Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my friend's intervention. I think what we are all saying today is that we are concerned about genetically modified foods. We want more good scientific based evidence before we proceed with the enthusiasm we are proceeding with today. We want to make sure that the health of Canadians is not put at risk by ingesting these kinds of foods or foods made from these products. That is all we are saying.
I want to tell my friend what is always in the back of my mind when we have these discussions. I remember the debate around irradiated foods. I remember a group of scientists who came before the committee on irradiated foods who said that we should not be concerned because they had done a lot of study on rats and not much happened to rats that ingest vast amounts of irradiated food. They said that the only things that happened were that the female rats often became barren and the male rats lost their testicles. Other than that, nothing else happened. We thought that losing testicles or becoming barren was something that we should be a little concerned about. For a scientist, this was not an issue of much concern.
I was referring to the mindset of scientists, their terms of reference and the points of view they bring to these discussions. A bit of caution at this point is certainly warranted.