Agriculture committee  Well, this is my area of expertise. Basically you have conventional risk assessment, which is science-based. It's quantitative, probabilistic models of gene escape, nutritional toxicology. There is a narrowly defined way in which biotechnology is currently regulated in Canada.

Agriculture committee  I think one of the important things is that the science of genetic engineering, when regulation was created worldwide, is very different from what it is today. We have learned a huge amount about genetic signalling, epigenesis, all kinds of factors that genomes have that do not f

Agriculture committee  In terms of recommendations, there are other jurisdictions that are doing really interesting things. I met with people in Denmark, and they actually have monitoring programs. You find out where people are growing GMOs and where people aren't growing GMOs, and with spatial mappi

Agriculture committee  I agree with my friend here. There are mutations that have occurred. Humanity has created the crop biodiversity we see around us in modern fields right now through conventional breeding. However, genetic engineering is quantitatively different and qualitatively different. We're

Agriculture committee  I think bringing stakeholders together to see eye to eye is always a good idea. With respect to organics, there's been a lot of mention of it, but we haven't really had it out. I think this technology is very tricky for that sector. When you talk about gene flow and you talk abo

Agriculture committee  I'd like to take a crack at that. With respect to health issues, there are peer-reviewed published studies that indicate that there are possible health implications. Árpád Pusztai published very well-known papers about rat-feeding trials. There's all kinds of other related info

Agriculture committee  I'd be happy to talk about that. My work spans agricultural communities but also Arctic communities. When I live in the Arctic, work in the Arctic, and study the Arctic, I see that the Arctic is the world's dumping ground for chemical pollution. A huge amount of chemicals that a

Agriculture committee  That's like a question from my Ph.D. defence. Thank you.

Agriculture committee  I published on this with an article for a definition of biotechnology and ecological risk. The terminology is muddled. Effectively you have biotechnology as an umbrella term that means different things to different people. As my friends here have said, biotechnology can include f

Agriculture committee  My work is focused more on social and environmental research as opposed to health research, although I am familiar with the literature--and it's an emerging literature around associated health impacts. Initial studies indicate that there could be potential issues. Allergenicity

Agriculture committee  You're a farmer. You obviously know the issues, and that's a very good point. With Roundup Ready wheat, you had two Roundup Ready crops in rotation in Canadian farms, and so when you're planting Roundup Ready canola--or you're not--those volunteers are everywhere. So even a far

Agriculture committee  It was a strategic debacle on their part. You know, if a different wheat had come forward, there might have been a different outcome, for sure. I think the point is that farmers are also concerned about these technologies being designed at a biological level to sell more herbic

Agriculture committee  I agree.

Agriculture committee  I worked with Dr. Rene Van Acker on my Ph.D. He was an adviser on my project, so I am very familiar with his work. Rene's work and the work of other research scientists show unequivocally that genetically engineered crops move across the landscape. Even if they don't outcross a

Agriculture committee  It's a very relevant question. I think nanotechnology is at the tip of this whole wave of technology. When we start to go small, when we go into the atomic structure of material reality, the benefits are big but the risks are potentially even bigger. If you look at nuclear techno