Agriculture committee  The Enviropig was a unique situation because pork producers had invested in that research and then withdrew support. Apple producers—the BC Fruit Growers' Association and the Quebec apple producers' federation— asked the Canadian government not to approve the GM apple because t

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. Merci. There are many steps within the regulatory process that all need more oversight. From seed to table, there needs to be traceability of genetically modified organisms. Even at the experimental research stage, we've seen contamination occur. There defin

Agriculture committee  The question of the use of antibiotics in animals is one that's very relevant to GM animals. In some cases, GM animals are discussed in relation to solving that problem, but we've already heard from other witnesses that management is most often what's turned to, and we already kn

Agriculture committee  Thank you. It's been 20 years now that consistently over 80% of Canadians have said they want labelling. There have been many private members' bills brought forward. There have been opportunities to take up labelling. We do have, as you heard, a voluntary labelling standard. It

Agriculture committee  Recent work in the United States has actually provided us with some really good studies on the possibility of increased costs, which would be pennies a year per household, a really minimal increased cost. We've looked at why Canadians want GM foods labelled. In 2015, we commissio

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I think this is a really important question, because we have heard a lot about this question of consumer confidence and the role of Canadian regulators in bolstering consumer confidence. It's been 20 years that over 80% of Canadians have wanted labelling. It does the

Agriculture committee  We continually work with farmer associations that are talking about these issues. One of the first things we need to understand is that across the world, small-scale farmers provide most of the food that's produced and eaten. We produce enough food now to feed 10 billion people,

Agriculture committee  Universities provide some independent research that's necessary to look at all of these questions. We would like to see more engagement from universities on agronomic and economic questions. We think there is a need for reinvestment in public plant-breeding in Canada.

Agriculture committee  Not directly, no. There are various partnerships and community-based alliances and discussions that happen.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. In the case of fish, there's an ongoing court case that's asking that question, and it's saying Environment Canada needed to assess what the impact of escaped fish would be on the environment and not just look at the containment facility itself and d

Agriculture committee  We wouldn't describe that as the conclusion of our work, no.

Agriculture committee  Yes, we're very concerned in a number of different ways.

Agriculture committee  We have discussed, in one of our reports, the question of scientific consensus in the scientific literature, which does not exist. We see in the public that there's a discussion back and forth about what the science tells us, and there's controversy. We also think there's the iss

Agriculture committee  What we heard from regulators was an implication that the regulators are performing the function of peer review in the absence of peer review. What's happening is that corporations are providing data packages to Canadian regulators. Those data packages are kept as confidential bu

Agriculture committee  I think it's really important that we look to regulators in terms of what they're examining, which is product-by-product regulation. The question of GM food safety is actually about the GM trait and its application, and each product is different and requires its own regulatory pr