Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago I met with farm women from India who came to Canada to denounce our government's attempt to overthrow the international moratorium on terminator seed technology. These women are the backbone of third world agriculture. They feed and sustain entire communities based on their ability to save and reuse seeds. They came here with a simple message: that their way of life is under threat thanks to our government's support for the terminator gene.
Terminator is not about improving agriculture. It is a gamble with the very essence of life itself. What kind of nation sets out to kill the productive capacity of its own crops?
The government has been a veritable terminator when it comes to watching the domestic destruction of our rural farm economy. Is it going after the very seeds in the ground and turning our farmers into sharecroppers from Monsanto?
I am calling upon the agriculture minister to stand and come clean with Canadians, to get off the island of Dr. Moreau and to say no to terminator technology.