Madam Speaker, I also want to begin by indicating my appreciation to the hon. member for Louis-Hébert for bringing this important issue forward. It is certainly a topic that has been in the forefront of the minds of many Canadians.
Many young people I know are dealing with the issue of what they call franken foods. This is an issue that has the general public so concerned that they are calling my office and other members' offices. They are looking to government for some direction in this matter.
Canadians have clearly indicated in every poll, survey and study that they want to know what they are eating. I would take that one step further. They have a right to know what they are eating. It is a basic, fundamental, health issue right. They have made that abundantly clear.
I would put it to the hon. member from the Canadian Alliance that voluntary compliance is not working. He actually contradicted himself in the arguments we just heard. He said that Canadians have a right to know and then they can make their own informed choice. How would they know without adequate labelling on the package? He is denying them their right to choose by not clearly stating what kind of product they are eating.
The whole premise of the argument I will be making is that Canadians are justifiably concerned about the quality of the food they eat.
I believe the government has abdicated its responsibilities in this matter by trying to promote voluntary compliance and by not clearly stating what government agency will have jurisdiction over this important matter. At the present time we have a hodgepodge. It is an absolute mess. The government is readily conceding that Canadians have a right to know and that they need to know, but there are three different government agencies that have been partially responsible for telling Canadians what they need to know.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is involved. It deals with the policing of plants and slaughterhouses, the storage of unsafe items and so on. Health Canada has a role, but we are not sure where one jurisdiction starts and the other stops. Health Canada approves products with respect to quality and safety. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada assists in food production. Which jurisdiction is it? If we could establish that first we could then move the issue forward by demanding that the federal agency do its job.
I come from an area with a large agri-food industry. In Manitoba agriculture is key and paramount to the health of our economy. I hear stories from Manitoba farmers about their concern over genetically engineered and genetically modified seed crops and oilseed crops. The hon. member mentioned canola oil as an example. I have some personal knowledge of how concerned Manitoba farmers are about the genetic engineering of canola. One company had a monopoly on the seed stock. If farmers wanted to buy seed they went to go to a certain company, but they also had to sign a contract with that company indicating that they would sell all of their yield to that company. Farmers could not have the seed unless they promised to sell their yield to the company. The real stinger was that the seed had been genetically modified to have a terminator gene in it so it could not reproduce itself.
Since time began farmers have set aside a certain amount of their crop for re-seeding in future years. Farmers cannot do that any more. They have to go back to the source company, a chemical company, and buy their seed for the following year, which turns out to have a genetic terminator. Perverse is the word for it. Most Canadians are horrified when they discover how people are manipulating our food supplies through genetic engineering.
At the very least, the government owes it to Canadians to let them know whether the food they are eating is genetically modified. Never mind if it is safe or not safe. The jury is still out on that issue. We do not know. But let us not use the absence of absolute, hard scientific evidence as an excuse for not taking the precautionary measures Canadians are asking for. Canadians should be given the right to choose. They should be able to look at the labelling on a package and decide for themselves whether they want to ingest the material.
There have been mistakes. There have been recent examples which gave consumers cause for alarm. Recently a gene from a Brazil nut was introduced to a foodstuff. This resulted in people suffering a severe nut allergy, even though they were eating a product that had nothing to do with nuts. People suffered severe anaphylactic asthmatic reactions from a product that had nothing to do with nuts. People had no way of knowing because in Canada there is no obligation to tell.
The rest of the world seems to be further advanced than Canada. That is ironic, as Canada is one of the leaders in agri-food and agri-business. Europeans do not want genetically modified food on their shelves. They demand to know if the food they are eating is genetically modified.
The United Nations biosafety protocol was negotiated in Montreal during the last week of January. Several large and well known companies began taking their first steps away from genetically modified crops. They started to make noise in the right direction, but not on any moral or ethical ground or even out of fear for public safety. I think what they were really afraid of was a consumer backlash. They know that consumers are becoming better informed about this issue and are demanding to know if a product is genetically modified, because if it is, they do not want it.
We do have large companies like Frito Lay, the big potato chip manufacturing company, which told its suppliers not to send any more genetically modified corn for their corn chips, but it stopped short of telling them not to send any genetically modified potatoes for its potato chips. It produces about a thousand times as many potato chips as it does corn chips.
As I said, the voluntary compliance side of things is starting to catch on but in a very marginal way not in a meaningful way. I do not believe in voluntary compliance measures in anything, frankly, whether it is workplace safety, health or whatever, because when the bottom line is profits to shareholders, corporations have a vested interest in doing whatever is expedient from a profit point of view and not doing what is right from a moral, ethical or even public health point of view.
Seagrams, another major company, told its suppliers not to bring it any more genetically modified corn but it fell short of making a public announcement. It did not want to rock the boat. It will not publicly say that its products are made without genetically modified corn.
Loblaws has quietly made plans to stock its first genetically modified free products in some stores. It will have separate shelves. It will have genetically modified food on one shelf and it will have genetically modified free food on another shelf. Obviously it has sensed the concern in the general public. Loblaws of Canada is not stupid. It has sensed that consumer awareness is growing to the point where many Canadians will demand pure food instead of frankenfood.
Who knows if our corn flakes might contain a gene from some mutant fish? We just do not know the kinds of things that are being done. The classic example is when some people got Brazil nut genes in food and ended up having nut allergies. It is a terrible problem.
Borden Foods, which makes Catelli pastas and sauces, has issued a statement saying that its products are genetically modified free. However, it has had to do that on its own as an individual initiative. There is no obligation and no duty to do so. Personally, I will look for Catelli products when I go shopping because I appreciate what Borden Foods has done.
I have told hon. members about the impact that the whole genetic engineering industry is having on the farm community where I come from with the terminator gene. I think there is a healthy distrust for the people who are engineering and genetically altering our foods. It is an area of science that is new to most Canadians. There is not a level of comfort yet for most Canadians.
Even in the absence of absolute, hard, scientific fact that says genetically modified foods are bad for us—and I am the first to admit that we do not have that hard, scientific evidence—at least the government should be taking steps to err on the side of caution and err on the side of the well-being of Canadian people and not on the profit motives of the food producers in the agri-food business.
Let Canadians choose. Let them know what it is they are actually eating. Make labelling mandatory. Yes, it is a burden and maybe even a cost factor for the producers. They probably will not like it. However, I would urge the government to show leadership and to show that it cares for the consuming public by mandating the labelling of foods so that we can make an informed choice.