Evidence of meeting #24 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was gmos.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:30 a.m.
Policy Director, Ecology Action Centre
May I give a glib answer? Then why bother, if it's no different. Obviously, there is, I mean....
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's more the trait of the growth rate. I'm not an expert. We're just trying to get the facts on the table.
10:30 a.m.
Policy Director, Ecology Action Centre
It's a fair question. I get it, but at the same time there obviously is a difference, otherwise we wouldn't be interested. I think if any other body goes forward on this, you need to....
There's a DFO scientist, Robert Devlin, who's done, relatively speaking anyway, a lot of research on how these salmon behave. It's only in laboratory conditions, because we can't test it in nature. That's always a limitation. They do have different behaviour traits. We don't know how this particular genetic expression will express itself in wild fish under a hundred different conditions in the lab.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Okay, thank you.
Our time is so limited. I wish I could get into that a little further. My understanding is that it is one gene sequence change 30 years ago that is being used now.
Maybe this is for Dr. Fletcher.
With the aquaculture industry, we had a previous presentation that said they weren't interested in this, but the industry was interested in overcoming the problems with antifreeze genes. You were there at the beginning of all of this, which is amazing. Who started this? Was the industry looking for antifreeze genes? No.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
10:30 a.m.
Memorial University of Newfoundland
We were working on antifreeze proteins. We were one of the first. I'm a physiologist. Choy is a protein chemist, and Peter Davies at Queen's is a molecular biologist. We had started working on the antifreeze protein because it was so unique. There was virtually no genetic work going on by anybody, anywhere, in fish, I mean.
We had already isolated the antifreeze gene. Then there's another friend who ended up calling up at the university and going around the province trying to find places to culture salmon in Newfoundland. I said to him bluntly, “You're not going to be able to do it. They're not freeze resistant.” Choy Hew said to me, “Let's give them the gene.”
As you know, we're always looking for money to do our research. We applied to NSERC's strategic grants program, and rather nicely they gave us our first parcel of money to give it a try. It did take us a few years to figure out how to do it. Nobody else was involved. All that NSERC required was that we show that it might be a benefit to the Atlantic provinces. There were no companies involved at all.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
You mentioned the Atlantic provinces. The University of Guelph has been quite involved with the Atlantic provinces in protein production and research around gene development in different areas, whether it's pigs or in other areas such as plants.
This is the opportunity for Canada to become the number one food processor, producer, and supplier in the world. You didn't say that this was the tip of the iceberg, but I translated that in my head. Is this something that universities across Canada are now doing by taking your research and looking into other areas, or is that still something that needs to be developed?
10:30 a.m.
Memorial University of Newfoundland
As I think I said, there's a lot of interest in doing genomics of salmon, a huge amount of work in genomics. The other side of it, knowing my colleagues, is that we're waiting to see what the government does. There was no question when Choy and I started out this was unknown territory and we were just doing a lot of experiments. We never dreamed that we would have a company be interested in it directly at that time.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
10:35 a.m.
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Not on these things I don't. I still work with antifreeze proteins because that's my first love, really, why fish don't freeze in the natural world and how they are protected. Others are working on other things that have to do with biotechnology and biotechnology products in aquaculture.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
So you accidentally put us in the leadership position in the world. Is that safe to say?
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's an honour. Thank you, and thanks for the work you have done.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Longfield.
Mr. Drouin, you now have the floor for six minutes.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Butler, you've had the opportunity to talk about the lack of consultation. When farmed salmon was introduced in Canada, do you recall whether there was a consultation process for that?
10:35 a.m.
Policy Director, Ecology Action Centre
Whoa. You're asking me to go back to my early twenties.
10:35 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Fletcher, was there a consultation process for the introduction of farmed salmon in Canada, or how did we go about approving this in Canada?
10:35 a.m.
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Didn't it start with DFO down in St. Andrews?
They sent a gentleman called Arne Sutterlin to Norway to learn how they were doing it. He came back to DFO in St. Andrews, and they started doing some experimental work with some private sector people. That's all I know about it really. It started down in the Passamaquoddy Bay area as a potential way to make money, I guess, and create employment.