Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is a huge topic and there's no way we're going to do justice to even a part of it. I'll comment on a few issues, as well as some that I'm simply not qualified to comment on.
Of the ones I'm aware of, one is the regulatory process Dr. Yada has referred to. I think it is a good regulatory process. However, it is still founded on a general concept of safety that is decades old. From my perspective, I think there are better tools that could be used within that regulatory process. I say that simply because the original tools were as good as they had at the time, but science has moved on and we have much better tools these days for understanding where changes in crops—and eventually, I suspect, animals—have occurred and what the implications of those changes might be. So I think there is room for improving the regulatory process.
Another place that can be improved is in transparency. As far as I can see, the government has consistently hidden behind the commercial information privacy acts and said they cannot reveal information that has been disclosed to them as part of the approval process. That is true; at this point they are pretty much hands-tied on that issue. But that's something that could be modified relatively easily. When I talk to the biotech companies, they say that most of the information they release to the regulators is not sensitive information and they would be perfectly comfortable releasing it. As a matter of fact, in the United States they do release it. The same information gets made public in the U.S. and is retained under cover here in Canada.
I don't think this sets the right tone for the public to be confident in the accuracy and validity of the regulatory process. I'm not faulting the regulators, but I'm saying that, the way the process has been going, the public has retained a strong undercurrent of suspicion about the suitability of this technology and its acceptability in the marketplace. It's very unfortunate that we've gotten to this point, because the next generation of GM crops that one might like to see come into the marketplace to resolve issues that might be of more interest to consumers is going to find it very difficult to get through the regulatory process. It's just going to get harder rather than easier, I would say, over the next few years.
So I see some distinct problems coming. I think some of them can be resolved. There's certainly an opportunity to pull better science into this picture. And there is an opportunity for the government to establish a more meaningful dialogue, as Dr. Yada said, with the public and interested parties to try to build a consensus around this technology and how it should be deployed.
I'll leave it there.