Agriculture Committee on Feb. 7th, 2011

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So it's the regulatory and the manufacturing process. The research is being done up here, so obviously we've gotten it to a certain level. Then, as we try to commercialize it, you're saying it's just that much easier to do it in the United States.

[Dr. Andrew Potter]

It's commercialized where it makes the most economic sense.

I would argue that especially in Saskatchewan.... In our field, making vaccines, we have the last publicly funded fermentation operation in the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon, which is a phenomenal resource, so there are always very creative ways that one can do it within the country if there's a desire. I think we just need to find that desire and motivation again.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Hoback.

We'll move to Mr. Easter, and if it's okay with everyone, we'll just continue with the seven-minute rounds.

André, could I ask you to sit in for a second here, please?

Go ahead, Wayne.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, folks, for coming. If there's one thing that I think Saskatchewan is well recognized for, it is the Innovation Place, the cluster, with the competitors actually cooperating together to move ahead. It is absolutely amazing what we've seen in that area from out here.

Randy asked this question as well, in a sense. One of the problems.... I believe it was Mary who said that biotech is far more than GMOs, but that is an issue that we're just not getting around. We aren't.

As was mentioned around the table several times, Bill C-474 is up for a vote this week. Since I put word out yesterday, I can tell you this morning that we'll be recommending that at least my colleagues vote against the bill. I'm getting a lot of not very friendly mail, but it isn't a bill that does what its regulatory intent was.

At any rate, we have to get around the idea that biotech isn't just GMOs and get to all the other good things it does. Personally, I think there are good GMOs and bad GMOs. I think the science of each has to be looked at on its merits. How do we do that? Am I right in saying that biotech is not just GMOs? How do we do that?

Bert, I think you were suggesting earlier that there was a need for a biological solution to improve quality and nutrition, etc. There are a lot of different areas we can go into. Good research needs to be done in organics, good research needs to be done in natural solutions, good research needs to be done in biotechnology and even in GMOs, but how are we going to get people to understand the positives of it all? It's starting to be a war out there, from what I'm seeing. We're only going to hurt ourselves as a country and hurt our ability to progress, and even hurt, as Brad said earlier, people down on the farm.

How do we overcome it?

[Prof. Bert Vandenberg]

Can I answer that?

Personally, I think it's a messaging issue. You need to have two dozen really good 10-second clips to educate the public. That's the only way it gets done these days. Do it through social networking or whatever.

Defining biotechnology as transgenics, to me, is like defining food as a hotdog. That's crazy. People won't relate to that. If you think about the biology of everyday meal consumption, you can come around with a fairly sophisticated education program. If you make it funny, it's even better. That's the only way I see the public changing attitudes.

I used to tell the organic farmers that the one problem with their plan is they're going to starve the planet. We cannot afford a 10% or a 20% productivity loss. It's essentially a market for people who have a lot of money.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The issue of hunger, though, is more than just production. It's transportation, it's storage, it's waste, it's poverty. It's all those other issues. However, I agree: we do need to be improving our yields.

There's been a lot said here this morning. If I may sum up some of the key points, almost everyone is suggesting that we foster biotechnology and all its components. There's a real need for increased public research and development. There's a real need for infrastructure funding, which I think, Mark, you said basically is going to have to come from the public sector. As well, we definitely need to move away from zero tolerance, which I suppose would have to happen at the bilateral international trade level.

Does that sum up most of the key points?

[Mark Wartman]

I'd like to amend somewhat the sense that it's just from the public sector. The public sector, the government, has an opportunity in dealing with the major corporations that work in the agricultural biotechnology field. It's not just about tax cuts, which of course ring well if you're politicking; it's also about structuring those taxes and tax regimes so that companies are encouraged and enabled to invest in these areas.

Today we're not getting that kind of investment. We don't get the kind of investment they get in the U.S. in our public education either. Rather than giving it back and having it go to the shareholders or the executive or the board, we should make sure that it's structured in a way that's going to build our national agenda, which I know is what you're engaged in trying to do, and build it in a way that it's going to have the impacts we need.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

There's no disagreement from me there, Mark.

What perspective do all of you have on how we stack up against the rest of the world, in particular the United States, on research and development in relation to both the public sector and the private sector?

Secondary to that, one of the huge concerns in the food system at the moment is with the increasing amount of corporate control—there are a few big players—and with having to go back to the company for seed instead of producing your own. I think somebody mentioned—I believe it was you, Mary—that they're into encouraging public rights on seeds and the ability to reproduce your own, but all the GMO material really is going back to the company, and you are captive to that company. Their profits are increasing, and their executive salaries are going through the roof.

So how do we stack up against the world and how do we get a handle on controlling some of that corporate power that is imposing restraints on individuals?

[Prof. William A. Kerr]

We changed the system so that we were largely going to have private funding of biotechnology research because it is very expensive to commercialize these things and bring them forth to market, but we created a system whereby only the biggest of the multinationals can do this. I think that's a very consistent problem. It seems to me that the way you reduce that concentration is to go back, and as we did in pre-biotechnology days, and have the public sector able to put more products on the market directly. That will reduce the power of those companies. We can produce crops that can self-regenerate, and farmers can keep the seed. The private biotechnology company has no incentive to do that at all, but the universities and Agriculture Canada can do those things. That, to me, would be a way to reduce that concentration. We created a system whereby the private companies would take the bulk of the lifting and do that investment, and now maybe the result has been this great increase in concentration. Probably nobody saw it at the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll now go to Mr. Lemieux. Pierre, you have about four minutes.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First, thank you very much for being here.

What tremendous testimony we've had this morning on this subject, which is critical, I think, to agriculture and to consumers. Consumers are the end winners in these types of discussions and in the products that result.

As I was mentioning before, biotechnology is not well understood. There are a lot of misconceptions, and that's one of the reasons we're having this study: to lift the veil and have a bit of public debate on this, so that people see that biotechnology is not necessarily GM, and even if it is GM, we don't need to feel threatened by it. We have processes and policies in place.

I think this is a very important tour we're doing as the agriculture committee. I think it's disappointing that the NDP are not here. We have a Bloc member, we have two Liberal members, we have Conservative members, and the NDP pulled out. I say that because we've had just a bit of discussion on Bill C-474, and it's very focused on GM only. Alex Atamanenko, who is the NDP MP, is a strong proponent of his bill. To me he's the one who should be hearing what we're discussing this morning, or at least one of his colleagues should be here to bring the word back to him about some of this great discussion we're having. I think it's unfortunate that they're not here.

Mr. Wartman, you made a comment that sound science should trump politics. Sound science is very important and should take a leading role over politics when we're talking about biotechnology. I'm wondering if you might be able to elaborate on that. Is there a particular issue that comes to mind that leads you to make that statement?

[Mark Wartman]

Actually, it's a general lack of understanding. We talked about it in terms of education--what is biotechnology? There are a number of national figures who have significant public impact and influence who, in my view, do and should know better, but who continue to promote a view that is anti-biotechnology, even though they're focusing primarily on GM. David Suzuki is an example. He has an inordinate amount of influence with the public. There has to be some other kind of education for the public, because you and I know as politicians that public pressure can be huge, and it doesn't necessarily have any kind of scientific base, so as leaders it becomes risky and sometimes costly to make those decisions based on science. It takes a lot of courage to do it--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

[Mark Wartman]

--but if we're actually going to meet the needs that we see in front of us as we're moving into the future, we must, as leaders, make good decisions based on sound science.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm not going to go on about Bill C-474. I'm just going to finish up this round, and then I have a bunch of other questions. If I run out of time, I'll be holding on to them.

Do you feel Bill C-474 is a threat to biotechnology and the agricultural sector in that sense?

[Mark Wartman]

Alex and I have had a couple of discussions about this over the years, and we don't have a shared view of the ag-biotech industry. I believe we have seen over many years, with the development of crops like canola, that there is tremendous positive impact, and I think that is being missed. It's being ignored. I'm really concerned. I want to see very good science used in the decision-making. I think that primarily we need to have a better understanding that ag-biotech is far broader than transgenics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time is out.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's fine. I'll pick it up in the next round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We now move to Mr. Hoback.

I have been remiss. I should have thanked Randy for hosting us here in Saskatchewan. Randy and I have something in common. John Diefenbaker was born in my riding. We raised him and educated him and sent him on to bigger and better things in Prince Albert. That's an ongoing discussion we have down there.

Anyway, Mr. Hoback, go ahead for seven minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Do you really want to get into that right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

No, that's okay.

We have a lot of fun with it.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

We do. That's for sure.

In fact, there's a certain picture in Mr. Miller's office that would look really good in my office, I figure. It's of the Chief in his glory days.

Moving forward, I'm going to talk a little bit about the regulatory process, how we bring new crops to market, and what kinds of changes we need there.

Bert, I'm going to lean on you a little bit. Mary, I might lean on you a little bit, and anybody else who adds knowledge to it would be appreciated for sure.

As we see new crops being developed and new seeds being developed for different uses, both non-food and food, does the regulatory system we have in place address the concerns of bringing these products to market, whether the product is going to be used in the plastics industry or is going to be used for making a new vegetable oil or something like that? Is there a way we need to be looking at that properly?

[Prof. Bert Vandenberg]

Back in 1986, when the definitions were made, there was a proactive attempt to regulate the GMO industry, because people were very sensitive to it at that time, particularly in Europe. In Canada we managed to expand the definition so that any genetic change, even through traditional plant breeding, could be deemed as a plant with novel traits. I think that was a big mistake, because it basically created a level playing field at an unaffordable level for the minor crops. We have a huge problem there, and I've had personal experience with this. I tried to release a bean variety once, which was held up, and I eventually just abandoned it. The argument was that it was not grown in Canada and that it could be harmful to Canadians. Well, they've all been eating it in Mexico when the've gone on vacation.

There's some very poor science behind some of these regulations, and maybe that needs to be revisited. This, in a way, could also defuse the situation. Basically your argument for organic is that we need to go back to a more natural way. Why not create two paths to get to the problem of food? I think people could accept that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So when we go to a new product.... Let's use canola.

Brad, this is a good product for you. We've had that situation. Canola has a nice base. It can be used for a lot of different things, including plastics. In that scenario, if we're developing a new type of plastic from canola, should it go through the exact same process to meet all the food requirements anyway, because of cross-contamination?