Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The issue of biotechnology is currently an issue in which the agency has a great investment. We look at these files of biotechnology with a scientific eye. The agency has the responsibility to evaluate new products that come to the market from the standpoint of their innocuousness to the environment and with regards to any impact on the feeding of animals. From that standpoint, the agency reviews very carefully every submission that is made by the private sector with very rigorous and scientific criteria to determine whether these products are acceptable or not.
So it's a long preamble to say that the agency would be looking with the same eye at products that have potentially terminator genes attached to them. In other words, are there scientific reasons why these products should or should not be approved? Do they represent a threat to the environment, to biodiversity, to the insect population, to other plants, etc? We will be making a determination on that basis.
There are other considerations, of course, but these considerations do not belong to the agency. I think Canada has made a decision not to entertain any approval of these products and we've made that determination public. It's clearly not an agency priority.