Agriculture committee  I have two quick points. First, regarding the order, CBAC actually gave you the answer on that. We need more transparency. Canada publishes virtually nothing when we review things. In the United States, they put most of it in the federal registry, so there is a process. It's just that somehow justice has got us tied up so that everything the firms produce is now deemed to be commercially confidential.

Agriculture committee  No, I'm not an alfalfa guy. Maybe I can address that a little more deeply, though. This is the question of how an innovation enters a marketplace. In the absence of a market access, you never you know what demand will be. I did some work on GM wheat, and we had estimates in the public domain of 0% to 100%.

Agriculture committee  I'm not an expert on alfalfa, but let me offer two thoughts on your basic question. The first one was about evidence around the effect of different technologies on different producers. I have shared with your clerk, and I'll make available to the committee if it wishes, more comments that I didn't speak to today.

Agriculture committee  Let me make a couple of quick observations. I was the co-chair of the GM review of the regulatory food system for CBAC from 2001 to 2004, and I was on CBAC from the beginning to the end, so I have some experience with how that worked. You have asked two questions that I don't think one mechanism can solve.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. Let me begin by saying that this is an important study you've started. I think it's vital that Canada look at renewing and revitalizing its national agrifood policy. In that context, I think the core message coming from all of us, in one way or another, is that innovation is a core part of this renewal, not simply a means of sustaining the existing infrastructure.

Agriculture committee  I have a couple of quick comments. At the moment nobody has that test, so this would be novel. Let me perhaps amplify that by saying that we already have two additional hurdles compared to any other market that regulates GM technologies. We have the plants with a novel trait hurdle, which is broader than the GE hurdle, and we have the Seeds Act efficacy test, which no other jurisdiction in the world has.

Agriculture committee  Just a really quick comment: we don't feed the world right now anyway. We produce extremely high-quality food for markets, for the most part, that don't need more food. We succeed because we produce really the best of the lot. We're going for the top 5% or 10%. If we don't go for it, we won't be in business in five or ten years--not because we can't compete against Brazil, but because the fellow in Humboldt can't compete against PAMI's members, who are selling the short-line farm machinery equipment to the Brazilians.

Agriculture committee  I have two very simple points. The first one is that I think everyone at the table and everyone who studies this would strongly agree that the health issue should be dealt with before it gets to this stage. This debate is about after it has passed Health Canada's rigorous systems and Environment Canada's reviews.

Agriculture committee  Not personally, no. I'm an economist.

Agriculture committee  You should probably get the regulators in here to talk about their science because they don't actually write it down very well. But there is an extensive body of science they use: some that comes from the proponents, which is very specific; some that comes from the international research community, in terms of norms and standards; and some that comes from opponents of the technology who submit evidence in support or against the technology.

Agriculture committee  One really quickly then. This debate has been characterized as if there are GM-free countries and GM countries. Every country in the world that has an advanced industrial economy uses the technology. They just use it selectively.

Agriculture committee  Let me make a quick observation. Yes, the technology is getting cheaper in one way, but while the technology is getting cheaper, the networks that you need to actually put it into commercially viable platforms are getting more expensive. It's more industrially controlled, and the major cost in most developments is not the R and D cost anyway.

Agriculture committee  There's a three-level discussion going on here. There are state-to-state discussions, there are industry discussions, and then there's the interface between the two. Generally, firms only do the interface discussion when there's a specific product they need to get through some system.

Agriculture committee  Let me offer a really quick point about the first one. It's not what happens but who does it. If the state begins to do certain activities, you will create some precedents that you may not want to see adopted more widely. We are heavy traders of commodities around the world, and right now we determine our own market interests.

Agriculture committee  Part of it is that sometimes the hit is small enough that it's difficult to quantify and to actually show a cause and effect, which the law courts require. That happens in many markets, where there are effects of new technology or other market participants doing things that affect one firm's profit.