Agriculture committee  Just to add very briefly to that, we're looking for a specific commitment to actually undertake a meaningful look at our regulatory programs for the pre-market assessment of novel foods, plants with novel traits, and novel feeds, with a commitment to act on the findings of that e

Agriculture committee  With respect to seed innovation and gene editing, we'd like to see Canada be one of the leaders of the global discussion, advocating for aligned regulatory requirements as this new technology evolves. We're at a stage where we're at risk of each country putting in place a slight

Agriculture committee  Those proposals you have there would again help to clarify the existing regulatory approach in Canada and move us away from a case-by-case approach where, if you're a plant breeder, you're not sure exactly whether you will be regulated in Canada, whether you will be subject to a

Agriculture committee  It's a speculative example, but researchers talk about the potential of gene editing to remove allergens from crop species or to create plants that—again, this is a very speculative example—are better at the uptake of carbon. There are opportunities there to better respond to cli

Agriculture committee  As I mentioned in my opening remarks, it's very important for us to be able to work closely with the Government of Canada to resolve non-tariff trade barriers. I mentioned two objectives for the Canada Grains Council around seed innovation. One is the domestic environment, and th

Agriculture committee  I'm not an expert in this topic, but absolutely, the strengths of Canada's grain abroad relate to our quality and our predictability of delivery. Any efforts that can be made to help ensure growers can get their grain to market and that we're meeting the needs of our customers ar

Agriculture committee  I'll have to make a distinction between the global regulatory environment and Canada. For many countries around the world, we're still early days, and there is still uncertainty, but, to the extent that there is a trend, companies are making a distinction between products that c

Agriculture committee  At the end of March, the USDA published some guidance that outlined what their regulatory direction for products of gene editing—like products derived using the CRISPR system—would be. That statement spoke very strongly about the importance of encouraging innovation to encourage

Agriculture committee  Therefore, in Canada, if you are developing a product that you know will not be regulated in the U.S., you may have uncertainty. You may not know if it's regulated or not. Our Canadian regulatory approach has many strengths, and flexibility is one of those, but too much flexibili

Agriculture committee  I'm going to speak about seed innovation because that's the area I'm most familiar with. Globally, a number of countries are in a similar position to Canada, asking how these new products should be regulated, and if these products will fall under existing legislation for biotech

Agriculture committee  If I may add, I agree that the predictability and the clarity is key. I think that's important not only for large investment, but also for small companies and public breeders as well, which are trying to do more with limited budgets. For instance, in some of our small crops, we

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely. To give a very simple example, if we were to think of a plant genome as being like a book or a novel, techniques of biotechnology—or techniques used to produce GMOs—are like inserting a brand new sentence into that book. Typically, it means inserting a gene from

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to have an opportunity to appear before you this afternoon. My name is Krista Thomas. I'm the director of plant innovation with the Canada Grains Council. The Canada Grains Council is Canada's national umbrella organization for the grains s