Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House today to represent the position of the Progressive Conservative Party on Bill C-287.
First, I congratulate the member for Davenport who is seen in the House as being an effective spokesperson for the environment and a very passionate advocate with respect to mandatory labelling.
The Progressive Conservative Party does say quite emphatically that it would work toward mandatory labelling and do so in a very logical and cautious way. We will initially support the legislation in order to move it into committee because there are a number of areas that need to be debated and discussed.
I sit on the agriculture committee. I must congratulate a previous member, Ms. Hélène Alarie, who was a passionate advocate of this particular topic. She put forward a private member's motion which I and my party voted against. We did not vote against it because we did not feel very strongly about mandatory labelling but because the agriculture committee was going to strike a subcommittee to discuss in detail the positives, the weaknesses and the flaws in mandatory labelling.
Many questions on mandatory labelling need to be debated and the best place for that debate would at committee where the necessary stakeholders, consumers, producers and corporations can put their positions forward on mandatory labelling.
It is refreshing to see a bill come forward from a member of the government where it is contrary to government policy and a votable item. It will be interesting to see how the government deals with this particular issue.
The bill does have a number of flaws. One of the specific flaws is that the bill calls for a very narrow definition of GM food to go into the Food and Drug Act. Canada's novel food regulations uses a very broad definition in capturing the regulatory system of anything with a novel heritable trait. This minimizes negative environmental and biodiversity impacts. Because the FDA supersedes the novel food regulations, the breadth of the products that go through the regulatory system would be narrowed to the product of one GM technology and everything else would pass into the food chain unregulated.
It is clear that most Canadians support the principle of openness and transparency within the bill. However, achieving the end results will be a very difficult task, as I am sure the member for Davenport accepts.
The Progressive Conservative Party believes that Canada's biotechnology industry, along with genetically enhanced food, has for the most part benefited our agriculture and agri-food sectors, and Canada as a whole. Biotechnology offers major opportunities to improve both our environmental integrity and improve our food quality.
The challenges that we must face in creating a solid and dynamic biotechnology industry are twofold. First, we must create a climate in which industry sectors can flourish, both here and internationally. International trade is very important.
Second, we must meet the public's concerns about their own health, environment and the safety of GMOs.
It would be unrealistic to think that we can put an end to the biotechnology advancements. We do not want that. I do not believe anyone in the House believes we should stop the advancements of biotechnology. What we can do is find ways to improve the system as it stands today and help improve consumer confidence in the foods that we eat.
During the last federal election, our party stated that it would ensure greater public involvement in the setting of policy and regulations.
We would work closely with the provinces, industry and the large number of consumer stakeholders interested in the question of biotechnology generally and GMOs in particular. We would work to create ways in which the industry's need and the public's real concerns about the health and environmental safety of genetically modified foods could be addressed and resolved.
We would commit to a law requiring the labelling of all genetically modified foodstuffs and products for human consumption. It would include a caveat that mandatory labelling could only occur in the future if done in a cost effective manner, in concert with food labelling policies of other major food processing and trading countries, and by using standards consistent with those of current Food and Drugs Act regulations and international standards. That goal could be achieved if these conditions are met.
There are few issues today that are as complex and as detailed as the issue of labelling food products derived by genetically modified means. There have been ongoing discussions on this topic for over 10 years.
One of the benefits of the biotechnology and GMOs is their multitude. They increase our competitiveness as Canadian agri-food processors and producers. They increase the yields needed to compensate for the increase in world population. They develop more sustainable agricultural practices like zero till and less pest control. In our opinion we should look forward to the benefits of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms.
However there are some issues that are still outstanding with mandatory labelling such as, as was mentioned earlier, the segregation of foodstuffs. We have some difficulty right now in our food production, segregating the food product itself, for example the grains we put into the international marketplace. We have to get that aspect under control as well.
Testing is a very important aspect of the whole issue. We have to know that testing can be done economically as well as effectively so that we know which is a genetically modified organism and which is not.
We also have to look at world standards. We have to make sure we work in concert with the rest of the world. We cannot sit in isolation, deal with mandatory labelling and put in different standards that are not accepted in the world marketplace. Our export markets are absolutely vital to the lifeblood of agriculture. Therefore we must make sure that any standard we set with labelling is a standard that is acceptable by our trading partners.
There is unfortunately no standard at this point in time. We have labelling rules that are being set by communities throughout the globe that are totally different from others. For example, the United States, our major trading partner, is currently only looking at rules for voluntary labelling and not mandatory labelling.
In the European Union all products containing 1% or more GM material must be labelled. Japan is looking at some new changes to its labelling process. It is to take effect this year and require mandatory labelling for food products and processed foods that include one or more genetically modified organism as one of the top three ingredients include. Australia and New Zealand have some very strict labelling requirements, whereas in China there are no labelling requirements at all. We must get together and try to work out a standardized world labelling system so that we can compete in a very competitive world market.
As for our position, it is clear that consumers demand to be informed and we as legislators should look at ways to make changes to cater to these demands. A substantial amount of misinformation continually comes forward with respect to genetically modified organisms and labelling. As parliamentarians we must make sure that the misinformation is backstopped by the proper and correct information. To stick our heads in the sand and not have this go forward is not the way that producers would have us look at the changes in our products and how we market those products.
I would like to see this go forward, with the condition that we do not compete with those people who are already out there doing an awful lot of work on GMOs. We should sit down and listen to all the stakeholders. We could then decide how best to put the rules and regulations into place. The proper rules should be in place that would be accepted by consumers and by the marketplace.
Finally, but certainly not least, the rules we put into place should be accepted by the food producers, those in the agricultural community, our constituents.
I look forward to perhaps debating the bill in committee. We will wait and see how far it can go.