Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address Bill C-287, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act specifically concerning genetically modified food.
This is a very simple piece of legislation. New section 7.1(1) states:
7.1(1) No person shall sell—a food that contains more than one per cent of a genetically modified food, unless it is labelled with a statement a ) that it is or contains an ingredient that is genetically modified, and b ) which food or ingredient is derived from genetic modification.
Earlier, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis told us that it was very important to know what we eat. I think it is a fundamental individual right to know what we eat. But to know it is, this information must provided on the label of the product that we buy at the store.
The member who spoke before me suggested that we consult all the experts, take into account their point of view and look at the findings of the research done before supporting this bill.
If we have to wait for all scientists to agree on the effects of genetically modified foods, and for all the scientific results of the impact of these foods, a lot of water will go under the bridge before we take any action at all.
I think that it is important that labelling be made mandatory. Already, almost 88% of farmers say they are ready to label. Why should we have to have pressure put on us by lobbyists?
Very often I hear members speak who are themselves farmers, and who do not always mention that they are judge and jury in this process.
We are here to pass laws to improve the health of the public. The Canadian Alliance speaker said that he was on the Standing Committee on Health and that he was going to ask, on the committee's behalf, that the bill not be supported.
I hope that it is. If the public is to remain healthy, I would hope that we could at least know what sort of junk we are eating, in order to be able to decide whether or not to buy it. If we do not know what we are eating, it is fairly obvious that the impacts can be horrendous.
Consider what is going on in our society, what we are eating, and in what kind of environment we are living, that there are as many cancers as there are today. We have to wonder. Why are there more and more people being born with all sorts of disabilities, and with much more severe ones? Naturally, people are living longer, and we know more about diseases.
Surely there is something that explains what is going on right now in our world. I think it is important that we support this bill. We must start somewhere. Recently, we did much worse for young offenders than what this bill wants to do with the food we eat.
It seems to me that we could take a first step. If ever this turns out to be completely ridiculous or impossible, it will always be possible to turn around and say that we made a mistake. Then we can change our minds and take a different approach.
I wanted to talk about something that is going on right now. We want this to be done on a voluntary basis. A brewery called Unibroue asked the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to issue a certificate officially guaranteeing that its beer was free of genetically modified organisms.
It was a long process that started on June 22, 2000 and ended around April 24, 2001. Finally, just a month ago, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a certificate guaranteeing that the beer produced by Unibroue was GMO-free. Unibroue needed this certificate to launch a major marketing campaign on the European market, which it did.
What happened next is somewhat catastrophic. When the Canadian Food Inspection Agency saw that Unibroue was using this certificate for marketing purposes and to sell its product, its beer, it decided to withdraw the certificate. It told the company that it could no longer use the certificate, that it was taking it away. The company was told by the agency that it had no right to use the certificate for marketing purposes.
The agency issued the certificate on April 24, 2001, only to withdraw it in June of 2001. It is totally ridiculous. This kind of thing should not happen. It makes no sense.
I am very happy to think that such a bill could be passed. I will certainly recommend that my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois support this bill, even though we are free to vote as we please on private members' bills.