Agriculture committee  Well, certainly we would look at the problem of organic grain farmers actually losing canola as a market and rotation crop, which caused them economic harm. These are the same farmers who then used flax in their rotation, and it was contaminated--

Agriculture committee  Sure. Farmers would know what that is in terms of a market crop.

Agriculture committee  That's highly problematic. In terms of the agriculture right now that's supported by genetic engineering, if we look at Brazil, there's a huge amount of genetically engineered, herbicide-tolerant soy being grown for animal feed. That is not about feeding the world. It's actually

Agriculture committee  That cerrado land is also biodiverse land. This is the problem too, that as we--

Agriculture committee  The solutions to world hunger have always been before us. It's a political, social, and economic problem. Now we see that the farmers in Africa and Asia we are connected with are fighting the introduction of genetic engineering. They are very concerned that it will create depende

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Chair. I'm speaking on behalf of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, which is a network of 18 organizations, and we have participated in the consultations on low-level presence where invited. The adoption of the LLP policy would establish Canada as the first c

Agriculture committee  Thank you. The issue of LLP arises because we're growing genetically modified crops that have not been approved in our export markets. For some crops in particular, this is a very serious problem. It begs the question of whether there are perhaps remedies we can take here to

Agriculture committee  Every crop is different, so there's a different potential with each crop. Before genetically engineered crop were introduced in Canada, we had no discussion as to the potential for contamination. We're having that discussion now, and it's better late than never. Zero tolerance i

Agriculture committee  They can't, in that organic farmers risk losing their livelihood and certification if there's contamination from genetic engineering and genetically modified seeds. In addition, organic consumers expect a product that is not contaminated with genetic modification. So we have this

Agriculture committee  It's very clear that the action level requires an assumption of safety based on an evaluation of another country's regulatory system. If Health Canada says that the U.S. or Chinese system is acceptable, that's a generalized assessment based on the Codex international principles,

Agriculture committee  When we're looking at LLP, zero tolerance is our current policy, because Health Canada approves products before we consume them. That's really the essential matter. If zero tolerance isn't possible, an assessment of safety is still required.

Agriculture committee  I think zero tolerance could be realistic. It would just be implemented via another policy, which is that if zero tolerance isn't practical in X, Y, and Z cases, then that GM crop is a problem.

Agriculture committee  Well, LLP is specific to genetically modified foods.

Agriculture committee  Yes, because here we are talking about a qualitatively different issue, which is the safety issue about a genetically modified food. That's why Health Canada has guidelines for the safety assessment of novel foods.

Agriculture committee  That's because that's where our trade partners are going, which is why LLP is being discussed at all.