Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-287, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (genetically modified food), which was introduced by the hon. member for Davenport and aims at making mandatory the labelling of all the food that is genetically modified or contains more than 1% of a genetically modified food.
For almost three years now the Bloc Quebecois has been demanding mandatory labelling of genetically modified food and food products. In November 1999, the Bloc undertook a consultation and an information tour in all the regions of Quebec. This tour was a huge success.
The Bloc also had a petition circulated that gathered close to 50,000 signatures and was tabled in the 36th parliament by the then hon. member for Louis-Hébert, the former Bloc member who, I want to remind the House, rose dozens of times in the House to demand again and again the very same thing, the labelling of GM0s. Why? Because the Bloc Quebecois feels that each and every citizen has the right to know exactly what is in his or her plate. In spite of all the efforts the Bloc made in order to get this government to listen to the concerns of the population of Canada and Quebec, the federal Liberals turned a deaf ear on the demands made by the Bloc Quebecois, which are broadly supported by the population.
The single, and minimal, action taken by the government on GMOs was to strike committees to address the question.
GMOs have been on the market for five years now, and at this time committees are looking at labelling standards. Is this a really serious approach? One might well ask.
What is more, it is already predictable that these standards will be voluntary, and there is nothing to indicate that they will be adopted by companies not currently labelling GMOs.
Perhaps this government needs to be reminded of a few facts that seem to justify its laxness in the field of GMOs, since its position, essentially, like the major food industries, is that there is no proof that GMOs are harmful to health.
This argument is correct, so far, of course, but that may be because there have been no studies on the medium and long term effects of GMOs on human and animal health, or on the flora and fauna.
I would ask this. Can a responsible government treat such risks so lightly? Of course not, particularly since we know that food products containing GMOs have been on the market for the past five years and that 42 genetically modified plants are authorized for use in Canada.
David Suzuki, a well known journalist whose background is in genetics, has already said that politicians who insist GMOs are without danger are either liars or fools.
We know that the countries of the European Union recommend caution: first, in the absence of scientific proof, a prudent approach must be taken in order to prevent potential damage by GMOs to health and the environment.
Second, preliminary studies by scientists in a number of countries indicate that certain GMOs had negative effects on rats, insects and bacteria. These studies, while not involving humans, should encourage us to further investigate their effects and to expand them to humans.
Third, it should be noted in passing that the companies claiming the GMOs they produce are risk free also oppose any sort of regulation that would make them responsible for damage caused by their genetically modified products.
If these companies refuse to assume this responsibility, if preliminary studies indicate that there are effects on certain beings, if certain countries are moving very cautiously on the issue of GMOs, is it not simple justice to give consumers freedom of choice to decide whether or not they want genetically modified foods in their plate?
By playing the game of the food industry and not requiring it to separate products containing genetically modified foods from those that do not, the government is running the risk, over the medium term, of finding itself locked out of certain foreign markets.
We will recall the remarks by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development in his report, and I quote:
Genetically modified crops constituted a relatively small proportion of this amount (roughly $840 million or four percent); however, because Canada's bulk commodity handling and transportation system is not currently equipped to segregate genetically modified varieties from the non-modified varieties, all exports of those crops ($2.8 billion) could have been affected.
From this perspective, farmers could find their genetically modified crops and food products made from them banished from the export markets of Europe and Asia. Mexico and the U.S. are currently looking at mandatory labelling of GMOs, and in Canada, some of the major companies, such as McCain and Frito-Lay are no longer buying GMOs.
Food distributors or exporters could also risk losing market opportunities for food products not labelled in such a way as to indicate that they contain GMOs.
In concluding, allow me to mention that, fortunately, some members opposite are well aware of the problems to which Canada might expose itself by not clearly identifying foods containing GMOs. These members finally understood that people's freedom to choose what they eat is a basic right. So voices are being heard from within the government party itself. As proof, this bill was introduced by a member of the government party.
I know that the hon. member for Davenport has his heart set on labelling genetically modified foods and that he supported the efforts made in the past by the Bloc Quebecois in this regard. I sincerely hope that the introduction of his bill will get his party's other members and the ministers thinking about this so that the Canadian government, like several European countries, will make it mandatory to identify foods containing GMOs.
