer.

But we don't actually have anybody doing that economic analysis. The point is moot now. We've lost that market. Somewhere along the line we looked at it and said that we will decide not to service the European markets, but we will service all the other markets. So we've done that.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

You're contradicting yourself, because the markets... You haven't answered the question. You're talking about an evaluation to be done. What you're answering is that the market will determine what the evaluation is.

[Jim Lintott]

The market has to accept the product.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's right, so I go back... I'm disappointed, actually, that the exporters, marketers, and farmers are being discredited for not being wise enough or intelligent enough, it would seem, from your comments, and that we will not determine, that we'll just go out--I farm--and buy seed and plant this stuff and grow it, knowing there's no market for it. It just doesn't make sense, so I'm concerned about the comment.

Because what you're talking about is only one trait of a GM, which is Roundup Ready, but all kinds of traits come in GMOs. You're talking about one trait. You're not talking about how we're fine with corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola. I guess you're saying that we're fine with sugar beets now, because we have all kinds of...it has been a livelihood-saver in my area for the sugar beet growers. That was a big issue, quite honestly, in regard to how successful the sugar beet industry in Canada--in Ontario, at least--was going to be and whether they had GMOs or not. Not only is it because it's Roundup Ready; other traits will now come with the sugar beet industry through GMOs.

So it sounds a bit like “not in my backyard”, quite honestly, because we have one trait, Roundup Ready, that we just won't want, that we're going to allow everybody else to have, “but just don't affect us”. And somebody needs to do a market analysis for it: don't let the farmers or the exporters make that determination, or the other countries, because I don't know what a zero tolerance is... When we had the other growers in, they talked about I think what we called a “low-level tolerance policy”.

So just separate out the Roundup Ready for a second, and now you get some other GMO trait that comes in your seed, so what will you do?

[Jim Lintott]

It has to have marketplace acceptance. If it doesn't, why would we produce it?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I'm asking you another question about another trait because that's all you talked about, Roundup Ready.

[Kurt Shmon]

That's the one we're faced with today, no ifs, ands, or buts. It's here and it's something we have to address. The other technology they're looking at introducing into alfalfa is 5 to 10 years away, realistically, and maybe 15.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

But you're only talking about one.

[Kurt Shmon]

This is our specialty.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

But what about another trait that might happen to get mixed in with the seed?

I don't know how you get zero tolerance unless you're just talking about Roundup Ready, so now you're being very specific about a particular gene.

[Kurt Shmon]

That is the only gene we have to worry about at this point. They have yet to stack any technologies, as they have with corn and canola. Until 2005, we had zero tolerance, and we had market share that we could ship into at zero tolerance, prior to the introduction of this variety into Canada with its approval from CFIA. So we did have it.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

So how do you think the market would actually be for it when you said that 80% to 85% of alfalfa is mixed with a grass?