Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning everyone. I am going to speak French. I thank you for your invitation, and for this opportunity to present the concerns of the more than 200,000 people in Canada represented by the Vigilance OGM network. My name is Thibault Rehn, and I am t

Agriculture committee  That is a question we are asked often. When we launched a campaign in Quebec in favour of mandatory GMO labelling, we asked Université de Montréal researchers what studies had been published on the consequences of such a measure on the cost of food. There are no studies that hav

Agriculture committee  As I was saying earlier, GMOs have been on the market for 20 years. The Canadian government spends enormous sums to try to convince people that these products are safe, but it still isn't working. Health Canada published a survey recently and its results were sent to the committe

Agriculture committee  One of the main arguments is the fear that consumers will reject the product. You probably know that the industry spends a lot of money to develop new products. If the market does not exist, it would have been a very unfortunate investment. The second argument is that it will co

Agriculture committee  Yes. There is Brazil and India.

Agriculture committee  Yes. In fact, the largest GMO producer in the world, our neighbour the United States, produces approximately 40% of all GMOs in the world. Then come Brazil and Argentina, who together also produce 40% of GMOs. There is also India and Canada, who produce approximately 6% each. As

Agriculture committee  If you have access to Health Canada's long-term study on the impact for human consumption, I would be really happy to see it, because I think nothing exists. There is no consensus on science, so it is not saying that there is a consensus and we need less science because everythi

Agriculture committee  Once again, I simply have to look at the Statistics Canada figures. Since the introduction of GMOs in Canada, pesticides sales have risen 130%. How can we say that the use of pesticides has declined and that their impact on the environment has decreased? It's impossible. In fac

Agriculture committee  Yes. The organization I represent is not against science. When people have diabetes, they use insulin that is derived from a genetically modified plan that secretes this substance. We totally agree with that. As long as it remains in a laboratory, and there is no possible contam

Agriculture committee  This matter has been addressed in the various presentations, including mine. I went to a supermarket and looked at the cereal boxes to determine what space was left for the information, including nutritional information, ingredient lists and logos. I realized that the space rese

Agriculture committee  You know already that the government intervenes when it isn't strictly a health reason. There already are labels that are not solely health-based. They can be based on what we call “organic” features. They may have to do with health, ethics and the environment. There are labels b

Agriculture committee  So you have time to ask me some questions.

Agriculture committee  Yes, loud and clear.

Agriculture committee  Thibault is my first name and my last name is Rehn.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. First, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I speak on behalf of Vigilance OGM, which forms a network of associations and individuals from various backgrounds. So we have farmers, environmentalists, consumers and citizens. One thing we want to m