Agriculture Committee on Dec. 14th, 2010

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

What becomes the critical tipping point between...? Somebody says that you have to come to a consensus. I guess that's why we have lawyers, one on one side and one on the other side.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

You never get a consensus with lawyers.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

No, I'm just using that as an example, because that's what happens. I suspect that in this business, we will always have two sides. And at some point in time, somebody makes a decision based on what is safe, what is healthy, what is best for Canadian farmers, and what is best for the industry. The complexities keep going.

How do we move ahead, and how do we make those decisions so that we actually know that Canadians are protected?

[Dr. Ian J. Mauro]

I'd like to take a crack at that.

With respect to health issues, there are peer-reviewed published studies that indicate that there are possible health implications. Árpád Pusztai published very well-known papers about rat-feeding trials. There's all kinds of other related information that has shown that there might be potential problems. That information hasn't really been acted on. We know that there is initial evidence showing that there could be potential harm, and we need more research to investigate those things in a science-based way. I totally agree. We need more information from an epidemiological perspective. You need multiple human generations to test what the long-term impact will be on human health, but you also need long-term environmental monitoring.

On the issue of what defines novelty, if we abandon the idea of novelty at, say, 10 years from when a crop is introduced, and we stop looking at it as a new introduction, in 50 years, if there are potential problems, and we've abandoned that monitoring process of what is new in the environment, we will have no idea how to backtrack and figure out if it's causing harm. From an epidemiological perspective and from an environmental monitoring perspective, we need long-term studies to actually get at whether there is a risk. Without that, we have no information. We're flying blind.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Yada.

[Dr. Rickey Yada]

Mr. Chair, I'll just add to that.

I don't dispute what's in the literature with regard to certain studies. I'll tell you that the challenge we have with any of these kinds of studies is that we need to have replicated trials with standardized protocols and standardized end points. I think that happens in the food area when we talk about clinical trials and the benefits of certain ingredients. We'll see results that may actually benefit the consumer, may have a neutral effect, or may even be detrimental. The problem is that we haven't standardized our protocols.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

I would just like to comment on the study.

That's why I use “weight of scientific evidence”. People looked at that. Scientists looked at that. They went back to see if they could repeat it. They found issues with the study, and it was looked at over and over again.

So you end up with one saying this and 40 saying that. At what point is the tipping point? I guess that's the question.

And you have to look at the validity of.... You know, both were peer-reviewed studies, but if some are saying that we can't find it, and somebody else is saying they could, you have to look at it. The weight of the scientific evidence is one of the things I indicated, and I think that's important when you go forward.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

This last spring our committee travelled around to look at the future of agriculture. We were at some pretty advanced dairy farms.

You mentioned a calf. Let's say we have a hypothetical situation where a cow is putting out really good milk and somehow has omega-3 in the milk. You say, okay, this is the future cow.

Are you saying that we...? What would a farmer do? What would the university do? Would they try to develop from the egg of the cow--you're talking about the calf--to make a duplication of that animal? How would that happen?

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

First of all, I would emphasize that omega-3 in milk, for example, is something that had to go through the novel foods act, because we didn't normally have omega-3--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

There is such a thing as omega-3 in milk?

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

You don't drink Dairy Oh! in Ontario? I drink it. But it's added.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, I know it's added.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

It's not in the cow.

My point is that it had to go through the same regulatory process of novel foods. I know Rickey has been working with the company a lot. At that point--there is cloning and all those kinds of things--you would start to breed more and more of those animals, again, if there was a market.

The other thing I would emphasize when we talk about following crops is that we are constantly looking at crops from elsewhere in the world, just natural crops that come from Russia, from Europe, from areas similar climatically to Canada.

I have to emphasize that wheat is not native to Canada, and corn, soybeans. Soybeans weren't even in Ontario until about 1954. So we would have to do that for every one, bok choy and a whole bunch of vegetables that we're looking at right now.

At what point do we say, yes, we look at these ones and not the others? I think the novelty is the key trigger on that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

We're going to go to the Liberal side with Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

As I listen to the discussion and I listen to the answers, I see a lot--you'll forgive me for the use of this word--of “fertile” ground where common interests could be achieved. I really do.

Ian, you spoke of the hazards related to the farming industry as a result of biotechnology--seeds and contamination, etc.--and those very risks, as you've said, also create risk for the biotech industry.

We have to make recommendations to the government as a result of this study. I am wondering if you see or you envision a round table on organic and biotech being created by the government, involving all the stakeholders from both sides of the equation coming together and coming up with solutions.

Would you make that as a recommendation? If so, or if not--and I'm asking all of you, Gord, Ian, Rickey--what other recommendations would you make going forward from this point?

[Dr. Ian J. Mauro]

I think bringing stakeholders together to see eye to eye is always a good idea. With respect to organics, there's been a lot of mention of it, but we haven't really had it out. I think this technology is very tricky for that sector.

When you talk about gene flow and you talk about biological organisms self-replicating in the environment, for the most part it appears that containment is difficult. Regulators have not been able to contain this technology; industry itself has not been able to contain this technology. You look at Triffid flax. I'm sure you've heard of it. If industry and the regulators themselves cannot contain it, it means that coexistence in the environment is going to be difficult if not impossible.

Taking that into account, it means that one industry, the biotech industry, the conventional farming methodology, is going to impose their way on another industry. Organics is the fastest-growing sector in the Canadian agricultural economy. Consumers are demanding it, but because of the way the technology works, intrinsically, it appears that one is going to step on the other.

So dialogue becomes very difficult when the technology facilitates dominance of one way of growing food over another.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do you see a way where, in consultation with one another, solutions can be developed by communication?

Gord, you can answer this too.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

I can't guarantee it one way or the other, but I can tell you that we should try. At the end of the day, there may be certain areas that we agree on and certain areas that we agree to disagree on. But a face-to-face conversation and working on these things is always better. You both come out better than you went in.

There are no absolute guarantees, and I'm the first to say that, but at the end of the day we're all better for it.

[Dr. Ian J. Mauro]

In terms of recommendations, there are other jurisdictions that are doing really interesting things.

I met with people in Denmark, and they actually have monitoring programs. You find out where people are growing GMOs and where people aren't growing GMOs, and with spatial mapping you can figure out where risk areas are. If neighbours know what their neighbours are growing, which for the most part they do, you can actually map out where refugia might be possible for farmers to grow non-GMO crops. And if they can't, they can at least be aware of the risks that exist.

There are all kind of new ways to think about how we can grow food in a way that might facilitate coexistence. We can't guarantee it, but there are certainly much better approaches to what we currently have.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're going to have a couple of questions from people who didn't get a chance.

I think we're going to go to Brian first.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask some questions, and I'll split my time with Mr. Shipley so he can finish off with his.

I have one question for you, gentlemen. And thank you very much for coming. It was a very good discussion today.

For the record, could you state the difference between genetically modified and mutated? I think it's something that needs to be clarified.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

I'll take a try at that.

Evolution is occurring all the time, so “genetically modified” is actually a wrong term. If you look at dogs that started off as wolves, and now we can go from a Chihuahua to a Great Dane—cattle is another one—we have been separating breeds for eons. In so doing, we are genetically modifying by our selection. It's what I will call the “old” biotechnology, if you like.

I think it's actually a misnomer. Almost every bit of food, unless we're eating it wild, is genetically modified by man. We used to call it physiological cattle yield—Holstein versus Jersey was how we did it. But they're all because of genetic modifications selected by how the animals perform in some cases. That's always been going on.

[Dr. Ian J. Mauro]

I agree with my friend here. There are mutations that have occurred. Humanity has created the crop biodiversity we see around us in modern fields right now through conventional breeding.

However, genetic engineering is quantitatively different and qualitatively different. We're talking about intervention in the genome of life using precise scientific techniques that allow for the insertion of foreign DNA into an organism.

As another person said in the meeting, we're talking about species from one organism being introduced into another organism. That has never occurred in the history of plant breeding, or in the history of life as we know it. We're talking about a new approach that requires new thinking and new regulations to ensure that those introductions of foreign genetic material are not causing adverse harm within the genome, ecologically, and for people's health.

[Dr. Gord Surgeoner]

I would emphasize that humankind has been deliberately doing mutational breeding. We expose genomes, plant material, to radiation or to chemicals that cause lots of mutations. Then you try to “till” it, as we say, and find something that has better.... But you don't know nearly as much about that, which is mutational breeding, as you would from genetic engineering.

I think you should be aware that some of this is done deliberately to create new diversity for a gene pool that we then select out.