Agriculture committee  I must admit that I'm a bit confused as to how some people interpret the recommendations of the UN in one way or another. Certainly our read is that we should be taking a precautionary approach to this. Field trials should not take place. In other words, releasing these things into the environment should not take place unless there is scientific data to assure the regulatory authorities that to release them would be a safe activity.

Agriculture committee  Okay, if I may, one thing to remind the committee—and it has been stated a few times—is that this technology doesn't actually exist yet, so we haven't received applications for us to look at. It's very much a hypothetical. Have we been engaging with other countries on this hypothetical technology?

Agriculture committee  Thank you. On your question about the Canadian government position in Bangkok, the meeting in Bangkok took place in early 2005. It was one of a series of meetings under the umbrella of the Convention on Biological Diversity. I will quote just part of the recommendation from that convention, which was actually set in the year 2000 but it gets revisited at these various meetings.

Agriculture committee  It's Dr. Yarrow.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Today I would like to provide an overview of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's mandate as it relates to genetic use restriction technologies, or GURTs.