Agriculture committee  See? You didn't--

Agriculture committee  You didn't listen earlier on. This doesn't improve the physical fitness of the plant. You weren't listening. It doesn't make a difference.

Agriculture committee  You don't understand the plant. I'm sorry.

Agriculture committee  No, because it is yet to be released in Canada.

Agriculture committee  Oh, it could be, but--

Agriculture committee  No. No. It hasn't been released because it's taking time for it to go through the procedure. We were lucky enough that Alex's bill has came forth in this time. We went to--

Agriculture committee  We went to CFIA and we went to Biosafety. We went to all the committees to try to stop this and we got nothing, because we are only science-based--

Agriculture committee  By introducing another component of it, we might save markets.

Agriculture committee  It is under court order. That's correct.

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's banned.

Agriculture committee  No. For Cal/West, contamination went from 3% in 2008 to 12% in 2009, because these are perennial plants. An alfalfa plant is planted and can survive for three to five to possibly ten years, and if it's a Roundup Ready alfalfa plant, it is there and for its whole life--for three, five or ten years--it will be releasing its pollen to other feral alfalfa or other non-conventional types.

Agriculture committee  We see instances in which Monsanto is not afraid to sue the producer if the producer uses its technology without Monsanto's approval. I would like to think that the regulatory process that approved it, CFIA, or Monsanto itself would be the ones that I could turn around and sue if their gene entered my land and my seed crop where it is unwanted.

Agriculture committee  It is produced only in the United States at this time. As I said, it did have a short commercial life of approximately 12 to 18 months, and then sales of it were banned. As I'm sure you are aware, it's in front of the Supreme Court right now. The USDA has a judge in California who put a stop to it a number of years ago; they've been stockpiling seed.

Agriculture committee  So how do we go about stopping Roundup Ready alfalfa? We have approached CFIA, through past CFIA discussion documents, with the idea that they acknowledge that it will transfer pollen to feral alfalfa. If I have alfalfa on my land, and I discover that I have Roundup Ready alfalfa on my land through transfer of pollen, does that mean that CFIA is responsible?

Agriculture committee  No, but the bill covers us niche markets. You already have the three major crop types in Canada looked after. This covers us producers who diversified into these smaller markets where, through some bizarre way, CFIA manages to approve an event that makes absolutely no sense at all.