Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by my colleague from Waterloo—Wellington, and in some respects, I still have concerns on the work of the government.
First off, I have the impression that the government created a lot of committees and panels last year, to some extent in order to gain a little time and to some extent to move forward so that at a given point it will be impossible to stop or go back. Some things are being questioned, and the government is not admitting that. I think, for example, of the principle of equivalence disputed by a number of scientists. I am not a leading scientist, but I look at what is going on and it concerns me.
I wrote to the Canadian food inspection agency a year ago now, asking a simple question about how they approved genetically modified food. I have three boxes of documents. They are petitions I have been sent, it is crazy.
I look at how they approved “New Leaf Y” and “New Leaf Plus” potatoes. In the past two weeks, the push was on to approve these potatoes, because people were asking for them and Monsanto works with the government and was working in this case with potato producers. In my opinion, there is a lack of impartiality.
My question is as follows: given all of this, how can the member for Waterloo—Wellington say we are really safe and are doing the right thing?