Evidence of meeting #70 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was crops.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Professor, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, As an Individual
I guess it depends on the operation and the intensity of the operation.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Let's just look at the canola sector. I'll use that as a good example. We went from using it for weed control, which was the big bang, to getting into no-tillage. Canola that was Roundup resistant allowed us to control grassy weeds. It allowed a new type of weed control. Chemicals like QR5 and Edge and Treflan had tremendous leaching issues. We're actually preventing soil degradation by moving that way.
If you look at the organic matter and soil after you started two, three, five years of production in no-tillage, you can see there was a tremendous environmental impact from embracing that technology. Not only that, the technology grows and gets better and better. We now have LibertyLink and new varieties coming out. It used to be that if you could get 25, 30 bushels an acre of canola, that was a great crop. Now if we can't get 55 or 60 bushels an acre, it's a disaster.
So I look at that and I see that coming forward, and these are the steps that are going to feed the world. I still want to respect, as Malcolm says, the right of the individual and the market to decide. If I want to eat something closer to home or something that is produced in a former fashion or in an organic sector...I respect that.
How do you do both? That's what we need to get our heads around. How will the organics meet us at the table so that we can do both? Right now, from what I see with the zero tolerance and the comments Mr. Holmes made about market access, it's not a market access approach. It's a science-based approach to get market access. We have problems with market access when politics gets involved. When politicians decide that we're not going to allow this to happen, we ask why. They can't tell you why, and they don't have the science to back it up.
When I look at the food that hits this table, I have to make sure it's safe to eat. I really don't care if it's organic or non-organic. I don't care. I just want to know that when a baby, or my kids, or somebody else puts that food in their mouth it's safe to eat. How you market your product, that's up to you. In fact the Canadian government helps out a lot. We put the standards in place to ensure that if you're growing organics you at least have the code of conduct of an organic farmer.
We don't endorse any one system over another. Why are you asking us to do that now in refusing to look at low-level presence?
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association
I could have come here with a position of purism. I think the committee needs to take a moment to reflect that I did not do that. I did not come to your table today—
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Are you saying you're willing to look at low-level presence as an option?
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association
What I'm saying is that if you're looking at a low-level presence in GMO policy, you need to have a comprehensive approach. It's not just coexistence, which is allowing GM to run rampant everywhere and we get to shovel out the stable. It's about a comprehensive approach where there's shared responsibility on all sides. I think that's reasonable and practical.
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association
Would you feed your baby—
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
My approach is to make sure that when the food hits the table it's safe.
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association
—baby formula from China?
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Let me get my point across. I have my five minutes and I'll make my point.
I have to make sure that the food is safe. That's my priority as a parliamentarian, as a government regulator. That is our role and responsibility. It is not to decide how you market your products.
So why are you asking us to get involved in how to market products?
12:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Organic Trade Association
That's what we're being asked. We're being told that there's a market entry problem and that we should enable that problem by lowering our thresholds and standards.
What I'm saying, though, is that this would be the first example I'm aware of where we would hand over our government's responsibility to determine what is safe for our citizens and give it to some other jurisdiction. Why would we start that now?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Let me get back to you. When we talk low-level presence—
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
—we're talking about what content is already considered safe for human consumption.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Order, please. Order.
With that, I'll thank our guests for being here. We appreciate your presentation, and we understand that this is a very complex issue. Thank you very much for your participation.
We're going to take a very short break to come back to Mr. Hoback's motion.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
