MEETING STATUS: PUBLIC

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY SESSION: 2/62Motion No: 30

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND Year: 2005

VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OF HOUSE COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - COMMITTEE: STANDING COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY &ENVIRONMENT

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

SUBJECT(S) BEFORE THE COMMITTEE:

Further consideration of Motion No. 30 concerning GMOs (genetically modified organisms)

NOTE:This Transcription has NOT been edited nor subsequently comparedwith the original tape. It is intended to provide an indication of Committee discussion only and is NOT certified by the Legislative Assemblyto be a true copy of the discussion.

COMMITTEE Wilbur MacDonald, ChairMEMBERS PRESENT: Wayne Collins replacing Hon. Mitch Murphy

Jim Bagnall replacing Wilfred ArsenaultAndy MooneyEva RodgersonFred McCardle

Richard Brown

MEMBERS PRESENT: Carolyn Bertram

ABSENT: Ron MacKinley

GUESTS: Part I - John ArgallPart II - Dr. Steve YarrowPart III - Peter Feldstein

STAFF: Marian Johnston, Clerk of CommitteesLouise PollandBob MacGregor

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Committee on Agriculture, Forestry & EnvironmentWednesday, February 9, 2005

1:30 p.m.

Part I - John Argall

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) Chair : We’ll call themeeting to order and I want to welcome everyonehere present today. Our first presenter - we havefour presenters and Richard, you have a question?

Richard Brown (L): (Indistinct) the screen, ifthere’s a way we could get it, like there’s quite afew people attending these meetings, if there’s away we can get it that the audience can also seethe presenting presentations too - I don’t know ifwe can do it next time, but -

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Is it possibleto move the screen back?

Richard Brown (L): Just so everyone can seeit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Can you moveit back? We have a lot of people who would like tosee.

Richard Brown (L): Thanks. You just got it allset up.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): That justthrows everything out now. That throws yourwhole - you can adjust that? If you people at theback row want to move your chairs over to the sideso that you can see, that’s fine. I know what it’slike to be sitting and not see what’s going on.Maybe the next time our chairs should be the otherway.

Marian Johnston (Clerk Assistant): (Indistinct)it’s hard to do it.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): It’s hard to do it,I know. We could also have a few lights at theback out.

Richard Brown (L): We’ll get it fixed up better thenext time.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Our firstpresenter today is Mr. John Argall, you’reExecutive Director and I’ll get you to - how do you

pronounce that name sir?

John Argall: John Argall.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Yes, yourExecutive Director of -

John Argall: BioAtlantech.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Which is.

John Argall: A biotechnology developmentagency in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Okay, so if youwish to precede sir. How long will yourpresentation take?

John Argall: Anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Oh that’s fine. Ifyou want to go about 20 minutes and than wemight have some questions.

John Argall: Good.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): If that’s the wayit fits in, okay? So you go right ahead sir.

John Argall: Good I want to thank you for theopportunity to present to you today. It’s great tosee this dialog revived. When I first started my jobin 1999, there was a lot of discussion around GMcrops and there’s been a dearth of discussionaround for about the past five years.

I had the opportunity of presenting at last year’sforum in April and that was truly one of the mostformative experiences of my life.

So with that I’ll open up my presentation today andto give you a brief overview of that presentation,I’ve prepared a slide. I’ll present BioAtlantechitself. A little bit on one of our core businesseswhich is potato science and technology whichresinates so strongly here in Atlantic Canada.

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Use a little bit of a case study on potatoesgenomics, delve into the world of crop biotechworldwide. A little bit of the emerging knowledgearound consumer knowledge and perceptions,also reality and perceptions, and a new tools thatare coming in the decision making regardingGM.or any other technology as well as a fewconclusions and recommendations.

BioAtlantech is a - as I said a biotechnologydevelopment agency. We were created in the mid90's through joint activity of the provincial andfederal government to assist in biosciencedevelopment in New Brunswick. We work bothwith business and with the research community toenhance our capacity. Not in a fashion that’s unlikeTechPEI.

A part of that is being a conduit to business andresearch partnerships. We work to build the R&Dcapacity as well as building biotechnologyawareness.

The potato industry being a central one for NewBrunswick, one of the science and technologythrusts that our province is involved in these daysis around our potato industry cluster. That involvesthe 400 farms, the 75 additional companiesassociated with that, but also the researchorganizations and that’s a wide and diversecommunity. We’ve realized that here in AtlanticCanada we have a substantial cluster that is worldclass in science and technology and we plan tobuild on that strength. And a study conducted bymy organization, we demonstrated there was $1.3billion in goods and services associated with thisindustry. So a sizable contribution to our province’sGDP.

One of the most interesting endeavors of the pastfive years has been the emergence of theCanadian Potato Genome Project under thebroader umbrella of Genome Atlantech and whywould we do potato genomics. These have - this isa crop with incredibly long breeding cycles,immense genetic complexity that I’ll get into in aminute. It’s challenged by an enormous amount ofdiseases and insects. As most Islanders areaware, there’s rapid changes in consumer taste,meaning that we need to be able to move a littleswifter in the breeding of new potato varieties. Fora wide range of use requirements, includingupcoming bio product requirements.

Bio products represent things that we’ve madewith non renewable resources in the past and willlikely be increasingly using renewable resourcesfor - as they relate primarily to potatoes, those arestarch-based resources, things like biodegradabledishware, biodegradable plastics.

The interesting part about working with potatoes isthere’s a wide diversity of germ plasm and thatoffers a lot of possibilities. Unfortunately, thepotato is a complex organism. I’m going to use asan example of genetics, quite a popular one,brown eyes versus blue eyes in human. Humansare what are called diploids and potatoes at leastthe domesticated versions are tetraploids meaningthat they have twice the amount of genetic materialand I’ll see - I’ll demonstrate what kind of impactthat has.

Just for the record, potatoes have more genesthan humans, we believe. So that’s anotherindication of the complexity and it’s awfullydemoralizing for the human but we have to get useto these things.

In diploid genetics, we may begin with two brown-eyed parents, but they will carry genetic materialfor blue eyes, they may or they may not. And it’slikely that in that scenario and I’m simplifyinggenetics here, one out of the four progeny ofbrown-eyed and blue-eyed parents will be blue-eyed. The genetic information for blue eyes will becarried through two of the other progeny or thechildren. But only one will express it out of the fourand that’s a probability of Mendelian genetics.

If we were as complicated as potatoes, therewould only be one out of 800 or so possibilities forus to be carrying blue eyes. So the eye analogykind of works when we’re talking about potatoes,but the take home message here is we’re dealingwith a complex organism, so when we breedpotatoes we have to cross large numbers of themin order to - or grow out large numbers of them inorder to determine if the traits have been inherited.It’s a real challenge for potato breeders. Anddespite that we live in a world that’s wealthy withgermplasm in potatoes.

This is the kind of diversity that would be expectedamong potatoes and closely related species.These are chips made from that diversities. So yousee it’s really quite exciting. A lot of these chipsare loaded with what are called polyphenolic

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antioxidants, things that are very good for thehealth. In North America we focused primarily onthe potato you see here which is a baking or aFrench fry potato, white fleshed, and perhaps notcarrying as much of the healthy attributes as someof this wild germplasm.

But as an example that’s always seems to bringthe case home more than anything I show, this isa Canadian bred potato. It’s called a Shepody,bred in Canada, we’re proud as heck of it and itflows through processing plants all over the planet,from Atlantic based firms and this plant - thisparticular variety was bred for processing use. Soyou can understand that it would make perfectFrench fries. However, it doesn’t carry a lot ofgenes for disease resistance. Diseases as broadas late blight, early blight, three potato viruses,scab, just to name a few of the wide host ofdiseases and insects that attack potatoes.

This on the other hand, a Peruvian species, not avariety, a Peruvian species is loaded with diseaseresistance. The challenge is to see how genesconferring resistance can be transferred to apotato that’s acceptable in a processing plant andthat is way easier said than done.

So enter genomics, which for the record is adifferent science than the one associated withgenetic modification. It can lead to geneticmodification but does not have to lead to geneticmodification.

So we have this difficult-to-breed species and thisexplains in part, the dearth of variety - emergingvarieties for what I’ll call the marketplace to use.The average age of North American potatoes hasbeen rising appreciably with the growth of theprocessing industry. As the processing industryemerged, it learned to build a agriculture and aprocessing infrastructure around the very varietiesthat it had around.

What does this mean? This means that the fivemost common North American varieties are all oldvarieties and the most popular of these - theRusset Burbank and its selections was released inCanada in 1923. It was actually released in UnitedStates in 1911 and was crossed in the 1800's. Sowe’re really looking at a variety here that’s over100 years old and is a solid backbone of anindustry for which a large infrastructure has beenbuilt.

Luther Burbank, just for some indication of just foryou to age him better, the developer of this potato- a man whose biography is loaded with words likethe manipulation of nature. This is 100 years ago;this isn’t five or ten, right. He says, I will makenature my servant. Potato breeders in the daywould of been considered among the moreinnovative folks. He consorted with the likes ofThomas Edison and Henry Ford, Helen Keller.

I have a personal touchstone in this picture whichis my dad’s first car. It reminds me of you knowwhat 1923 was all about. That was just after thefirst World War, just before the flappers.

Getting back to potatoes -

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Excuse me,could I interrupt you just a second. I don’t want todisrupt you, but that camera is blocking themembers from seeing. Could you back up a littlebit? Just hang on for a second because we movedthe screen back it made a difference okay, if that’sokay. There, I don’t want them not to see and thancomplaining to me later. Are we okay? Thank youvery much, go right ahead. Sorry to interrupt you.

John Argall: No problem at all. As I mentionedbefore fortunately there’s a wide variety of geneticdiversity for improving potatoes, make them lessreliant on pesticides. Here’s some really interestingspecimens, these are species that conferresistence to Colorado Potato Beetle. This is notthe same technology that resulted in the new leafpotato. That’s a full fledge distinct species closelyrelated to potatoes, can cross with potatoes, buthas full fledge resistance to Colorado PotatoBeetle, an insect. That’s quite rare in germplasm.Below, a potato species resistant to late blight.Here’s the blighted plant on my right and theresistant one on the left.

We know that the cultivated varieties of potato arevery susceptible to diseases and insect. Thisresults in among the highest pesticiderequirements of any Canadian crop. Right up therewith apples and resulting in large losses for ourprocessing industry, depending of course, on theyear and the weather conditions.

So I’m not going to go into great depth aboutgenomics, the science. But we use genomicinformation for plant variety development and thatcan be used in two fashions - either transgenic,

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taking a gene that we find and putting it into thetarget plant or molecular assisted breeding, andwhat molecular assisted breeding allows us to do,is using traditional crosses we find out whetherthat gene is located in the progeny or not. Savesheaps of time on plant breeding, perhaps lesstargeted than transgenic are especially in acomplex organism like potato.

So what we’re finding throughout the world as thecircle on the pros and cons of genic modificationebbs and flows, there’s a lot of effort beingintroduced to molecular assisted breeding. It’s alittle less targeted, a little more costly because it’stime consuming but it remains an alternative andit’s where a lot of genomics programs are headed.

Just out of interest - traditionally we think ofgenetic modification yielding - leading to a diseaseand insect resistance or herbicide tolerance. Aresent press release that the Scottish CropResearch Institute demonstrated how thetechnology was used to boost potato caratinoidlevels almost sixfold. Increasing the amount ofbeta-carotene which is an antioxidant, sixfold and -this is presently part of a submission to the GatesFoundation for funding in third World developmentor in developing - country development.

I see you have a fair number of recorders here. Iwant to take a special mention that the backgroundmaterials that were available on the website forthis committee are excellent. You should be proudof the Civil Servants who worked to bring thattogether. For the record I’ll be leaving a CD withthis presentation and four articles that I think mightadd to the literature bank associated with this,including this one.

The World increase in biotech crops since the mid90's, a rate of growth of about 15 per cent exceptfor last year, when it moved up to 20 per cent. It’santicipated that upward rise in growth rate willactually continue for the next few years, largelybecause of the introduction of resistence to cornrootworm. Corn is a very important crop for ourneighbours in the South and the rootworm is sucha devastating insect that its control will actually - isexpected to lead to large increases in crop yield;therefore, an even more rapid adoption of thetechnology.

The global adoption rates for the principle biotechcrops are listed here. Fifty six percent of

soyabean, 28 per cent of cotton, 19 per centcanola and 14 per cent of maize, that’s global.Obviously the American and North Americanstatistics would be a fair bit higher.

This is just to backtrack on the history of the newleaf potato. It emerged in 1996 and plummeted by2001 for a number of reasons. This was the heightof the anti GM campaign and it was - this was oneof the first full foods that was being introduced intothe marketplace. So in between the GM campaign,the reactions of the quiss services industry to thatwhole food ingredient. The development of thatpretty much hit a wall. There was also someinternal reasons related to the simultaneousrelease of a powerful insecticide which was pricedapproximately in the same ballpark as the GMtechnology itself and also the complexity of andpricing of the potato system. So I’ve done those, Iwon’t dwell on them. I’d like to stick to my timeallotment here.

It was a less than perfect technology package andone of the big problems with it was the seeddistribution system. In the other major crops likesoyabean, canola, corn, you have a wellestablished commercial distribution system forseeds. Potatoes is a lot more piecemeal. So thedeveloper Monsanto decided to occupy the wholevalue chain and introduce as one party, the GMpotato. Probably that didn’t sit well with themarketplace and I’m heading through the story alittle bit here, but potato breeding is also a highlypublic sector activity in North America. So thatability to turn on a dime is a lot less apparent.

Oddly enough this - the demise of the GM potatohad probably not been properly done in NorthAmerica - the story associated with it until ascholar from the UK, kind of desperate andwanting to use GM technology in his own countrydecided to document it so visited no less than 20or 30 sites in Canada and the US in 2003 and thanproduced a summary document of that voyage.

So there are a lot of barriers to the use of gen-based technologies in potato improvement. It’s alarge number of plant breeders and genomics andin turn transgenics is a costly endeavor involvingthe in-licencing of technologies. There’s very longdevelopment cycles. Big biotech has shied awayfrom reentering the arena except in the emergingcountries funny enough. So we’ll see in the nextfew years, these products may start reemerging in

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Asia and Eastern Europe and the former SovietRepublic. In the short term, much of the researchis taking place in public institutions in NorthAmerica.

Now there’s no doubt that to date, the reason foradoption and we’ve seen that it’s fairly substantialis because of farmers, farmers adoptingtechnology either because it increases yields ordecreases pesticide use or increases profitmargins or as part of just the reality of growinghere. So I think regardless of whatever stance wemight have on GM, the fact remains the rate ofadoption is great, it’s been the fastest rate ofadoption of any technology that’s ever beenintroduced to agriculture, so love it or hate it, that’sthe story.

The biotechnology adoption by state, we see thegreatest use - its darkness here that identifies theconcentration of usage, its heaviest of course,where corn and soyabean are the mainstays of theagricultural economy. So the Midwest, the rainyMidwest, as opposed to the arid one and most ofthose states.

The impact as documented by the centre for foodand agricultural policy research in the UnitedStates demonstrates that the reduction in pesticideuse is substantial. So let’s just assume for aminute that they had a very biased view of this.The fact remains that it is still hard to dispute areduction in pesticide use of 46 million pounds ofactive ingredients. So active ingredients refers toactually a very concentrated form of it - so thoseare true live pounds.

Let’s assume just for a minute that they wereexaggerating, what if it was only half of that. Stillquite substantial. And the net value is in theseveral billions and the acreages in this right handcolumn kind of speak for themselves.

This I hope won’t be too confusing. I’ll try andarticulate it better than it actually shows up here onthis screen. How many of those traits relate towhat you might call consumer traits? Actually onlyabout 21 per cent and I’m going to show you achart of what those traits are exactly. There is nodoubt that the GM products have been targetedtowards the adopters and the adopters in this casewould be farmers. So they’re being taken on fortheir agronomic properties either diseaseresistance, insect resistance or herbicide

tolerance.

Now these are - the beautiful thing about lookingup information about genetic modification is that -we can see what’s in the pipeline at any one pointin time by the test sites that are taking place in theUnited States and Canada. Those are publishedannually and I’m sure you will be hearing a little bitmore about that later.

But let’s face it as far as quality traits go. Thesearen’t things that are keeping consumers awake atnight. Altered link in in alfalfa, delayed ripening inapples, plum, pear and pineapple. So there is akind of disconnected in between what might causefire in the belly for consumers and what’s in thepipeline in genetic modification today.

Here’s what doesn’t appear in the pipeline whichwould seem dead obvious if you’re trying to lureconsumers into being interested in geneticmodification. Peanuts purged of their allergenicitywheats for the gluten intolerant, lowered antinutritionals in food. Suffice to say that these aren’tin the pipeline or don’t appear to be in the pipelinefor all intense and purposes.

One of the most revealing studies is out ofRudgers right now. It’ Americans and theirperception on genetic modification. When asked -a sample size of 1201 when asked about thefrequence of discussion around GM food, morethan half, well more than half, say they neverdiscuss it and this is not like in the past year -since they can remember. Once or twice - 16 percent occasionally, 17 per cent - it does not appearto be front of mind with the American public.

The awareness of GM food in the supermarkets,that’s changing rapidly, interestingly enough. Sothere is greater recognition that there are GMproducts in the marketplace and that’s a goodthing.

There’s a lot of rumors still abounding, I’ll call themthe urban legend about GM products, there’s –when asked if a certain products are in themarketplace today, 79 percent of consumersbelieve that there are GM tomatoes when in factthere are none. So that kinds of speaks to whatkind of recognition there is in the marketplace.Corn and soyabeans are present in themarketplace, they’re ingredients in many of ourprocessed foods and oddly enough, chicken and

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rice are also thought by a large number of peopleto be genetically modified but aren’t. Peopleappear to be - the American public appears to besplit on whether they approve of plant base GMfood products or not. Pretty much 50-50 when youfactor in the unsureness which is about 10 to 12per cent in each group.

On the urban myth phenomenon, when askedabout certain stories regarding GM and asked ifthey heard of it or whether it’s somewhatbelievable, there appears to some confusion. I’llonly highlight a few here. That there have beendemonstrations against GM food in manyEuropean countries. That’s a well publicized event.Thirty six percent of American people claim tobelieve it’s true and it is in fact very true. In termsof the ones which I’ll call the Urban Legends thatsome people have had allergic reactions to GMfoods, there’s no report of that being and 25 percent of Americans claim that they have heard that.

So rumors abound and it becomes a confusinglandscape and one which we have to be proud thatthis legislature is addressing because you will infact, perhaps the most informed legislature on theContinent. But in between rumors and reality,there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors and that comesfrom all directions.

One thing is certain, there’s a paucity of publiclyavailable health studies on the topic and that isn’tto say that there aren’t health studies. I believe youhave a presenter from the Canadian Food andInspection Agency, who might be able to addressthat a little bit better. But the publicly available pre-reviewed studies are really absent in this spaceand that’s important. The documents may exist butthey likely exist within the confines of theregulatory agencies under confidentiality to thecompanies which submit them.

So this one study of which there is a copy on thisCD alludes to ten or so studies. Several are poorlydesigned or poorly reported and demonstrate thelack of rigger that’s been brought to theendeavour, at least in the peer reviewed worldoutside the regulatory agencies.

So I am wrapping up in the next five minutes. Whatdo we know about the GM crops today? They’veknown an unprecedented rate of adoption inagriculture. They appear to be resulting insubstantial reductions in over all pesticide use, or

in the severity because some of the alternativepesticides that are used under GM regimes are -have less environmental impact than those thatwere previously used.

After nearly a decade of use and presence in ourfood system, there doesn’t appear to be anyparticular cause for alarm. Probably greatertransparency of health testing or supported publichealth testing would be beneficial to the wholeendeavour. Genomics - another science - will beproviding alternatives to transgenics, to geneticmodification. And in GM technology as much as inconventional agriculture, the commodification andcorporatization of agriculture are challengingrealities regardless of what technology we’reusing.

What do we know about the PEI situation? Wellwith the possible exception of canola, none of themajor GM crops we have today have wild relativesto capture genetic drifts. So there’s actuallybetween corn, soy and potato, the risk of geneticdrifts is basically non existent.

I’m not sure of the threat that canola would havebut I would venture to say that it might not besubstantial. One of my colleagues in Frederictontold me that the two wild relatives that might beable to support it are wild radish and birdrape. Soone’s a brassica, a closely related species andanother is a more distance relative.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that PEIwants to encourage diversification of it’sagricultural base. PEI may want to do this withbiobased products. Biobase products not beingconsumed by humans may be even lesscontroversial and may in fact benefit a great dealfrom GM technologies. I think of the possibilities inthe long term as they relate to biodiesel and otherbiofuels, it’s highly likely that they’ll be someattractive GM technologie, if not in the near futureat least within five or ten years.

I venture to say that the most important take homeis, do we know enough about environmentalfootprint and there are new tools out to study thecradle-to-grave impact of anyone given technologyand I’d encourage not only PEI but the lot of us allover the world to start using these tools.

What we look at in life cycle assessments are theimpact of every single thing surrounding a

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technology. This is another - it’s a brand newarticle. I venture to say that it isn’t the most elegantlife cycle assessment one, but it’s the first one toemerge in genetically modified crops. Life cycleassessments are being having a very important inthe field of biofuels as a way of measuring whathappens when we use renewables verses nonrenewable.

The life cycle assessment model accounts for allthe factors associated with the given technology.So for instance, if we were comparing conventionalto genetically modified we’d be looking at what thatpesticide use cost us. What did it cost us in termsof manufacturing, transportation and application -and when I say costs I don’t mean how much didit cost us in dollars. How much did it cost us inenvironmental impact? So the tools emerging forwhat I’ll call environmental economics, get morepowerful with each passing year and it’s this thatwe must bring to bare when we are comparingtechnologies and I include in that organic.

Just a brief overview, this is probably hateful tolook at but there is a very good take home here.This is herbicide tolerant beets growing in the UK.This teal coloured bar here represents theherbicide tolerant and the others are allconventional technologies so they may as well beclumped, but the author chose to put them inseparate histograms. Take home message interms of energy requirements, global warmerpotential, ozone depletion, eco-toxicity,acidification of the soil and nitrification, theherbicide resistant technology came up ahead ofthe pack. So I’m not saying that this was the mostsignificant life cycle assessment study that I’veever see done, but it is the first one on geneticallymodified crops and it’s something we should berepeating for a whole host of technologies.

I’ve a personal belief system based on myprofessional knowledge and I believe that the netenvironmental footprint of not having used GMpotatoes for the five - past five years is greaterthan if it had been used. In the large amount ofdocumentation that you’ll find on the CFI website,the evaluation - the environmental evaluation ofthe new leaf potato actually claimed that theyanticipated based on their studies that thebiodiversity of a potato field would of beenincreased by use of that technology. So at least asit related to insects and that’s documented on theirwebsite and I read it five years ago and it’s still

there.

I believe in reduction, a rationalization in the usesof synthetic inputs, pesticides, fertilizers, fossilbase fuels in agriculture, golf courses, publicgardens is a desirable social outcome regardlessof technology. And that we really need to use thebest tools possible to rationally evaluateenvironmental impact.

So as concluding statements, I’ve enjoyed everymoment I’ve spent in PEI and what’s clear here isthat choices and decisions matter a lot in PEIbecause you have finite resource and it’s moreobvious than other places.

You have a public dialog going on, on this topicand kudos to you. I think that’s wonderful. I thinkit’s - we probably do need to break new ground onhealth testing of GM products and use neweconomics to evaluate the technologies and finallyin closing, I think a rational case by case system ofevaluation for each crop or trait in question wouldbe highly desirable as it relates to GM technology.

I thank you for the opportunity today.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Thank you verymuch, sir. Fred has a question.

Fred McCardle (PC): Why is genomics differentfrom GMO?

John Argall: Genomics actually studies the fullgene - the full geno or full set of genes of anorganism. It’s generally restricted to within thespecies.

Fred McCardle (PC): So you are not amendingthe genes?

John Argall: No. You are to study them.

Fred McCardle (PC): But not to change them?

John Argall: Not to change them, no. When yougain that knowledge, right, of what a gene doesyou can in turn go in and turn it on, turn it off. Allthose technologies exist. How it differs from mostGM that you have seen to date is that geneticmodification involves the introduction of what you’dcall foreign DNA and genomics actually tries todeal with the genes that are present in the plantalready.

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Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Richard.

Richard Brown (L): Biotech Atlantic. Is that aCrown Corp or -

John Argall: Yes, it’s - in essence it’s a CrownCorp.

Richard Brown (L): Of Government of NewBrunswick?

John Argall: Government of New Brunswick.

Richard Brown (L): Its totally owned by thegovernment of New Brunswick. It’s something likeour Food Technology Centre out at UPEI?

John Argall: Yes. It’s charted a little bit differentlythan a full fledge Crown Corp.

Richard Brown (L): So I take it from that than, theGovernment of New Brunswick supports GMOdevelopment through this. If it’s a Crown Corpstudying GMO’s and promoting GMO’s then it’snatural to assume that the Government of NewBrunswick is supporting GMO’s?

John Argall: I don’t think it’s been as challengedas the Government of PEI. So I think that’s a fairassumption.

Richard Brown (L): Okay.

John Argall: More importantly however, thegenomics for instance, goes well beyond theconfines of GMOs.

Richard Brown (L): Thank you.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Eva and thanWayne and than Andy.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): (Indistinct) early on aboutthe breeding of the Shepody potato and in thebreeding than would all the genes from the samespecies be used or would you be kind of usinggenes from another potato to create a differentShepody?

John Argall: I’d like to tell you that I could speakfor the Shepody, there are definitely a lot ofvarieties that went into the background, whether ornot they incorporated other species I couldn’t tell

you. However what’s being used increasingly isdefinitely the crossing of species.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): Species.

John Argall: Right, yes. So this is a distinctspecies from this one and you know I could havea little round potato here and it would be the samespecies, but a different variety. So a Norland is thesame species as this.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): As that.

John Argall: Right.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): So at no time withgenomics, do you use the genes from anotherspecies then?

John Argall: Not in genomics. Genomics is justthe study of genes.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): It’s the study of genes.Okay.

John Argall: So I want to make sure that I’marticulating this right for you. The end result mightbe genetic modification just as it might bemolecular assisted breeding.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): Okay, just the study. Thankyou.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Go ahead.

Wayne Collins (PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.Thank you Mr. Argall for a very interestingpresentation. I have just a few questions. Theslide went by a little too fast for me but in regardingthe true and false and some of the myths andperceptions there about the butterfly and I think itsaid true there that there’s a detrimental effect onbutterflies. I forget, would it have been a GMOpotato or what it might have been?

John Argall: It would have been a corn pollen.

Wayne Collins (PC): Corn pollen.

John Argall: Corn pollen, and the important thingabout that release was that it has beendemonstrated in the laboratory that the bacillusthuringiensis killed butterfly larvae. It’s never been

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adequately demonstrated in the field, so if youimmersed that . . . well it was a monarch butterfly,if I recall right, if you immerse it in the pollen in apetri dish in the laboratory, you can kill it.

Wayne Collins (PC): Does it have to be totallyimmersed or have you done it on a sort of slidingscale?

John Argall: Well, apparently - and we’re nearlyinto the archives - this is a six, seven-year-oldstory and so I’m a little rusty on it. My recollectionis that it was in a fairly dense concentration, muchmore than it would see in nature.

Wayne Collins (PC): I see. Also . . .

John Argall: Since then, there have been a seriesof articles refuting that possibility in the field.Number one, because the habitat of the monarchbutterfly is so substantially different from a cornfield, the ability of that concentration of pollen youhad in the petri dish to get to where the monarchbutterfly are is too debilitating an activity to havehappen.

Wayne Collins (PC): Another one of your slidesmentioned golden rice.

John Argall: Right.

Wayne Collins (PC): And in terms of its increasedcarotene value that can be placed into it, and youmentioned that as well for some form of potato aswell, right?

John Argall: Correct.

Wayne Collins (PC): We had one scientist comebefore this committee recently, and I asked himabout golden rice and its sort of helpful, healthfuleffects in Asia, and was told at the time that aconsumer would need to eat 8 kilograms of this so-called golden rice a day in order to benefit from theincreased amounts of the vitamin. Would the samebe true for the potato you mentioned there?

John Argall: I couldn’t tell you. The finding isactually too new, in the potato, for me to commenton it.

Wayne Collins (PC): All right. Final question here. In your conclusions, recommendations there, to

PEI, you talk about break new ground in healthtesting. What did you mean by that?

John Argall: I feel that more public confidencecould be achieved by having transparent healthtesting of these products if we’re truly concernedabout their health impact.

Wayne Collins (PC): Whose responsibility wouldthat be, do you think, and what would constituteadequate testing?

John Argall: Well, I’m not about to sit here anddesign the experiment. My gut would tell me it’s afederal jurisdiction.

Wayne Collins (PC): When it comes toreassurance to the public of the safety of GM-produced products, five years? Ten years? What’san adequate length of time to say we haveconfidence that there are no detrimental effects ofconsuming this product?

John Argall: I’m not a clinical scientist, and I thinkthat’s an important distinction to make. I can’tmake that one. But there’s more than enoughexpertise, actually, on the Island to determinewhat’s a suitable health test. You have a veterinarycollege with a staff compliment that should bemore than aware of what suitable testing wouldlook like. I’m not going to comment on the design,but I suspect that a design exists.

Wayne Collins (PC): Thank you very much.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Andy?

Andy Mooney (PC): Yeah, just a couple of quickquestions. The CD you’re leaving, is that okay tocopy, so I want to have a copy just to kind of studyor do you have individual copies that just . . .

John Argall: I just have the one and I’m notrestricting it.

Andy Mooney (PC): Is it possible for our clerk tomake copies of it just so the members can have ittoo? And the other question is, when you’retalking a Shepody potato versus this other species,is that a potato or is that . . .

John Argall: Yes, for all intents and purposes,that is the potato. Somebody’s eating it for supper

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somewhere on the planet, likely Peru.

Andy Mooney (PC): So why is it a species versusa variety then if it’s a potato?

John Argall: Species, for the most part, are not -don’t hybridize. So you were going to ask me whycan these two be hybridized? Because you wouldbring them together, right? They would notnecessarily be sitting beside each other in nature.They may have evolved hundreds of miles apart,so they become different enough for us todistinguish them as a species.

Andy Mooney (PC): But they’re both in thenightshade of . . .

John Argall: Salanum? Oh, yes. They’re veryclose relatives, so they carry the same genusname, salanum. This one would be tuberosum,salanum tuberosum. This one would be salanumphureja.

Andy Mooney (PC): Will they breed? If you grewthose two plants side by side, will they cross-pollenate?

John Argall: They would cross-pollenate, andwhat breeders do in order to get the resistencegene is they make those crosses themselves. Thisisn’t the friendliest way of - pollen exchange isn’tthe way potatoes operate the best. That’s notwhere they excel, but they can be brought togetherand they do so in nature.

Andy Mooney (PC): Thank you.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Any morequestions? One question from Richard.

Richard Brown (L): Has the potato genome beenmapped?

John Argall: No. That’s a work in progress.

Richard Brown (L): How far along?

John Argall: Can I boast a little bit? The Canadiancontingent in that, while probably the youngestgroup to join the team, is doing gangbusters on thework because we have a seasoned, if small, staffworking on it, so in terms of total genomesaturation, we’re getting close.

One of the tools that’s emerging in genomics iswhat’s called a microarray, and it’s going to be avery useful tool in determining the impact ofgenetic changes because we’ll be able to follow,when we make a genetic change, what happens tothe whole genome. We suspect that the genomehas 35,000 to 45,000 genes, and it’s advancingwell.

Richard Brown (L): Okay.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Okay, thank youvery much, sir, for coming over from Fredericton.We appreciate the fact that you’ve come, and I’msure if we have any questions, we could laterforward those questions to you for answers.

John Argall: By all means.

Part II - Dr. Steve Yarrow, Canadian FoodInspection Agency

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Thank you verymuch, and our next presenter is Dr. StephenYarrow. He’s the director of plant bio-safety officeat CFIA, and we’ll just give them a couple ofminutes to change their equipment. Maybe whatwe should have is a few more members overthere. Can you see okay, Eva?

Jim Bagnall (PC): Perhaps we should wait for theother members. I mean, this is an important issue.I imagine they’ll want to be here for him. Wewouldn’t want to miss anything.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): I don’t knowwhere Richard went. That is not a picture of PEI,sir. That looks like the West. It looks like therolling hills of Alberta with the mountains in thebackground. We know it takes time for thesethings to get going.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: All right. Thank you for yourpatience.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Okay. Goahead, sir.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Yes, thank you. Again, sorryabout the delay there. Thank you very much forallowing me to come here to beautiful PrinceEdward Island to give you an overview of how theCanadian Food Inspection Agency, a federal

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agency, conducts environmental assessments ofgenetically engineered plants - plants derived frombio-technology or plants with novel traits,depending on which type of expression you wouldlike to use.

I should give you just a very quick history lesson.I won’t bore you with it but the government ofCanada started to realize that biotechnology wasa growing field and perhaps the regulations thatwere currently available at that time were notadequate to cover this new technology, or theproducts, more specifically. And to cut a long storyshort, a regulatory framework was created in 1993with various principles - principles of transparency,of consulting with stakeholders in terms ofdeveloping regulations and so on. Most important,perhaps, is it is science-based, consistent withnational and international standards that alreadyexist and since have been developed, but also,very importantly, to maintain a climate of fosteringinnovation. In other words, not being overlyonerous. But one important decision at that timewas to use existing legislation and regulatoryinstitutions, so unlike other countries around theworld, Canada has not created a gene act and hasnot created a biotechnology agency.

Now the CFIA is a federal agency that was createdin 1997. It came from the regulatory branch ofAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and also someparts of Health Canada, Fisheries and Oceans,and Health Canada. Its key function is to deliverinspection programs in the areas of safeguardingfood, plants and animals, but it does play a keyrole in the regulation of bio-technology productsand I should be clear here, our role is one ofenvironmental assessments and also livestockfeed assessments. The food side of it, in terms ofassessing the safety of eating bio-tech products,that responsibility belongs with Health Canada. I’mnot sure if you have a representative of HealthCanada coming at some point. I think that wouldbe useful for you in your deliberations.

So this just describes the sort of framework of whodoes what, and it is the environmental safetyassessment, which I’m mostly going to be talkingabout today. Our legislative powers come from theSeeds Act, and the office that conducts the work isthe Plant Biosafety Office, which I’m the directorof.

Now the consequences of all of what I’ve just told

you is that we have a product-based regulatoryprocess. In other words, it’s the product thattriggers the need for regulation and it’s not theprocess. If I can use some examples - it’s notspecific to those organisms or those plantsmodified by recombinant DNA or geneticengineering or genetic modification, depending onwhat term you want to use. And if I could use theexample of herbicide-tolerant plants, one canproduce herbicide tolerance in crops, in theory, bya number of means. Traditional breeding hascertainly been successful in doing so many yearsago. Techniques called mutagenesis are alsoused, have been used since the 1960s, tointroduce new traits into crops, and more recentlyin the last 10 or 15 years is the technology ofrecombinant DNA. So our philosophy is that agenetically modified organism may be a plant witha model trait, but not all plants with model traits aregenetically modified.

And going back to the herbicide tolerance just togive you some examples with canolas, specifically.On the market today - at least I think they’re on themarket today - they certainly have existed inCanada, are the Liberty Link types of canola,Roundup Ready types of canola. These are tradenames of - well, Roundup Ready is the Monsantocanola seed. We also have ImidazolinoneTolerance, another type of herbicide which is aproduct of mutagenesis, and in the 1970s, early1980s - I’m not sure if it still exists, there was atrizene tolerant type of canola available on themarket, which is actually produced fromconventional breeding.

The point I’m trying to get across to you is that therisks of this type of trait - herbicide tolerance - therisk exists how matter how the trait wasintroduced, and the risks I’m talking about you’reprobably familiar with. Some folks are worryingabout production of super-weeds and farmers notbeing able to control volunteers of these crops andso on. These are valid concerns, but they apply toall of these different techniques.

Regulatory principles in our work is one based onscience, familiarity. In other words, we’re not goingto risk assess canola as if it was a brand-new crop.Canola has been around for 20 years. Ourinterests lie with the changes to canola using thesevarious genetic modification techniques.

I’ve already described, I hope, the product-based

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principle that we have. Each of the products welook at, we look at on a case-by-case basis, step-wise, of course, and in terms of developingregulatory principles and regulatory directors andpathways, we involve the public, and stakeholdersin general in developing these types of regulatorypathways. It’s very important for me to make itclear to you that for better or worse, the CFIA andmy office, particularly, we cannot take into accountmarket issues. That’s out of our mandate. That isthe decision of the consumers, the growers, thefarmers, and so on.

I think I’ll skip this - too complicated slide - thatjust outline the various steps. But first in this sort ofevolution or history of the new plant with the noveltraits, a new crop with novel traits, that goesthrough the regulatory process, is the process ofconfined field trials, and by that, I mean these arefield tests that allow the developer - be it auniversity or a multinational company, whoever itmight be - to allow that company or person to growthe plants under very strict controlled conditions sothey can try and ascertain whether the plant isgoing to be a success, but more importantly, togenerate environmental safety information, whichwill then come to the agencies for review.

These trials, as I said, are very strictly controlled.The size of them is strictly controlled. They’re notvery large trials, no larger than one hectare at themaximum. Reproductive isolation is veryimportant, to make sure that these plants areisolated from neighbouring crops and wild species,and depending on the species, whether it becanola or potatoes and so on, this isolationdistance will be different because you can imaginepollen from different crop plants, for example, willtravel different distances and things like that.

A very important principle of sight monitoring, bothby the individuals conducting the trials and by theFood Inspection Agency, and at the end of thetrial, the disposition of the plant material is alsovery strictly controlled. And the sites of the trialsare inspected by Food Inspection Agencyinspectors several years after the trial has beenconducted to make sure that all volunteers and soon are strictly controlled or destroyed, actually.And that’s just a picture here of a typical trial out inthe distance there. This is probably wheat orbarley, and you can see how widely isolated it isfrom the neighbouring farming areas, and it’s aCFIA inspector doing his work, making sure that

the trial is being conducted as agreed to.

Just to give you a sense of confined field trials, theagency - or actually, when we were AgricultureCanada before - have been in the business ofoverseeing these trials since 1987. This date iscurrent to last year, and you can see in the mid-90s per year there over 1,000 - well, 1996,actually, or 1997 - almost 1,000 or over 1,000 trialstaking place. More recently, the numbers havegone down. People always ask: Well, why is that?But I think that the answer is in the mid-90s, a lotof the efforts of the development of these plantswas on the herbicide tolerance trait, particularly incanola. Those trials are over. The plants are nowcommercialized, and in so far as overseeing trials,from our perspective, that work is over with.

I’d best perhaps give you a bit of a taste of what’sbeen happening in PEI. PEI is also, as a province,has had trials take place here, but my records tellme that the last trial that took place here, or trials,was in the year 2000, and the last time a trial wasinspected for the post-harvest inspection that I justdescribed to you was in 2002. I don’t know whythere aren’t trials going on today. It depends onwhat people want to do.

And to give you a sense on the types of traits thatwe’re talking about in these trials, as you can see,in the early 90s, herbicide tolerance formed thevast majority of the proportion of the trials. Asthese have now moved into the commercialstream, the number of herbicide trials have gonedown considerably. Insect-resistant and disease-resistant trials have been consistently tested,along with stress tolerance, compositionalchanges, and so on, and something else we callhere, bio-farming. I’ll be coming back to that a bitlater.

Having finished the work of probably severalyears, typically three to four years, developers ofthese types of crops will probably then want to,should they decide to, they want to commercializetheir crops, and I should give you a sense of thepercentage of trials or the types of plants that havebeen subject to trials. Only a small percentage ofthose - for commercial reasons, I would imagine -make it to this next stage where the developerswant to proceed to commercialize them, and this isthe stage we call the unconfined releaseassessment stage, where the Food InspectionAgency is assessing these crops where they

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could be grown without the strict conditions I wasjust describing to you. In other words, to allowthese crops to be grown without the reproductiveisolation, the sight monitoring, post-harvest landrestrictions and so on.

However, there have been some exceptions.You’re familiar with the BT potatoes. There’s alsoforms of BT corn. For reasons of protecting theusefulness of the pesticides, we do impose whatwe call resistance management plans on thesecrops. I won’t go into too much detail right now,but we do limit the percentage of the crop that canbe grown to give a chance for the insects to matewith the non-resistant type insects, should insectswith resistance actually form, as I say, purely tomaintain the usefulness of the pesticide.

Also, we have another example of herbicidetolerance, Brassica rapa is a type of canola.Because of its weediness nature, it’s not allowedto be grown in Eastern Canada in the modifiedform. Cultivation is restricted to Western Canada.

Now our assessment from the Food InspectionAgency point of view was very much wedded tothe familiarity concept where we should have anunderstanding, or do have a good understandingof the biology of the crop in question. We have tohave a full sense of how canola, as a non-modifiedcrop, how that behaves in the environment, andthe underpinnings of this is agriculture can bedamaging to ecology. That’s a fact of life. So oursafety assessment base is to see how the modifiedcrop compares to the regular crop, be it canola,potato or wheat or whatever it might be.

And also substantial equivalents is built into thatwhere we try and determine the substantialequivalents of this modified crop compared to thenon-modified potato or canola. These concepts arenot new. We don’t own them. We didn’t inventthem. They’ve been largely developed by otherinternational bodies, such as the OECD - theOrganization for Economic Corporation andDevelopment - and these principles weredeveloped in the late 1980s, early 1990s. What’svery important in our assessment is to fullycharacterize the molecular modification to seewhich types of genes have been inserted, howthey’ve been inserted, are they still functioning,have there been changes to other parts of thegenome as a consequence of the introduction?

Also very important is an assessment of thebiology of this modified crop to see whether thepotato or the corn or canola, whatever it might be,is now more weedy as a consequence of themodification, whether the crop can now pass onweedy traits through pollen flow, gene flow, toneighbouring wild species and so on. We also seeif there’s any greater potential for this plant tobecome a plant pest, to be invasive, and also tocheck out and assess any impact on non-targetspecies. Interestingly, the example of the monarchbutterfly was mentioned earlier, so the monarchbutterfly in the context of the BT corn, would be anon-target insect. So our assessment took intoaccount to make sure that the likes of monarchbutterflies were not significantly negatively affectedin the field as opposed to the land.

Part of our assessment - or should I say, post-assessment - is then to make a decision. Shouldwe go back to the developer and ask for moreinformation? I would say personally that nine timesout of 10, that is our assessment. We always,generally go back and ask for more information,and then we’ll make an assessment as to whetherwe should approve the environmental release ofthis plant with the novel trait. Perhaps we need toimpose conditions or outright refuse approval ofthe crop if we feel that this type of plant with anovel trait poses a risk to the environment.

Having approved it, should we approve a plantwith a novel trait to release into the environment.We make it very clear that the applicant must carryout post-monitoring surveillance to ensure thatthere’s no unexpected effects that might crop upafter the fact, and if any new information doesarise, by law, they must come and tell us about it.For your information, there have been about 50classes of novel traits authorized in Canada forenvironmental release. I can’t say whether all 50are now in the field commercialized. That’s acommercial decision that they can be.

The crops include canola, corn, flax, lentil,soybeans, potatoes. You’ll see wheat there. Ihasten to add that is not a recombinant DNAwheat. That is a product of mutagenesis. Therewas some controversy last year about recombinantDNA-derived wheat getting into the marketplace,and I think I’ve already described to you the typesof traits in terms of virus resistence, herbicidetolerance and so on, that have been introducedinto these crops.

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So that describes how we’ve been conducting ourwork over the last 10 to 12 years. I think it will beuseful for me just to give you a little bit ofinformation about how we see the future, and oneof the areas that causes us quite a bit of concernwhere we’re going to have to develop perhaps achanged or a new regulatory pathway is this areacalled plant molecular farming. And I hasten toadd that’s not to be confused with the molecular-assisted breeding that was mentioned in theprevious presentation.

Plant molecular farming is an expression. It’swhere the plants have been modified in some formspecifically to produce pharmaceuticals or otherbio-molecules of use. In other words, let’s take anexample of potatoes, perhaps, to produceantibiotics or bio-plastics, but not to be used forfood consumption. Plants with novel traits frommolecular farming, and I should add that this is stillvery much experimental. There are nocommercialized plants with model traits for thispurpose in existence in Canada yet, nor in the US,I might add.

These are generally not meant for food or for feed,as I mentioned. They are specifically for producingbio-molecules such as vaccines and so on, but wemust, of course, appreciate that the effects ofthese new types of genes on non-target organismsand I might add, humans as well, is not wellunderstood at this stage, so this is somethingwe’re going to have to really look at very closely.

And also, I think it’s pretty obvious that thecommercial production, should it happen in thefuture, of these types of crops will have to be doneunder some sort of confinement or containment, soour Plant Biosafety Office of CFIA of areas offocus, primarily, is to protect the environment, andI should add here for my feed assessmentcolleagues at the agency, also to protect livestockanimals, should this material be used for - this isplants of novel traits in general now, not just plantmolecular farming, to protect livestock animals ifthey’re going to be fed these types of new crops,how to avoid or control gene flow and moreobviously, to provide an effective regulatoryoversight of these new crops.

Back to plant molecular farming, what’s missingright now, before this new technology canadvance, in our view as an agency is that we needto have a broader consultation with Canadians

across the country as to whether this type oftechnology should be adopted within theagricultural sector or not.

Our colleagues over at Agriculture and Agri-FoodCanada have the lead right now to set upconsultations and develop the right sorts ofquestions and also develop a good list ofstakeholders that would have an interest in this,but I should add with anything like this, there’s nosuch thing as zero risk.

Plant molecular farming is an involving area. Thereare large challenges for us, both as a regulatoryagency and for the industry of Canadians as awhole. So in conclusion, CFIA continues to workwith other government partners, particularly withHealth Canada and our colleagues at AgricultureCanada, the bio-tech industry, the food processingindustry, consumers, of course, and otherstakeholders such as the provincial authorities, ofcourse, in a way for to protect the health ofCanadians and protecting the environment.

Our website is here. It’s fairly easy to navigate,and you’ll be able to find more information aboutour regulatory processes, so thank you very muchfor giving me the opportunity to give you thispresentation and I welcome any questions.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Thank you verymuch, sir. Wayne?

Wayne Collins (PC): Thank you very much, Mr.Chair, and thank you, Dr. Yarrow, for a veryinteresting presentation. I’d like to find out just forcertain, though: When you say that CFIA deliversthe inspection programs, so does CFIA do thework - like presumably private interests likeMonsanto or some other big group like that, startsdeveloping something, do you inspect their work ordo you actually take their - you know, start fromscratch and see for yourself?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: We don’t start from scratchand see for ourselves, no. It is up to thedevelopers, be it Monsanto, be it the University ofPEI, whoever it might be, following very strictinformation requirements from the agency, whichI might add, are based on international standardsand harmonized standards we have with the US.It is up to those individuals to generate theinformation for us to evaluate.

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Wayne Collins (PC): To evaluate, so it’s a lot ofwork - paperwork - as opposed to out in the field,actually the CFIA doing growing itself.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Correct. Having said that,we do contract out research work independent ofthe developers from time to time depending onwhat the issue is. Actually, if I could use your goodexample of the monarch butterflies, the CFIA didfinance some contract research to follow up thatwork about the concerns about the pollen and theBT corn.

Wayne Collins (PC): Now one of the things youmention in here, the Canadian Federal RegulatoryFramework for Biotechnology. You say it has to betransparent and consultated, but also it has tofoster a climate for investment and innovation. Canthat sometimes be contradictory in that scientistsand others, outside parties wanting informationabout what you’re inspecting, that work product,they want to find out more about it. They, I’m toldand we’ve had people come to this table and saytheir requests come back blacked out all over theplace, so it’s difficult for them to even make a validconclusion themselves on the work. Can you talkabout that a bit?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: I can. You’ve raised a veryimportant point, and a very difficult issue for anyregulatory agency in Canada. On the one hand,our legislation mandates us to protect confidentialbusiness information. On the other hand, itsprinciple, I just mentioned earlier, is one oftransparency, so it’s a very difficult issue to dealwith.

One pilot experiment that we’re trying right now, anotice of submission is what it’s called, is for a trialperiod and hopefully it’s going to be a success andwe will continue with it, is that when we receiveapplications for environmental release of newplants with novel traits, a summary of theapplication will be posted on the website, andsome of that material is already on the website forthe purposes of inviting comments and input fromother people, stakeholders.

Wayne Collins (PC): But that’s just at the start.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: We started out about twoyears ago.

Wayne Collins (PC): I see.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: That’s right, and I’m hopingit’s going to be a success and we will expand on it.It took quite a lot of persuasion, as you canimagine, from some of the larger biotechcompanies, but they’ve fully embraced it now andare fully engaged in doing this.

Now that does not mean to say that all theinformation that the agency evaluates is put up onthe website, but a summary of that information isput up on the website, hopefully and meaningfulenough for stakeholders to get the information thatthey need.

Wayne Collins (PC): Your presentation, thesection dealing with plant molecular farming, I finda little bit unnerving, for instance, that concept ofplant molecular farming as you - because it seemsto come with a lot of concern. I felt that concernechoing in your voice, sir, as well. How far alongare we with plant molecular farming? You say it’snot to the commercial stage as yet.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: I’m not aware of anycommercial release of plant molecular farming-type plants anywhere in the world. Where it willhappen, if it happens at all, it will probably be inthe US first and maybe Canada. We’ll have to see.We have overseen a few field trials of this class ofplants with novel traits. The conditions that weimpose are even more strict than they are for thenon-plant molecular farming-type crops.

However, we’ve more or less warned - if I can putit that way - the developers of this technology thatwe’re very uncomfortable with proceeding withregulating this material until a broader consultationhas taken place.

Wayne Collins (PC): You mentioned in yourpresentation that what’s missing right now is thatthe Government of Canada really has taken noformal position on plant molecular farming. Is that,right now - I hate to use the word a deficiency here- but, I mean, that must be impeding your work agreat deal, not knowing what your political masterswant.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Well, perhaps, but I think,more importantly, it’s impeding the developers atthis point in time. It’s very much a new class ofbiotechnology that’s being developed, its earlydays.

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Wayne Collins (PC): All right. Thank you verymuch.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Fred, and thenEva.

Fred McCardle (PC): Some of the opponents ofGMOs say that there’s not enough research, wedon’t know enough, there’s not enough testingdone on these products. What’s your answer tothat?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Well, I can assure you thatthe work that we have been doing over the last 10to 12 years is based on very thorough informationthat we’ve received from the developers. If we’renot satisfied with the information we receive, we goback to them and ask for more. Sometimes we goback two or three times.

If we’re not satisfied then, we will not proceed withcontinuing the evaluation or approving it, so wefeel quite comfortable with the quality and thequantity of information that we get at the end whenwe make our decision.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Eva?

Eva Rodgerson (PC): When you talked earlierthere, there’s a word that crops up from time totime and you mentioned, for example, super-weeds. You said no matter which method there’sthat risk. How much testing goes into theconventional way of breeding by CFIA?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Fine. I understand yourquestion. Since the development of our regulatorypathways in the early 1990s, it’s exactly the same.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): The same for both, then?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Exactly. That’s the point Iwas trying to get across to you.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): Okay.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: If you were a developer,hypothetically, of a mutagenesis-developedherbicide tolerant canola, you would be subject tothe exact same standards for informationrequirements as you would be for a recombinantDNA one or even a traditionally-bred canola.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): I read in a magazine hereawhile about a big bio-sciences centre being builtin Ontario, it was a - and I’m sorry that I’ve lostthat. I’ve looked for it everywhere, but it seems likethere was a lot of work being done in Ontario inthis area. Is that correct? Do you know anythingabout that?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Yes. I’m not very well-addressed, very well-informed, to give you all theinformation on that. Perhaps our previouspresenter might have some more information onthat, but there’s certainly clusters, if I can call itthat, where you have centres of excellence. I’mthinking of the University of Guelph and otherareas around there that are trying to develop thesesorts of clusters.

Eva Rodgerson (PC): So I think they call it thebio-whatever, corridor of Canada. Okay, thank youvery much.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Richard.

Richard Brown (L): Just one quick question, doesthe law require developers of genetically modifiedplants and that (Indistinct) to put all the informationin to you. You seem like - the interpretation I getfrom CFIA is that Monsanto would send youinformation for approval. You have to weedthrough it and then have to ask the questionsback. Is there a law that says Monsanto must, orany developer must provide all information, evenif they have negative results.

If I was a developer, I’d only send you the positivestuff, and if you never ask the proper questions orright questions, you may never know that therewas negative stuff done, so is the law there toorder them to provide all test results to you, bothnegative and positive?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Our interpretation of the lawis yes.

Richard Brown (L): So when they apply for anapplication, you do get all information, bothnegative and positive?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Well, we hope we do.

Richard Brown (L): And what kinds of fines arethere if you find out later that they haven’t provided

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you with all the information?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Okay, a hypotheticalsituation where we would find some unexpectedinformation, if I can put it that way, that wouldimply that the crop was no longer safe for theenvironment, we would cancel the approval. Itwould have to be withdrawn from the market.

Richard Brown (L): And would the developer befined or - you know, to me, that’s (Indistinct).

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: You’re getting into legalareas there. I don’t think I could comment. I guessit would just depend on the circumstances.

Richard Brown (L): Okay. Thank you.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Andy?

Andy Mooney (PC): Just a quick question. Whenyou mentioned earlier about some of theinformation on reports sometimes that’s blockedout, that information would still go forward to youragency and it would be assessed, all theinformation, but just on the tricks of the trade, Iguess, that they would be - as far as informationgoing public, some of the work they’ve done, theyjust don’t want to divulge it to their competition, Iguess, but you have full access to everything.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Yes. We see all thatinformation, but I think the Access to InformationAct influences on what others can see, so it’s notmy office that’s doing the blacking out. It’s notnecessarily Monsanto that’s doing the blockingout, but it’s the Access to Information regulatorsthat do that work.

Andy Mooney (PC): Thank you.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Wayne?

Wayne Collins (PC): Yes, one supplementaryquestion, if I may, Dr. Yarrow. CFIA, again, it’s aregulatory agency. It delivers both programs thatsafeguard foods as well as plants and animals,and I’m wondering if there’s some kind of sharedmandate here with Health Canada.

Earlier, I asked a question of our previouspresenter: What’s a safe period in terms of testingthe human health of GMO products? Two years?Three years? Five years? Ten years?

Health Canada, and I will give this question to theirrepresentative when they come here, but if you’rethere to safeguard foods, that means CFIA has aresponsibility to say: This is a safe food. Well, if it’sa safe food, I presume that means it’s safe forhuman consumption, so is there a bit of acrossover of mandate here with Health Canada?

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Yeah, exactly, perhaps I cangive you two answers. The canned answer is thatactually Health Canada sets the standards and theCFIA makes sure that the standards are met.

In terms of what we’re talking about here withplants with novel traits, safety to the environment,safety to human health, it is a joint project, if youlike, a regulatory product, and we work veryclosely with our counterparts at Health Canada.

In fact, certain parts of the assessment of thesenew crops, such as the molecular assessment,which I referenced earlier, that is done jointly.

Wayne Collins (PC): I want to thank you verymuch.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Okay, wouldanyone else like to ask a question? If not, wethank you very much, Doctor, and we appreciatevery much the fact that you have come today, andI’m sure if we have further questions, we could getthem back to you, so thank you, sir.

Dr. Stephen Yarrow: Thank you.

Part III - Peter Feldstein

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): We’ll give you acouple of minutes to have our - do you want tohelp him? This is Mr. Peter - is it Feldstein?

Peter Feldstein: Feldstein.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Feldstein?You’re a private citizen, sir? You’re from PEI?

Peter Feldstein: Correct. Yes, sir.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): And I - you havea presentation to make?

Peter Feldstein: Yes.

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Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): You go rightahead, sir.

Peter Feldstein: Thank you, Mr. Chairman andmembers of the committee. I’d like to thank you forthis opportunity to address the committee. It’s anhonour for me. I’ll tell you about my credentials, orbackground, if you will.

I’ve got a Masters in Biology with a specialty inpest control, and I’ve spent the last four or fiveyears or so on my own, analyzing andunderstanding the many issues swirling aroundgenetically modified organisms.

I’m also here as a consumer; that is to say aneater of food just like all the rest of us, and I’m alsohere with another hat, which is that I’m currentlydeveloping on our family farm in Prince EdwardIsland, 40 acres, a project to do some organicmarket gardening, so I also speak from thestandpoint of a food producer. I can’t say that Ispeak for any other food producers, but I certainlyspeak for myself, and I would like to - it isespecially from that angle that I would like to makemy comments today.

My message would be that essentially, we allagree on Prince Edward Island that we’re facingsome pivotal choices for our agricultural sector. Iagree with many others in this province who havesaid: Let’s keep our options open.

Right. I think we should do exactly that, but let’s beclear. The status quo, as I see it, that is GM cropsthat have been accepted by the regulatoryauthorities being planted wherever and whenevercloses off our options for the foreseeable future,and possibly forever, and that’s because again, tomy understanding, with the current state of cropscience, the introduction of GMOs into the foodsystem is very hard, if not impossible, to reverse,and this is one aspect (Indistinct).

Do we have to take that along with developmentsin law, food safety and the world marketplace,which, all together, create an environment oftremendous uncertainty and instability for farmers?That’s exactly the opposite of what we want for ourfarming community: Stable, high-value markets,which is something that I needn’t tell you manyfarmers have been having trouble finding here.Certainly my neighbours have.

Let’s put in another way. The status quo - that is,letting GM crops, the ones that have beenaccepted by CFIA, get planted wherever andanywhere, is a high-risk option that puts us on alow-value path that we may never be able to getoff.

Therefore, my message to the committeemembers, Mr. Chairman, is that in order to keepour options open now and for the future, we shouldconsider enacting a total moratorium or ban ofsome sort on the planting of GM crops in PrinceEdward Island.

I don’t have a position on GMOs. I’m not anopponent, nor am I a supporter, but I feel that atthis time, that’s necessary to maintain our optionsopen. In stating this, I don’t feel that I’m a voice inthe wilderness. I should mention that I join myvoice to that of more than 600 scientists whosigned their names to a declaration in 1999 callingfor a moratorium on the environmental release ofgenetically modified organisms and this has beensummarized in our report here from the Institute forScience and Society, which I will be providing tothe Clerk of Committees.

If there comes a time in the future when science,law and economics make GMO releases possibleor desirable, then I think we could and we shouldrevise that position, but now is the time for caution.

So I don’t have any PowerPoint slides to presentto you, but I will be discussing the how and why ofthe reasons why the status quo is unattainable forthe farming community by invoking five aspects ofthis question of stability versus uncertainty.

These five aspects are markets, liability issues andlegal issues, public health concerns, questions ofpesticide use and herbicide use, and especially, ona more personal note, the renewal of the farmingcommunity since I represent a small part of that, avery small part.

So why this status quo, as I said, is untenable andwhy we should do something about it. First of all,let’s talk about markets, Mr. Chairman. The fact isthat potentially lucrative markets could bejeopardized - are being jeopardized - as it standsby the introduction of genetically modifiedorganisms.

These markets do exist. In the Maritimes, we had

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the Pulsifer Report that some of you are probablyaware of, which spoke of a potentially largeorganic market in the New England States that weshould capture and we should move quick on it.

I spoke to Speerville Mills in Debec, NewBrunswick this morning. They said they can’tsource a substantial proportion of the organic grainand soybeans from the Maritimes. They would liketo, but they can’t, and of course, we know thepremiums on organic products to the farm aremuch higher. That’s for the Maritimes.

Globally, we know that the organic industry - nowI should say, of course, when it’s organic, thatautomatically means GMO-free. It’s part of thedefinition. Globally, we know, or we’ve seenvarious numbers that usually put the total organicmarket around $15 billion and growing - that’s USdollars - at 15 per cent to 20 per cent per year.

Not only that - this is something that many of usdon’t know - is that not only is there an organicmarket, but there’s also a non-GMO, non-organicmarket that is estimated, according to the Non-GMO Report, a trade journal that specializes inhelping companies source non-GMO products -that is to say commodities for their products - saidthat the Wall Street Journal estimated this marketat $7.8 billion worldwide: Non-organic, non-GMOin 2001, Europe, Japan and South Korea being themain markets.

Japan buys more than one million metric tonnes offood grade non-GMO soybeans from the US,Canada and China every year. Several majorretailers in the United States, including WholeFoods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe’s, have establisheda policy to exclude GM ingredients from theirbrand-name products.

We also know, of course, with the potato - a sadcase that I don’t need to dwell on, that the same istrue for some restaurant chains and food servicechains have decided to exclude GM products fromtheir potatoes, for instance, and their products.

The Non-GMO Report further reports that there’sprice differentials to be earned at the farm gatefrom selling non-GMO or GM-free products. It wasindicated to me by the publisher of the journal, andI will be having copies. Unfortunately, they’re beingsent by courier, but I couldn’t get them for today,I’ll have them given to the Clerk of Committees, of

this report, as well as a source book.

They estimate that GM-free soy premiums rangeup to $1.50 per bushel above commodity prices.That’s just for food consumption. GM-free corn,much less, at about 20 cents per bushel extra, andif it were for seed - if we were growing for seed,the premiums would probably be much higher.

Now these markets are precious, it seems to me,and they can be lost. The way to get disqualified isto allow small amounts of GM contamination intothe general crop gene pool because, as we know,organic and GM-free buyers are quite strict in theirrequirements as to what threshold ofcontamination is considered to be acceptable fortheir buyers and ultimately, their buyers would becalled the end users or the consumers, andultimately, the consumers just don’t seem to wantthis stuff.

That is to say, when the consumers are madeaware of what it contains and what is involved.Now we saw some surveys earlier, and thosenumbers are interesting, but it seems the numbersthat I have heard are quite different, ranging up to90 per cent of - well, no, they’re compatible inmany ways, but ranging up to 90 per cent in all themajor markets - whether it’s Europe, Canada orthe United States - of consumers saying: Yes, weshould label - mandatorily label - GM foods.

If they’re mandatorily labeled, does that makethem more valuable or less? I think less. We canhope that the - sit here hoping that the tide willturn, but I don’t think it will. It seems to be thereverse.

Now as to the likelihood of this getting disqualifiedfrom these markets because of gene flow betweenthe GM and the non-GM, that seems to be verywell-established. It’s true that the - and I respect allthe testing that is done by CFIA and otherregulatory agencies around the world, but the factremains that this is a fact. It happens that withcanola, it is no longer possible to meet the organicstandards for organic canola because of the levelsof GM contamination in fields that were neverplanted to GM in Saskatchewan, and this wouldprobably be the case wherever that is planted,including Prince Edward Island, for instance, if wehave canola for our biodiesel plant.

So in fact, that’s the subject of a lawsuit currently

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in Saskatchewan of the Saskatchewan OrganicDirectorate who are suing for a loss of markets -high value markets, again, I should point out.

We know it to be the case. There will be gene flow.The question is how much, and it’s notcontroversial, but the question is how much andwhat are the consequences of that? One certainconsequence is at the present time, those marketswill not be available to Prince Edward Islandfarmers, or are not likely to be, but markets can beprotected just as they can be lost.

I’ve learned that China has set aside an entirestate or province of that country for growing non-GM soy to meet that demand. China coming up inthe world in many ways, and that is just anotherexample of how it is happening, and if China cando it, why can’t we? We’re an Island. We’reseparated by 10 miles of water from the mainland,so my conclusion to that part of the presentation isthat GMOs, apparently, would jeopardize whatmay well be a higher-value market - certainly nota lower one, whereas a GMO-free zone would goa great distance in protecting those markets.

My second point about instability and uncertaintyhas to do with liability for farmers being exposed toliability. We’re all familiar with the Schmeiser case,I’m sure, since Percy Schmeiser visited the Islandlast year. He’s a Saskatchewan organic farmersued by Monsanto, found guilty of breach of patentthat was through all the way up to the SupremeCourt of Canada, which ruled in a 5 to 4 decisionthat he was indeed guilty of breach of patent, yethe claims it blew off a truck and no one everchallenged or told him. No one ever asserted thathe stole it.

That’s not the point. The point is that once it’s inhis field, he’s liable. That is, he’s liable if he earnsany money off of it. Well, as soon as he harvestshis crop and sells it, he’s liable. Now PercySchmeiser has reported that, very recently on hiswebsite, that hundreds of Saskatchewan farmershave called him saying that they may be facingsimilar legal action by Monsanto and that theyhave received letters of demand from Monsanto’slawyers telling them that they’re liable for a certainamount of money because of - and these arepeople who may never have signed any kind oftechnology agreement and have no interest ingrowing the stuff.

Well, that’s the kind of instability we could really dowithout. Here, we have the counterpart to thatwhole case, which is a report published by theCenter for Food Safety in Washington, D.C.,Monsanto vs. US Farmers, which chronicles thevarious cases of lawsuits. There have been 90 todate total recorded judgments of over US $15million for an average of 400,000 per farmer. Theyhave not lost yet. Actual awards to Monsanto couldprobably go much higher because of court costswhich are not revealed. , Many more settlementsnever go to court, so we don’t know the full natureof how much money is flowing out of the farmingcommunity into the hands of that and othercompanies.

The report which I will leave a copy with again withthe Clerk of Committees, offers various legislativeoptions which you can consider including a banand the quote that I’ll read is that: All suchmeasures - bans - offer significant protection forfarmers in the geographic area encompassed bythe ban or moratorium from biologicalcontamination by genetically engineered crops andthe attendant risk of being prosecuted byMonsanto or others. So the conclusion to that partwould be, you introduce GM crops into the system,you get an environment of significant legaluncertainty. Whereas a GMO free zone does agreat deal to create a stable environment in whichfarmers can be free from harassment.

Third point has to do with health and safety.Farmers want to produce a safe and helpfulproduct, just like anyone else. But myunderstanding - and here we hoping to be furtherenlighten by this Dr. Yarrow - is that the currentsystem of GM crop regulation makes thisuncertain.

It was a few years ago when I was . . . a pamphletcame to my door from . . . published jointly by theCFIA, Agriculture Canada and Health Canadacalled Food Safety and You. On page 10 it saiddon’t leave your chicken salad out on the counterbasically because you could get sick. On page 12,I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but it said basically GMfood is just as safe as ordinary food. And I said mygoodness, that seems like a rather different orderof statement from what I knew about genetics. SoI decided to do a little bit of phone calling and Iwound up to speaking to two scientists ingovernment who told me some very interestingthings, some of which you heard. They said that

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yes safety testing - health safety testing isadequate. No you can not see the data becauseit’s confidential - that’s just what I expected. Andquite refreshingly one person said to me: Yes, Ialso share your economic concerns about how thiscan hurt farmers because I come from a farmingfamily myself. But no I can’t do anything about thatbecause that’s not my role here.

Well I decided to pursue it a little bit further, givenwhat I’d heard. I was not aware at that time of thesubstantial equivalents principle or model ofregulatory assessment. And since then I have readinto it and determined from what I can see at least,from various reports that I have read, that it is aprinciple of dubius merit as a regulatory principleand it is kind of the heart of the matter when itcomes to - but I’m again looking forward to talkingto Dr. Yarrow to get my . . . to get whatever extranuance I can on this point because for me it’s veryimportant.

Substantial equivalence - which he referred to inhis presentation - is basically, from what Iunderstand it, a food safety equivalent of saying ifit walks like duck, quacks like a duck, therefore itis a duck.. But what we know is the things that looklike corn and taste like corn, may not be corn. Weknow, for example, although this has nothing todo with the regulatory authorities, but Aventis StarLink corn which made it’s way into corn for humanconsumption and caused the largest food recall inthe history of United States. Cost Aventist $1billion. Now that was, as I said, a post-regulatoryproblem. It had nothing to do with regulatoryauthorities. But the problem, as I understand it, isthat substantial equivalence as a doctrine could letin foods that are potentially more dangerous thanStar Link.

I’m going to quote from a report, an extensivereport which again I will give to the Clerk ofCommittees, called Elements of Precaution - a2001 report written by the Royal Society ofCanada, distinguished panel of 14 scientists - inwhich they state that the application of this term toa new . . . there’s a very large section on it, it’sabout 30 pages in which they cover the wholeaspect of substantial equivalence. They say, “Theapplication of this term to a new GM variety hasbecome within in the present regulatoryenvironment effectively a declaration of safety andthe panel discusses what it feels would be requiredto make this concept of valid metric for decisions

regarding approval of new GM products” - whichmeans if you read this section you will see thatthey do not consider it a valid metric - “and thepanel concludes approval of new trans geneticorganisms for environmental release and for useas food or feed should be based on rigorousscientific assessment of their potential for causingharm to the environment or to human health. Suchtesting should replace the current regulatoryreliance on substantial equivalence as a decisionthreshold”.

We can’t just look at it and say hmm, sort of lookslike corn, I guess it is corn. Because myunderstanding is what that does is enables certainparts of regulatory scrutiny to be circumvented.Okay. But I’m not an expert on it, but I do feel thatthe committee should be considering this verycarefully because it - according to the expertsthat I have read - it does throw into doubt someparts of the regulatory approval process for GMfoods.

From an article called Rethinking SubstantialEquivalence in Nature Biotechnology, February2002, safety assessment obviously still requires asystematic detection of unintended changed GMfood components compared with an appropriatecontrol. But that is not what substantialequivalence does. Therefore to cling to this term inthe current context is doubtful.

I would welcome any further nuance to my positionon this. I’d like to know more about it, butotherwise in the absence of that, I wouldchallenge the federal health authorities to an openpublic debate on the validity of the principle ofsubstantially equivalence making sure that it reallyprotects consumers from what it is supposed toprotect them from and we can title this debate -Substantial Equivalence and Our Health. If it lookslike corn and tastes like corn, does that make itcorn?

There are other aspects to food safety that I willnot get into. The fourth point that I’d like to make. . . well just concluding on that one, is that underthe current system farmers can not be sure thattheir GM food products are safe in my opinion.

The fourth point is one that I won’t go into in greatdepth, but I did want to mention it because therewas some talk earlier in a few of the presentationsabout pesticide use. I think that, again from my

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reading of the situation, the data is quite equivocalon insecticide use. There are some indication thatin soybeans insecticide use has gone down. Butthe data does not appear to be equivocal at all onherbicide use. I am quoting from the Benbrookstudy here, Dr. Charles Benbrook whom I’m givento understand may, be addressing this committeeas well later in the hearings. who has found thatherbicide use because - as would be expected -because of the ability to spray Roundup Readycrops whenever not just pre-emergence meansthat herbicide has increased in the United States,in- I believe it’s canola - by 70 million pounds peryear. That’s herbicides. So I don’t think that thefull story is in on whether these crops will reduceour pesticide use on Prince Edward Island or not.

My last point is - and I would say its dubius forherbicides - my last point has to do with promotionof Prince Edward Island as farm renewal. I amvery enthusiastic about this province. I have a longassociation with it, I have leaved in Montreal forsome years but I also am a part owner of a farmhere. I intend to develop that farm into a workingfarm and my enthusiasm, I’d like to think, iscontagious and when I talk to people I’m oftentelling them, oh you’re thinking about going intofarming. Well you ought to come and see us,because there is wonderful farm land down here.I think there’s great opportunities for you.

I can say antidotally with one case - we went up tothe Magdalen’s last summer for a weeks vacation - and we’d happen to run across one of the largestorganic farmers in the Magdalen’s and I told himwe were discussing it. They were farming on somerather marginal land and I said to them well youknow you ought to come down, if you’re evercoming through PEI you ought to stop in and visitus. Three weeks later - we had a longer talk aboutwhat I was up to and what kinds of conditionswhere available here - three weeks later I got aphone call and it turned out they are moving toPEI. So I was very pleased about that. And goingto set up a farm here.

Now there are other kinds of data that show in theWindsor to Quebec City corridor which I’m morefamiliar with, which I’m quite familiar with - in otherwords all sort of through the central part of Quebecand Ontario, the farming parts - it’s very difficult toacquire a piece of land to actually do the farmingyou want to do. We don’t have the exact figures onhow many farms, young farmers are looking for a

place to setup but we do know it’s substantial.

We know for example that 30 per cent of theregistrants at - this from the Union of AgricultureProducers, the main union in Quebec - 30 percentof registrants that agricultural facilities are cityfolks. And so we know there’s quite desire to getinto farming and I think PEI should . . . can offerthat kind of a . . . we’re looking for ways toimprove immigration to the province and I think wehave, really, a golden opportunity in many ways,but we have to provide the kind of stability andagain, certainty. Well there’s never any certainty.But the kind of stability that that this kind ofinitiative would provide.

In conclusion I would invite this committee to helpPrince Edward Island farmers by preserving astable farming environment and eliminating atremendous source of uncertainty. Let’s seize theopportunity to make PEI GMO free while we stillcan. Thank you very much.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Well you suretimed it, sir. Your right on.

Peter Feldstein: Is that right.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): And I’m sorrywe haven’t got time to ask you questions. If thecommittee wishes to do that later we can call youback in.

Peter Feldstein: Oh that was 30 minutes.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Exactly right onthe button and I’m sorry but we do have anothermeeting in progress in 15 minutes.

Peter Feldstein: Very good.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) (Chair): Means therehas to be some changes made in the tables. Ournext committee meeting will be a week from today.It will begin at 1:30 and will last until 4:00 pm. SoI ask all members if you have some questions towrite them down and probably later on we couldgive them to Peter. And I apologize to PeterBoswall, but we’ll have you later. Okay, so I’ll takea motion to adjourn.

Jim Bagnall (PC): Moved.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC) Chair : Meeting is

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adjourned.