Agriculture Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Boyd and Mr. Broderick.

You have 10 minutes between you.

Thank you.

[Mary Boyd, Representative, P.E.I. Health Coalition]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In the P.E.I. Health Coalition, we understand the relationship between food and health. We believe that the first strategic outcome of the Growing Forward agricultural policy framework should be to make the provision of healthy food for the country’s population the top priority.

A competitive and innovative sector, “from idea to invention to consumer, growing new opportunities that support innovation and competitiveness”, is exactly why a large percentage of Canada’s food is genetically engineered against the will of the people of Canada, the majority of whom reject genetically engineered foods and want compulsory labelling.

GE food was imposed on society without our knowledge and we are caught with it. Canada’s population is large enough to support a food system determined much more by healthy considerations than by GE profit and competition. How will this program also support organic farming?

We believe that priority number two should be the starting point, “A sector that contributes to society’s priorities: Enabling the sector to contribute to the priorities of increasingly health conscious and environmentally aware Canadians”. This can be achieved through a strong supply management system rather than an open-market system. There is no place for competition in a domestic food system that puts health and farmer well-being first.

While we support a dynamic, modern agricultural industry that reflects both Canada’s national achievements and the local character of the provinces and territories, we question who determines what such a sector will look like. Will it reflect the current industrial model of agriculture that is under corporate control, to the detriment of the community, or will it reflect a locally owned green agriculture that greatly reduces our carbon footprint? Will it concentrate on growing healthy food, or will it focus on non-food items such as biofuels, which are taking over large portions of agricultural land in Africa and here in Canada?

In other words, we need to be clear and transparent about what kind of agricultural future we are building locally and how we intervene globally. Is innovation based on profit or health? Why is there the strong emphasis on competition?

The first and overarching principle of the Saint Andrews Statement emphasizes a “profitable agriculture, agri-food and agri-products sector”. We believe there is too much emphasis on the market and trade agreements. We hear many farmers complain that they are efficient and it is the system that is inefficient.

We also note that farmer income, especially on small and medium size farms, the most important producers for our future, is not keeping pace with the increasing cost of food.

We notice that health is given the least emphasis of the aims outlined in Growing Forward 2. On the contrary, the plan needs to emphasize human health, soil health, protection of agricultural land, the health of the atmosphere, and assistance to increase organic farming. As for competitiveness of domestic markets, we believe that if we are to have competitively priced inputs farmers must be assisted in developing more of these on the farm, and they need to be green products.

We also submit that there are ethical questions surrounding the production and adoption of new products, processes, technologies, and business models developed domestically and abroad. There needs to be careful public scrutiny of these.

Trade agreements such as the Canada-U.S. Free trade Agreement, and NAFTA, and now the proposed CETA, are not good models of trade. When Canada negotiates bilateral agreements, it needs to keep in mind that the ideal is fair trade, not trade for the advantage of the strongest and the corporations.

We strongly support a sustainable agricultural system based on holistic sustainability.

There is little mention in the paper of global warming nor an admission that agriculture is the biggest contributor to the problem, nor is there much mention of human health, of developing green agriculture, cutting down on waste, a greater role for consumers and farmers, and food as a human right.

In such a model, trade would not be at the top of the agenda, and we would not force our agenda and profit-making desires on the poorer countries of the world, making them vulnerable to dumping while placing barriers on their desire to trade.

However, Canada must be self sufficient in food and depend less on imports. A new food system could be a key driver of solutions to climate change. Since 1990, the area planted with soy, sugar cane, oil palm, maize, and rapeseed grew by 38%, while staple foods like rice and wheat declined.

There is a compelling case that the current global food system, propelled by an increasingly powerful transnational food industry, is responsible for around half of all human-produced greenhouse gas emissions. These range anywhere from a low of 44% to a high of 57%, according to GRAIN, an organization that was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize this year.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have about three and a half minutes left.

[Leo Broderick, Representative, P.E.I. Health Coalition]

Good. Thank you very much.

In P.E.I. we are very concerned about the escalation of genetically engineered crops on the island. First of all, when the former premier of Prince Edward Island, the Honourable Pat Binns, called for hearings to determine whether P.E.I. should be a GMO-free province, a record number of islanders presented well-researched and documented briefs in opposition to GMOs. They raised ethical questions about environmental health and economic risks, including corporate control.

Unfortunately, last-minute political and corporate influence turned the tables against P.E.I. We are sorry to report that in spite of the great efforts of many islanders, the percentage of GE crops has increased, against the wishes of the people and regardless of the fact there are many unproven risks.

Now many islanders are shocked to learn that a GE Atlantic salmon has been developed and is awaiting approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration. A small U.S. company, AquaBounty, intends to produce all of its GE salmon eggs on P.E.I. and to ship them to Panama to be grown, processed, and sold table-ready to customers in the United States.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Broderick, that may be something you may want to make the fisheries committee aware of.

[Leo Broderick]

Well, I think it's important that it be mentioned at this committee too, because we're into farming, that is, the farming of salmon.

It looks as if the FDA will approve the proposal. We believe there has not been enough study done on this project and that there's a role for the Canadian government to have some say in this, particularly since these salmon are being grown on Prince Edward Island.

There is no guarantee that the fish won't escape and destroy wild salmon. We also know that as soon as this is approved—and the Canadian government will be involved in the final approval—there will be many other genetically engineered animals ready to come onto market, including the one in Canada called the enviropig, which is supposed to be more environmentally friendly because it will be less polluting, or the poo that it gives out will be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Broderick, I want to give you the best use of your time. This is the agriculture committee; you are talking about aquaculture. The GMO study, or biotech, are things that we have done, but this is about Growing Forward 2, and I would advise you to stick to that.

That would be most valuable to the committee.

[Leo Broderick]

To conclude, we have many genetically engineered crops on P.E.I. and in the rest of Canada, and we are now ready to move into food that has been genetically engineered, that is, animals that have been genetically engineered. All of these processes, both the crops and the aquaculture, will have a negative impact on the environment and people's health.

When she was asked six years ago about environmentally damaging aspects of GE crops, Allison Snow, a well-known person who has done research on genetically engineered crops, stated that the development of super-weeds might be just a matter of time. She has been proven correct. Today many people are raising questions about GE salmon. Surely, experience tells us to hold off.

Certainly the sorry state of the wild Atlantic salmon stock tells us that we need to choose the precautionary principle. We believe that the Government of Canada needs to strengthen its regulations to protect the health and good name of its citizens. Both Environment Canada and Health Canada ought to fully disclose all communications they have from AquaBounty on this subject, as well as any other pending discussions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll now move to questioning, a five-minute round. Up first will be Ms. Raynault.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for accepting the committee's invitation.

I wanted to ask questions about the Atlantic salmon. May I?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

It's your five minutes, Madame Raynault. You can use it however you want.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to know what role Environment Canada plays and what the public health risks are if we eat this type of fish. Have studies been done? I am going to ask all my questions. What are the environmental risks?

What is the reason behind genetically engineered salmon? What are the benefits? Why should people eat it? Is it going to be less expensive? Should we worry about people's health and the environment?

[Leo Broderick]

Those are wonderful questions.

First, there is a role for Environment Canada. Once there is an application for the sale of eggs to the United States, there must be an environmental assessment. But it's secret, and we will not know on Prince Edward Island when that assessment takes place. Everything is secretive. That's the problem with this particular process with genetically engineered salmon and eggs being developed on Prince Edward Island. Everything has been conducted in secret. We do not get the results of Environment Canada's assessment. We're not sure yet if the application has gone in. The only assessment that has been done has been AquaBounty's own scientific research and evidence presented to the FDA. There has been no peer assessment. There has been nothing else done that would replicate that.

What we do know is that much of the research AquaBounty has submitted to the FDA is flawed. It cannot guarantee full sterility of all of its salmon. It only did a study on six, but they say that if there is an escape, there's a 5% potential that the salmon could contaminate the wild salmon stocks in the Atlantic.

To some extent, we really came here to raise this as an issue for the government. If approved by the United States FDA, it will be the first genetically engineered animal for the dinner plate, and we know that there will be many requests that will come immediately following. The environmental risks are huge, as are the health risks, especially with respect to the allergens. It is believed that for anyone predisposed to being allergic to fish, this particular fish will intensify that greatly. It's a growth hormone that has been taken from two other fish, and it will make the AquaBounty salmon grow twice as fast for the first two years. It consumes much more food, and it has to be fed wild fish taken from the ocean. So there are huge environmental and health issues.

We're here to talk to you about the role that, we believe, elected officials like you have in dealing with this question in the House of Commons. It's critical.

[Mary Boyd]

There are organizations of doctors and environmental doctors who are really questioning all the unknowns of all genetically engineered food, and that includes fish. For instance, that growth hormone that is used in salmon, the IGF-1 hormone, could cause cancers. There's a possibility of that.

Many doctors have talked about the inflammation of people's digestive systems, now that we have been eating genetically engineered food—not of our own will but often unknowingly.

They've talked about the increase in allergies. Also, with these salmon, they will probably need to use even more antibiotics than with the farmed salmon on land, because they're going to eat up to five times more food. They're very aggressive. Therefore, they'll probably need more antibiotics. We will be ingesting all of those. What will that do to us, to our immunity to antibiotics in the future? There are many questions like that. I imagine babies and children starting to eat this food now. What is it going to be like when they're our age?

These questions make us realize that as consumers we're becoming guinea pigs. We did have a precautionary principle in this country where you didn't put anything on the market until it was tested as safe.

These things have never been proven safe. They're on the market, so what do we do? Will they wait until we all get sick and then try to treat us? Maybe we'll survive, maybe we won't, if this keeps escalating.

There are serious questions about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much. Your time has expired.

Mr. Lobb, you have five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Keller. You stated in your presentation that Genome Prairie has been around for 11 years, which would encompass the entire time the Growing Forward suite of programs has been out there. You no doubt have participated in them in some form or another.

I was wondering if you could comment on some of the good points and some of the poorer points of Growing Forward, from your experiences.

[Dr. Wilfred Keller]

Thank you.

I think the first Growing Forward policy framework, or Growing Forward 1, did present some interesting new programs, for example, the idea of science clusters around such key crops as canola. I think the first set of attempts was good, in that it pulled together groups of researchers, particularly from universities, Agriculture Canada, and other organizations, to start looking at some common areas.

Going into Growing Forward 2, we would like to see more focus in terms of how we can identify priorities that can keep Canada competitive. This is why we talked about actually creating some national technology centres that will allow Canadian researchers to be competitive with the new sets of tools that are rapidly being developed. As well, being able to focus on specific traits will make Canada more competitive in the emerging markets that we see in other countries.

I think there has been a reasonable start, but there is a need for improvement and focus going forward.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Through Growing Forward, and your program specifically, a lot will go through the science and innovation portion of it. Can you give us a little more of the “how”, as in how you'd like to see this unfold through Growing Forward 2?

A lot of what we've seen has gone through a number of different things, whether it's universities or clusters or whatever it may be. You said you'd like to see more of that or to build upon that. Can you explain to us how you'd like to see that going ahead?

[Dr. Wilfred Keller]

Let me list a couple of things.

As we start building this capacity, we want to see an effort on commercialization and development. We want opportunities for ensuring that private sector players, small companies particularly, can take advantage of developments by our looking at opportunities for resourcing or assisting these new innovative entrepreneurial players. That is going to be very critical. We would strongly recommend there be some programming in place for that sector.

The second would be to ensure that we can develop environmentally friendly renewable technologies, which had very little space and resources in Growing Forward 1. These should be given more space and resources in Growing Forward 2. We could cite the example of Ontario where they're doing a lot of work on automobile replacement parts from bioresource material. I think this would be an excellent way of adding more.

Then we would want there to be a very good look at what our market opportunities are and the products that those organizations need. A good example would be the pulse work where biofortification is used to add nutrients to pulses through crop development--not GE methods, but through standard crop breeding--to provide excellent marketing of these products to Asia, where there are deficiencies of a lot of micronutrients.

So we should really build on key strategies that make Canada competitive.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Along the way, we had the AgriFlex program, in which groups like yours, no doubt, would have fully participated.

The other thing, when we're talking about some of these new innovations through biomass or bio-whatever, is venture capital. The capitalization of a lot of these projects is an impediment to anything.

Would you like to see some sort of a program in Growing Forward 2, or help to continue, as you said, to commercialize these ideas?

[Dr. Wilfred Keller]

We would like to see something in Growing Forward 2, or perhaps in some partnership with whatever happens with the R and D panel report from yesterday, because there's going to be a lot of emphasis on R and D capacity-building in the private sector. That would allow us to get over that valley, wherein knowledge generated by many public laboratories is picked up by entrepreneurial companies that don't then have the resources and financial capacity to take it to the stage where venture capitalists and banks and so forth take over.

So I think it's very important for Growing Forward 2 to be aware of that need, particularly for emerging opportunities in food products and renewable products.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks. You have a lot of good ideas there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

We'll now move to Mr. Eyking for five minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

I thank the guests for coming, especially my neighbours from P.E.I. I'm on the neighbouring island of Cape Breton, where we can see you on a clear day.

I am concerned about the genetically modified fish, but that's not what my question is about. I'm concerned that if they get loose, they're going to come over to our island, because the Atlantic wild salmon is very important to us.

Our committee travelled to P.E.I. and I know a lot of farmers there. I was hoping that the salmon would stay GMO-free, not because I'm against GMOs totally. I'm looking more at the market, and I see P.E.I. as being at a bit of a disadvantage, because of the transportation and input and selling costs, because you're in a bit of a remote area. But being on an island like that, I think you have a great opportunity to control how your food is being produced.

You're sitting right next to a very large market, North America really, and you have a port there in Charlottetown. You could be shipping more organic and GMO-free product, or whatever, to the European market.

We visited your killing plant, and it does quite a job there. With all the concerns, especially in the U.S., there is not only a move towards organic food but also towards a market for beef that does not have hormones in it. There's an interest now in grass-fed beef. I see all these opportunities that P.E.I. could have with those big markets, but also from looking at more of a niche market.

I don't know whether or not they'll ever switch over or whether organic potatoes would be the answer, but I definitely see the opportunity with grass-fed beef. Grass grows very well. You don't have to irrigate in P.E.I. and I see that plant there. In the future you'll see on the market shelves of Loblaws and Walmart this grass-fed beef, because people will go for it.

So how do you make that happen? I guess you people would say that you failed in that first round of trying to be GMO-free. Does it have to be provincially led by your own government? Can the federal government get involved a bit, or should we have programs that are going to enhance...? And there I just look at the grass-fed beef, because on our farm we have grass-fed beef and we ship it to your plant, but we just don't get the money for it. We get less money than they get for a steer that's produced out west.

How can we get around that? How should the federal government be encouraging and helping the farmers? Is it on the marketing side? Is it on the production side? Is it classification? Should there be more people going on trade missions?

I see great potential in P.E.I. that way, because your isolation could give you an advantage. Could you comment on that? How can the federal government help you more?

[Leo Broderick]

I'll take a couple of minutes, and then Mary will speak.

We share exactly your sentiment and you know, P.E.I. actually was GMO-free for one day. The legislative committee met six years ago. They had made the decision based on what the people of Prince Edward Island.... And I must say there were presentations to the legislative committee from all over the world. It was the largest legislative hearing in the history of the province. It hasn't been matched since. It demonstrated clearly that people were thinking the way you were thinking, that this has a huge potential impact on the environment, for health, and for markets, for all foods in Prince Edward Island including beef. Monsanto came in overnight, met with two of the leading members of the government, and by the next afternoon the decision was taken that Prince Edward Island would not be a GMO-free province.

We're keeping up the pressure, but local elected politicians, with the exception of one or two, do not share our view for the province. It's foolhardy. They're now developing soybeans, and coexistence in soybeans is an impossibility, but the market is Asia. They're sending out the GMO-free ones. There's a huge market. In the wintertime, the others are being fed to your wonderful beef and other animals that will be contaminated.

So I think the federal government, particularly Agriculture Canada, must listen to many natural and organic farmers in this country. And Prince Edward Island is precisely the place to begin a huge new experiment in growing food that's safe, free from pesticides, and free from chemical fertilizers, so that we can have beef and other products that are free of genetically modified organisms.