Bill C-474 (Historical)

Seeds Regulations Act

An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm)

This enactment requires the Governor in Council to amend the Seeds Regulations to require that an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian families are demanding farm-fresh, organic and local food. Farmers want to know that the food they grow will have a market, yet large corporate interests are always ready with a legion of lobbyists to kill any bill that might threaten their profits and control.

My Bill C-474 will ensure that alfalfa and wheat farmers do not lose their markets. Will the minister continue to cave in to threats and intimidation from the powerful biotech industry, or will he support Canadian farmers?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I have something to say and it is not a point of order.

I am very pleased that the meeting this morning is public. Agricultural producers are going to see what offhand treatment the government party is giving them right now. We have extremely important matters we need to discuss and once again we are going to lose a working session, when there are not many left between now and the Christmas break. We have lost a working session to childishness.

The motion on the floor was only a formality, a request for an extension to consider a bill. We can very well decide to consider the bill at three meetings so we can hear a few witnesses, and that is what we're going to do.

I remind my Conservative friends that they themselves wanted to hear certain witnesses on Bill C-474. What is so dangerous about having discussions on a priority bill? We have no choice but to consider it and whether someone supports it or not is of no importance. Today is not when that is going to be decided. These political games and these attacks on Wayne Easter, or on anyone, get us nowhere, because it is his constituents, including the rural ones, who will decide his fate in the election, after he changed his position on the Canadian Firearms Registry. The election is when that will be decided. Talking about it here at every committee meeting, every day, will not help the farming community.

Some beef and pork producers, or producers from all sectors, expect us, their elected representatives, to operate in as non-partisan a way as possible. I know it isn't easy because we all have election platforms and priorities to abide by. This committee used to function well and we were able to work together. In fact I have told many people that. Unfortunately, things have been going badly for a short time now.

I will now come back to what you said earlier, Mr. Chair, that we never manage to finish what we start. I recalled the many reports we have written. This committee has even produced unanimous reports. I have been a member for five years. We even managed to create a subcommittee on listeriosis. We made a report on that subject. Work does get done here, and I am sure that all my colleagues will agree with me that the agricultural producers are grateful that we are working for them, whether we are for or against certain measures, that is not important. The important thing is to try to achieve progress on issues.

Today, we have again had evidence of the disdain with which the Conservatives sitting on this committee look on the concerns of agricultural producers. They have engaged in systematic obstruction for an entire meeting because there was a request for an extension. I have never seen this in any committee, wasting time like this on this kind of motion, which is a mere formality. I still can't get over it. I am glad the meeting was public, because people are going to know this and they will be able to judge how the Conservatives are treating them.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to get off the topic of debate for one second because I was trying to be polite and not raise a point of order in the middle of Mr. Bellavance's speech, but I would like the record to clearly show, or somebody to put on the record, that while Mr. Eyking did clearly breach, in my opinion, Mr. Hoback's parliamentary privilege by taking the floor away from him--without just ruling him out of order, but clearly taking the floor away from...Mr. Richards. Thank you for the correction, Mr. Bellavance. When the challenge of the chair occurred, our chair had the dignity to not sit in and vote, as he could have done, to overrule the opposition on this.

So our side isn't playing partisan politics on it. I want to congratulate the chair for trying to keep some kind of balance with this.

That being said, Mr. Chair, I would like to get onto the topic that we're talking about here, which is Bill C-474. While I believe that Mr. Atamanenko has put this bill forward with the best of intentions, as I've read in several articles and talked about to several of my producers and stakeholders, this is a bad bill. This may have good intentions throughout it, but the bill itself is a bad bill. I don't want to get into all of the different aspects of the bill, but I believe many of my colleagues have brought forward many of its negative aspects.

One that really concerns me is moving away from the science-based approach to a market-based approach. I would like to spend a couple of minutes talking about the crux of this and why it's important to take care of it right now. First of all, while this is continuing to go on, the industry is in turmoil. There is uncertainty as to whether this bill is going to be passed or not. I've had many industry representatives come to me about that.

Mr. Easter shakes his head at me, but the fact of the matter is that Mr. Easter.... And no more backroom games here. Let's get it all out on the table. Mr. Easter has come to us in the past and said he's going to vote against this bill. Mr. Easter has come to us and said let's just bring it to committee for a little bit and get some hearings on it and then we'll vote against it there. Well, Mr. Easter, you can't simply gut the bill in committee and not have it heard from again. Mr. Atamanenko will simply bring it forward in the House and there will be a vote anyway.

You ask why we don't simply move forward on this quickly. Well, because Mr. Easter has not only flip-flopped on the long-gun registry--and I'm not going to get into that at length, but he has flip-flopped on issues when it comes to the agriculture committee, on issues when he's dealing with colleagues on this side, so there's really no trust left from our side with the Liberal ag critic. We really don't know...and we all know that his party uses the whip more effectively than our party, which has more free votes than any party in the House of Commons. That's a fact, Mr. Chairman.

The crux of the matter is that I really believe if Mr. Easter wants--and I want this on the record--to move forward for farmers, if he wants to do the best thing for farmers.... If all he wants to do is spend his last dying years as a member of Parliament on scandals and doorknob press conferences, then he should resign today as the Liberal ag critic and let somebody sit over there who can make deals that we can actually trust and move forward on for farmers. So I think Mr. Easter should do the honourable thing and resign so that we can move forward--

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Since we started this morning, there has been either a misunderstanding or bad faith on the Conservatives' part, because what we are talking about is not whether we are in favour of or opposed to Bill C-474. Since we started this morning, the parliamentary secretary has been making big speeches to say he is opposed to Bill C-474. We know that. What we are discussing is the possibility of having a 30-day extension for this bill. I repeat, that should be a mere formality. I have never seen a discussion drag on about this in any other committee and I want to make things clear. Randy is right, and even though it was in camera, it doesn't bother me to repeat it: I did not want us to spend the entire time we have between now and Christmas on one subject, whether it be Bill C-474 or something else, because ideas were already firmly entrenched and we had to give priority to the list of witnesses we should hear on this and be sure that an appropriate number of meetings will be devoted to the bill. What we are discussing here is whether we want to be sure we can do that. As a committee, it will simply facilitate our work when we set the agenda we are supposed to have set at 8:45 this morning. Then we will be able to say that we have all the latitude we need to consider the priority matters, one of which is Bill C-474.

I will remind you that I was even opposed to 10 meetings being devoted to this bill and I will continue to oppose that. We had reached a compromise, that we might need three or four meetings to hear all the witnesses and finish it, but we are going to have until December 10 to do that, not until October 22, if we don't agree to Alex's motion. So it is just to facilitate our work so we can set an agenda and devote a particular number of meetings to Bill C-474, a particular number of meetings to reviewing the programs, and another particular number of meetings, obviously, so we can complete the report on young and beginning farmers.

So I don't see what the Conservatives are aiming for when they make big speeches to tell us how awful the bill is. This is not where that will be decided; it will be decided in the House. That is where the fate of the bill will be settled, by voting for or against it. Here, we just want to know whether we should have the latitude, as a committee, to be able to put it in the right place on the agenda between now and December 10. That doesn't mean we will be talking about it until December 10; there is a big difference.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I don't know how we are going to manage to work because of the attitude the parliamentary secretary has just exhibited on a mere formality, a mere request to extend consideration of a bill. It makes me laugh when the parliamentary secretary talks to us about the priorities that have been established. In fact, the steering committee, and the Conservative member is on that committee, put Bill C-474 precisely on that list. We have to complete our consideration of it because we have no choice. It is part of our work as legislators, and the House is where we will have a final vote on the bill, as is the case for any other bill.

The Conservatives themselves told us, when we came back to continue the session, how important it was that we consider this bill, and that we had to hear a number of witnesses. At one point we were up to 30 or 40 witnesses. That request came from the Conservatives. Obviously, I realized right away that this was so we would waste time in committee and not consider the other priorities. In any event, it is no longer a priority for the government, maybe, but that is not what's important here. We are talking about a mere formality.

Personally, I have been on Parliament Hill since 2001, as a parliamentary assistant or a member of Parliament. I don't recall—there are more seasoned parliamentarians than myself around this table and I would like someone to give us examples—a single occasion when a committee prevented a 30-day extension of consideration in committee. It is a mere formality, it is done virtually automatically. This is not where the fate of Bill C-474 will be decided, it is in the House of Commons. That is what democracy is, even if it is not what the Conservatives wanted, and when things don't go their way, they want to muzzle everybody.

In this case, we don't want to discuss just Bill C-474 until December 10; we just want Mr. Atamanenko to have the necessary latitude to be able to finish the consideration of his bill in committee. I myself have sponsored a bill that is at the report stage, this very day in the House. I know how important it is. We don't do it for the fun of it and to make the headlines. I didn't make the headlines with my bill. We do it because we have worked with people we want to help and we think this kind of legislation will help them out. That is what we are trying to do. It isn't very complicated.

So I find it hard to understand why the parliamentary secretary is telling us today, for purely partisan reasons, that he opposes extending consideration of this bill, with a long-winded speech about how we should oppose the bill. He is entitled to oppose it, there's no problem on this side there. But come on! Allow the extension as is done everywhere. Give us the chance, as is always done at the stage that comes next, to have an agenda. So such and such dates will be devoted to Mr. Atamanenko's bill, when he himself wanted to consider it for six meetings at the outset. After that, he agreed that we could maybe consider it at three or four additional meetings. We will make a list of the witnesses we want to make it a priority to hear. We won't keep going to December 10 on this, but I don't understand why we have discussed this for half an hour and why big speeches are being made about this today.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I'd like to read my motion. The motion basically asks for an extension of 30 days so we can continue the healthy, democratic debate on my Bill C-474. I think we agree that we've had some really good balanced points of view, and I'd like us to set aside some time for witnesses. I would like to have this extension given the fact that after I introduced the bill...we've agreed to spend some time on the report and other issues. I just feel that because of that and the summer break, we're running into time limits.

Anyway, here's the motion:

That the Committee request an extension of thirty sitting days to consider Bill C-474, An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm), beyond the sixty days from the date of the Bills' referral to Committee, as provided in Standing Order 97.1(1); and that the continued study, clause by clause consideration and reporting of the Bill be completed by the end of the extension period.

I just might add that if we accept this motion, we have a proposal from the steering committee that could fit this into a timeline that I think would be acceptable to everybody.

Seeds Regulations

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second and third petitions deal with Bill C-474, An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm), and the petitioners call upon Parliament to enshrine it in legislation.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I will tell my other colleagues and committee members what I told the steering committee.

The reason I have been insisting for so long that a program review be done is that I think it is the committee's job to do one regularly.

At the end of the last session, all kinds of things happened in committee—and I have nothing against them—but the result was that we did not have a lot of time to talk about the program review. We had two half-sessions on it. So we never finished what we set out to do. That is why I am bringing it up again; I think it is important for producers.

People are talking to me about it in Quebec. People are telling me that, with AgriStability and AgriFlexibility, we have to find out what effect the programs have had and what can be done to improve them. If I am told that any programs are perfect just as they are on the ground, I will be the first to say so, no problem. That does not bother me at all; I have done it before.

I have already publicly thanked a minister for responding to one of my requests. It did not make me lose an election and no one was bothered by it. So I am prepared to do it. But when things are not going so well, we have to be prepared to say so too and try to improve things. That is where the program review comes in.

Of course, we know that Bill C-474is a priority. We have to go through it clause by clause at some stage. We are required to do that as a committee.

We went on a tour to look at the future of agriculture. We started studying a report in June, but we did not finish it. That is why we have come up with an agenda that is pretty precise; it will not take up all our time until Christmas, but it will let us make a little headway on some things that we have already started.

Those three topics are the ones we have already started. We have to finish them.

[Blake Edwards]

Yes, some were certainly whipped and some just willingly chose to ignore their farmers, which is....

But the second topic that came up with farmers in my riding—again, despite all the challenges that we do face in the industry right now—was, in the words of many of my farmers, “that crazy Bill C-474”, and it came up quite frequently. Of course, I've got a lot of canola growers in my area. Canola is an industry that certainly has been a success story in our country, and one for which, by all accounts, the success wouldn't have been able to be there had something like this existed at the time. As I mentioned, I do have a lot of canola growers, and that's of course mainly due to the fact that there are a lot of guys who want to get out from under the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly. But that's another topic for another day as well.

Obviously, those farmers do recognize a lot of the loss potential that's there, certainly loss in terms of lost economic benefits and lost trade opportunities due to moving away from a science-based approach, lost opportunities for research and development, and on and on, that could occur under this bill if it were to pass.

My question is for Dr. Keller. You talked about the fact that Canada is a force in high-quality crops, and you cited some examples, such as hybrids, disease-resistant wheat, and insulin from GM yeast. Those are some of your examples. These are obviously some of the benefits that we've seen already from research and GMOs. You mentioned some upcoming innovations that we'll likely see--for example, drought tolerance improvements for human nutrition qualities. That obviously intrigues me. I'm excited to hear about the future and these future innovations and benefits that we can see on the horizon. I'd like to give you an opportunity to explain in some more detail some of the innovations that are being done right now in terms of Canadian research in GMs and some of those things that may be on the verge of coming to the market. Could you maybe explain in more detail some of the new possibilities and what their potential benefits might be to consumers, and also potential benefits, of course, to economic activity, particularly in the agriculture industry?

[Dr. Wilfred Keller]

As researchers, we do not provide directly. Upon request we will provide analytical tests. Certainly within the health area, the FDA and, in the case of Canada, Health Canada are responsible for the health and safety of all products, including GMO products. Bill C-474 doesn't deal with that because it's already dealt with very effectively.

I might say that from all the GMO products that have been developed over the last 15 years and the millions and billions of meals that have been fed, there's not a single incidence of a health impact. So health and organic production.... Organic is a lifestyle. It's very important and it's good, but organic in no way implies that the product is healthier than that from other sources.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your testimonies.

Mr. Keller, in your brief you say that Bill C-474 is based more on emotion than on science. The GMO industry has echoed that criticism several times. I am having a hard time understanding what you're talking about. I think that your claim is somewhat condescending and even insulting to those who introduced the bill, especially since Canada is not the only country where this is done. We all know that, and Argentina was given as one example. I'd like to know what emotions have to do with an analysis of the implications of changes in the markets. I'm having trouble understanding your reasoning, especially since you do not explain yourself, you just say that emotions are involved. It's as if, all of a sudden, someone announced in the midst of an emotional outburst that they would conduct an analysis of the implications of changes in the markets before selling genetically modified organisms. I feel that this accusation is a bit gratuitous.

I would still like to talk about the issues you raise, which are perhaps a little more concrete than mere emotions. You say that the bill could impede the research and commercialization processes. You might be right when it comes to commercialization. I would like to remind you that, six years ago, Argentina formulated such a policy as part of its regulatory framework on GMO exportation.

Can you provide some concrete examples showing that this was detrimental to product commercialization in Argentina? For instance, did the World Trade Organization come under attack or issue any rulings that caused problems for Argentina? That is my first question.

[Matthew Holmes, Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association]

Mr. Chair, mesdames et monsieurs, thank you very much to the members of this committee for having us here today.

I am the executive director of the Canada Organic Trade Association, and I've held this position since early 2007.

The Canada Organic Trade Association is a membership-based, not-for-profit incorporation that aims to promote and protect the growth of organic trade for the benefit of the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy. Our members range in size from small organic farms in rural Canada to some of the world's largest multinational movers of organic commodities, ingredients, and products.

I serve as the regulatory chair of Agriculture Canada's Organic Value Chain Roundtable; the processing chair of Canada's national organic standards technical committee at the Canadian General Standards Board; and an adviser to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on our new regulations.

COTA has advocated for international trade recognition between various organic standards and our own, such as the historic organic equivalency agreement with the United States. We also hope to soon have a similar agreement with Europe. And we have recently taken part in a Canadian consultation on low-level-presence policy.

Recently COTA developed and launched a long-term international strategy for Canada's organic sector with the support of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's AgriMarketing program. This strategy looks specifically at the opportunities and threats facing Canada's organic sector and identifies priority markets we should be targeting for growth.

As of June 30, 2009, organic products imported or traded at the national level must meet the requirements of Canada's organic products regulations and be certified by an accredited certifier recognized by the CFIA. Additionally, all organic claims in the marketplace are subject to full enforcement by CFIA inspectors.

Organic farming takes an approach to agriculture that focuses on sustainability, low environmental impact, and some of the latest in agronomic science, such as complex crop rotations, integrated pest management, and low-till techniques.

We were pleased to hear the government's recent announcement of over $6.5 million for the Organic Science Cluster's research to continue exactly this sort of innovation and research into organic methods in agronomy.

The organic sector also takes a precautionary approach on behalf of our consumers with respect to those aspects of agriculture we feel are not fully understood or could compromise the well-being of our human populations or our environment. For example, our standards prohibit the use of sewage sludge; fossil fuel-based fertilizers; artificial colours, additives, and flavours in processed food; cloned animals for meat; and persistent toxic and synthetic chemicals as pesticides. We also prohibit all materials and products produced from genetic engineering.

Obviously our legal requirements to follow these standards and regulations put the organic sector in the position of bearing a disproportionate risk when confronted with what we call GE contamination, or adventitious presence, in our products.

In addition to the added cost of inspection, traceability, and certification that our farmers take on for themselves, our organic farmers and processors also face the private costs of genetic testing and the potential loss of their organic designation, as well as rejected shipments, increased liability, and significant barriers to market access.

Following the recent Triffid flax contamination, some of my members were asked not only to pay for the testing of their shipments and of their product all the way downstream but also to accept responsibility and full liability for any market recall of any final product in foreign markets. No farmer, whether organic or not, can do business in that sort of environment.

For these reasons, we support as a first step the adoption of Bill C-474 as a means of ensuring that these sorts of economic impacts are reasonably considered before the introduction of new GE seeds, which could potentially harm our established markets.

Canadian sales of organic food doubled from $1 billion in 2006 to $2 billion in 2008. We continued to grow through the recession. Our global markets, which are estimated at $52 billion in sales a year, demand the organic products that Canada can bring them. And organic production and sales continue to grow around the world, often at more than 20% annually. There is tremendous opportunity here to reconnect rural and urban Canada and to empower and enrich Canadian farmers, with your support.

Innovation is most celebrated when it provides a solution to a problem. To put this another way, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We have a certain obligation to ensure that our buyers are sold what they want to buy. It seems reasonable that we would consider where we do business in agriculture and with whom before we introduce a product that could potentially compromise that existing business.

By their very nature, genetically engineered seeds replicate themselves within the populations of non-genetically altered crops. They can infiltrate other populations. They can pass undetected, as we have seen, and compromise entire sectors.

The matter of alfalfa has been raised with this committee a number of times. It is not only exported from Canada as an organic feed and seed source, but it is also integral to the organic livestock and dairy sector--the value chain to which very much of our entire sector is connected. It is also an essential rotation crop for organic farmers because it puts the right nutrients back into the soil. So to compromise alfalfa, for example, does not only compromise one limited forage over here, it actually compromises our entire model of production.

As any government that has had to navigate a country through a global recession will appreciate, in our opinion economics is a science with just as much to offer public policy as chemistry, biology, or agronomy. Bill C-474 does not establish some unrealistic threshold, nor does it give economic considerations of veto over all other considerations. It simply provides policy-makers with one more tool with which to understand the implications of their decisions, and our sector feels this is a reasonable one.

In conclusion, Canada's organic sector bears a disproportionate risk when confronted with adventitious presence of GE in our products. We face this as both a loss of our organic designation for our products and a loss of our established markets. We know that many of the markets we do business with, such as the EU and Asia, do not want GE products. They are not open to them, and we need to respect this or they will supply new suppliers.

We are a young and quickly growing sector with strong ties to our consumer base and to vigorous international markets with tremendous investment opportunities. We need some safeguards in place to allow us to adequately respond to market opportunities without incurring prohibitive costs or closed borders.

The organic sector, in essence, is looking for reassurance that our business will not be taken from us. It's a new business and we're still trying to grow it. We either need to know that our production model and existing business are being considered as factors in the regulatory approval of plants with novel traits or we need a policy that describes the onus and liability of the owners of biotechnology, whose innovations are not solutions but instead have become a problem and liability for the organic sector.

I'm happy to speak with you on either of these two options, but I suspect that Bill C-474 is the easiest and most graceful of the two for you to consider, and I urge you to do so.

Thank you.

[Paul Gregory, President, Interlake Forage Seeds Ltd]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As a brief preamble, while flying on WestJet yesterday, I picked up The Globe and Mail, and here is a quote from it by the father of India's green revolution, Dr. Swaminathan:

Genetic modification is a very powerful tool. But like any powerful tool, when using it, you have to take into account the environmental impact, the food safety aspects and so on. There must be a strong regulatory mechanism. If you don’t have it, people won’t have confidence in GM technology.

As Wilf just mentioned, technology is becoming cheap and available, and we must have more than just science taking a look at it.

I am a first generation farmer who, after a stint at U of M pursuing an undergrad degree in entomology and monogastric nutrition, has turned our farm into an export company, a seed processor, and a pollination broker. Along with my brother, Lee, we employ 15 staff.

As a professional agrologist and seedsman, I have enjoyed working alongside our provincial agriculture minister on both the appointed FRDC seed board. I have toured the province extensively, both as a seed buyer and retailer and an executive member of Keystone Agricultural Producers. Currently I am serving on the executive of the Northern Seed Trade Association, an international seed trade group; the Manitoba Organic Alliance; and also as a board member of the Lake Winnipeg Stewardship Board. I am in weekly conversations with our trade customers, both in the EU and U.S.A., for both conventional and certified organic seed species.

Canada is a nation of oligopolies. We have a relatively small farm economy that can easily be manipulated by the railways, the grain merchants, and the agricultural input suppliers.

I submit that political oversight is needed to help farmers be competitive in the world economy. American bankers have, until recently, sneered at our so-called socialist banking systems. American oilmen have scoffed at our excessive offshore drilling safety rules. Now the life science corporations are complaining that political oversight will be restrictive toward their bid to gain market share in Canada's seed trade.

I believe in good science and modern plant breeding. I also believe in good democracy and, maybe naively, that our members of Parliament represent a public good for the majority of their constituents.

You are told that life science companies will not supply Canada with the latest genetics and that the additional hurdle Bill C-474 imposes on the registry approval process will not be in the best interests of Canadian farmers. You are told that it may cost $100 million and 10 years of work to develop a new GM crop, but as Wilf just alluded to, you're not told that Dow AgroSciences has a new DNA sequencing technology available today that cuts costs in half for breeding new traits. We are on the cusp of a revolution in plant breeding that will dramatically speed up the time it takes to insert new genes into crop species.

The argument that this new political uncertainty will drive up expenses and limit R and D dollars is groundless because, going forward, plant breeding will be far cheaper and easier than it has been in recent history. You are told by the CSTA that seedsmen are in favour of Roundup Ready alfalfa in this bill. Have you had time to ask the forage crops committee at the CSTA what their opinion is?

I was at the Winnipeg airport over two years ago when 25 members of the CSTA from across Canada met with Forage Genetics and Monsanto. The chair took a straw poll, and all but three companies present were opposed to or had reservations about introducing Roundup Ready alfalfa into Canada. But after some effective lobbying by Monsanto and others, there was a change of heart.

As a seed company CEO responsible for the livelihood of your fellow employees, would you risk ticking off in a public forum the biggest supplier of genetics? Would CSTA risk the support dollars of their largest corporate donors?

Our small company pays $3,000 per year for membership fees to the CSTA on approximately $2.5 million to $3 million in seed sales. Monsanto would pay 10 or 20 times that much for its CSTA dues. So would the CSTA executive risk their careers to go against the flow? I'm not talking about influence peddling or anything illegal, but when you have a large customer, you do what it takes to get the job done.

Speaking of customers, specifically my European friends, who buy over half of Canada's trefoil and 20% of our $142 million forage seed exports, they are stubborn on the GM issue.

As we all know, the Europeans have promised more open trade policies towards GM-traded foodstuffs. I would love to see a reasonable, low-level presence threshold for unapproved trades, but it may come as a surprise to you that over in Europe, farmers do have political clout. They're enjoying a beautiful GATT-green, WTO-green, non-tariff trade barrier by not allowing GM crops into their system. Why would they want to open up their market to world competition? Why would they want to dismantle it? I have many close European friends, and they think it will be a long time before GM traits will be allowed across the continent. Don't bet the farm on low-level adventitious presence thresholds coming any time soon.

Currently, I'm restructuring my seed company with legal firewalls that will limit our exposure to a lawsuit from Europe when they discover Roundup Ready alfalfa genes in any given seed lot. Cal/West and other American seed companies have already discovered Roundup Ready alfalfa genes in their breeding programs, and it'll be in Canada sooner than we think.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I really dislike public speaking, and I have heard from Manitoba friends who have testified here that committee members can turn your words around and grandstand and make you look a fool, but I have the respect of my customers, growers, and employees, and you will not take that away from me.

Thank you.

[Dr. Wilfred Keller]

Today I'm pleased to represent Genome Prairie. We are a regional centre of Genome Canada. We cover the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

We are very interested in facilitating and coordinating new initiatives related to biosciences, particularly in the emerging area of genomics. We see this as very important for Canada's society and for our economic well-being going forward.

Over the last decade we've administered some $180 million of investment in developing research, much of it in the area of crop agriculture. We partner with universities, with government laboratories at both the federal and the provincial levels, and with small and emerging Canadian companies. We think the partnership issue is a very important part of the innovation agenda for Canada and that biosciences are going to be critical to our economic well-being in the future.

I would like to make a few general comments about the whole issue of bioscience and crops. Of course, since the beginning of human civilization 10,000 years ago or so, we have been interested in improving and selecting and modifying crops for our purposes. The field of genetics first really started in the 20th century, particularly after the First World War. Canada came to the fore as a major developer, producer, and exporter of high-quality crops. There is a long list, but certainly wheat, canola, oats, flax, and mustard all come to mind. We're a major producer of high-quality products.

During the period following the First and Second World Wars, there was a lot of work on genetic improvement. Hybrid crop varieties came into being, such as new varieties of disease-resistant, rust-resistant wheat, which is an important Canadian story.

With the discovery of the DNA molecule as the basis of genetics, we moved into the era of molecular biology in the 1960s and 1970s. Ultimately, this spawned whole new industries, commonly referred to as the biotechnology industry, with many small companies growing out of universities in both Canada and the United States. Many types of technologies that had an economic impact were generated, including the production of pharmaceuticals, such as insulin. Almost all insulin is produced in genetically engineered yeast. Food additives, such as for cheese manufacturing, for example, are genetically modified. Certainly our friends in Europe have adopted them and use all these products.

Along with that came the tools for improving crops, commonly referred to as biotech crops, which are based on understanding a single gene and introducing it into a crop to bestow on the crop a perceived benefit, be it disease resistance, tolerance to herbicides, or hybrid production systems. This technology has been rapidly adopted by Canadian farmers, and at an international level, to the extent that in 2009, more than 275 million acres of genetically modified crops were grown in more than 20 countries. I believe that 25 countries are producing 100,000 acres or more of these crops. Trade in genetically modified crops is here to stay.

Over the last decade we've seen a new wave of genetics-based research, referred to as genomics, which is based on handling and understanding the whole genome. Technological aspects of sequencing the genome include using informatics and computer power to analyze it. The sequencing of the human genome, which cost $10 billion two years ago, can now be done for $10,000 and will be done for $1,000 and perhaps, ultimately, $100. It will have a tremendous impact on what's going to happen in medical research. We already have evidence of new diagnostics and therapeutics, which are reported in the paper and the news fairly often. It has a tremendous impact on Canadian industries, the health industry, and the health research communities in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

In the case of crops, we can expect similar, major, and I would say transformational changes, because now we are dealing with the whole genome and have the ability to look at complex traits, be they drought tolerance or changing the components of seed for better human nutrition. We will see new industries and many new companies coming to the fore. This is an important era for Canada in terms of trying to capture value from these technologies and for building an innovation agenda that really emphasizes the growth of our small, new companies based on our creative, young Canadian researchers. From my experience working with these companies, they will exist in many sectors across food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and so forth, covering our major clusters, not only in Saskatoon, where I come from, but in Guelph, for example, and in Montreal, which has its biopharmaceutical industry.

My feeling, as a researcher, is that this is not a time to introduce non-quantitative, non-scientific issues into our regulatory framework, which sets the environment for investment. Consequently, our organization will make the following three recommendations in a concluding form.

One, continuing on what I've been mentioning, we need to build on that vision of having an innovative society that's based on new company growth. That involves partnership between public and small, private companies, and it's ultimately critical that the environment for investment in these new enterprises is stable and secure. We believe that it's ultimately best done through a science-based regulatory framework. We do not believe it's appropriate to introduce non-science-type issues into our regulatory framework. It will dampen the potential for investment for those small, new companies. Investors want to understand, and they need to see a good stable environment. We think we need to pursue that vision, and we do not recommend that Bill C-474 be supported.

Two, building on the fact that there is going to be an appropriate environment, we need to move forward to develop high-quality crops and high-quality products to continue to build our leadership. We are now the world's leader in exporting canola, durum wheat for pasta, oats, flax, mustard, and lentils. Some of these are genetically modified; others are not. The important point is that we use research to position ourselves to be a leader in exporting the best products and the best technologies available, and it's going to depend on clear research and a strong research environment. We need to support our producers. Canada needs to play its role in sustaining food production on a global basis, with some 10 billion people expected to be on this planet. We need to diversify our capability in agriculture to build that enterprise.

Three, we would recommend that Canada, rather than looking at the regulatory framework in terms of adding new elements, streamline our regulatory framework to make sure we are competitive. We think there's room. I do believe that. And we do recommend that Canada's emphasis should be on becoming a leader in dealing with the issue of adventitious presence, the issue of contamination in seed lots, be it some seeds that are found on a boat that are from a non-registered, non-approved variety.... We have to move away from zero tolerance to some type of accepted limit. We accept limits for all kinds of non-external products in our seeds. They can be small rocks, they can be dead insects, or they can be weed seeds or seeds from other crops. We have to do the same for genetically modified products. A zero tolerance ruling is not feasible, is not realistic, going forward.

I think this is an opportunity for Canada to be a leader, to develop guidelines that are globally acceptable, so that our trade will continue, because the technology is going to develop in many directions and we want to be in the best position possible to capture value from that going forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call the meeting to order. This is our first full meeting of the fall session, and we'll continue with our study of Bill C-474.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses in advance for being here today. We'll move right to our first one: Mr. Keller.

If all of you could keep your comments to ten minutes or less, I would appreciate it. Thank you.