Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Anu. Option consommateurs was established in 1983. We are a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and protect the interests of consumers and ensure that they are respected. Our head office is located in Montreal and we also have an office in Ottawa. We i

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Much of the problem likely has to do with CFIA's mandate, which might be described as schizophrenic. According to Mr. Malcolm Allen, the Agency's role involves public safety, first, and second, economic viability for the stakeholders—which, as far as Option consommateurs is conc

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  In fact, the meeting with Ms. Weatherill and her close collaborators took place one morning with three different consumer groups. The purpose of the meeting was to take the pulse of consumers with respect to the way the crisis had been handled. There was a lot of discussion about

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I imagine that you also talked to consumers who had contracted food poisoning as a result of listeria. As I recall, no consumer has appeared before the Committee, even though that would most certainly have been beneficial to the Committee's work. Recently I was talking with a la

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, given the level of consumer anxiety, Canada should have a great interest in formally adopting the precautionary principle. The widespread use of GMOs, including a significant portion entering the food chain, greatly increases the risk factor for t

Agriculture committee  I have the voluntary code here. It contains a number of issues and problems that have been severely criticized. They are what made us decide to vote against the code in its present form. Of course, the tolerance level of 5% was a problem. In Europe, they have a tolerance of 0.9%.

Agriculture committee  Perfectly. You mentioned New Zealand. There is Australia too. Both are under the same jurisdiction. New Zealand is one of the world's largest producers of GMOs. There is no inherent contradiction. It is just that labelling is mandatory there. We could easily make labelling manda

Agriculture committee  We do not claim to be health experts. As the gentleman mentioned, perception is often very close to reality, even with science behind it. I am sure of that. The fact that Canadians are so afraid of GMOs perhaps shows that more research should be done and more information should

Agriculture committee  Yes, there is the voluntary code. People who want to sell a product without GMOs have to comply with the voluntary code. People who want to sell a product that contains GMOs and indicate that fact on the product use the warning “contains GMOs“. They must comply with the voluntary

Agriculture committee  Yes, in fact, it...

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry. Could you say that again?

Agriculture committee  For organics, there is a regulation. It applies to cross-border products. For example, the “Biologique Canada Organic“ label is mandatory for products that are going to be shipped from Saskatchewan to Alberta. But the situation is quite different for products that are going to s

Agriculture committee  First, as Mr. Ellis mentioned, it could publish some industry documents. We are guessing that the documents contain secret material. But the research we did in 2004 showed that they were going much too far. Access to any information about the industry is systematically denied. We

Agriculture committee  As we mentioned in our presentation, it is a question of perception. The data we have come from polls in which Canadians were asked what concerned them. Some brought up allergies. These are perceptions, they are not scientifically proven. But they are widely held. As Mr. Ellis m

Agriculture committee  Science will never be able to do that.