Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition from citizens of the Peterborough area who are concerned about genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering of food, plants and animals is still relatively new, but it is expanding at an extraordinary rate. It now involves the manipulation of the most basic building blocks of life and requires such a high level of science and technology that it places new forms of basic foods in the hands of large corporations.
Genetic engineering of plants in one field can affect those in another through the spread of pollen.
Plants have been developed to produce a terminator gene which prevents farmers from growing seed for future plantings.
The petitions call upon parliament to direct the Government of Canada to ban all terminator gene development in Canada and to work with the United Nations to ban such development worldwide.