Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to follow up on a question I raised with the government on November 25, 2002. That was the day that Health Canada announced it was proceeding with plans to permit the irradiation of ground beef, poultry, shrimp and mangoes, and all of this despite serious safety concerns led by independent scientific researchers.
Naturally, the announcement shocked many Canadians who were initially open to the idea of food irradiation, but who had become rightfully concerned after learning about safety concerns raised by the scientific community. Irradiation had been presented by supporters of this new process, and by Health Canada, as a sort of magic bullet that would provide Canadians with guaranteed safe food. It was no surprise that many Canadians, tired of reading about the government's failure to stem the growing list of food contamination incidents and product withdrawals, were eager to believe the sales pitch for irradiated food.
However, scientists, and I emphasize independent scientists, found that irradiation could actually create chemicals called cyclobutanones not normally found in food that could pose a danger to human health. When tested, these chemicals have been linked to genetic and cellular damage. We know there is no information on the long term effects of these chemicals.
The question for us and all Canadians is, why would Health Canada want to proceed with a process of questionable safety at this time? We know there is pressure from food processors who stand to cut costs by relaxing their normal safety standards once irradiation has been approved. We know there is pressure coming from exporters from the United States, a country which has approved irradiation despite protests there. These are powerful interests and we know that. Health Canada seems to be all too willing to accept and accommodate their wishes, and does so on the basis of limited studies that it itself provides.
Health Canada is being true to its tradition of siding with the fox instead of the chicken. Canadians were at least hopeful that the government would have a public consultation process that would be meaningful and would allow for all sides to be heard. Those so-called consultations blew through Winnipeg last month. The public had two business days between the newspaper announcement and the hearings to prepare their presentations and apply to be heard. If they were successful in engineering this feat, they were given two minutes to make their presentations. Not only is two minutes short, let us contrast it with the 15 minutes each given to three Health Canada officials to rationalize irradiation.
We have many questions and concerns. We want to again ask the government if it is prepared to put on hold approval of the food irradiation process until it is satisfied that the do no harm principle has been adhered to and that full consultations have been held with independent data brought to bear on those discussions and decisions.