LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
- August 21, 2007
Editor:
I read with a sense of dubiousness the latest offering from our current Member of Parliament. In particular, he touches on the topics of food safety, labeling and terminator seeds.
These issues are indeed serious, but we need to take an objective and realistic look at them, all partisan bluster aside.
Canada has one of the safest and most effective regulatory systems for products of biotechnology in the world. The Government of Canada has a rigorous regulatory process in place that carefully assesses any potential human health, animal health and environmental risk before any product of biotechnology is approved for market in Canada. Only when a product has been assessed as safe for human health, animal health and the environment, is it approved for commercial sale in Canada.
In regulating biotechnology, the government's paramount concern is the health and safety of Canadians, and that of animals and the environment. The government is continually examining its review processes for biotechnology-derived products and makes changes needed to ensure all current and future regulatory demands are met domestically and internationally.
When it comes right down to it, the market will determine GMO labeling. If consumers want it, they will demand it. In fact, there are still issues with what the definition of what a GMO is. Certainly, selective breeding of crops and fruits may qualify as modification as the results are different in yield and composition from their origin. As Robert Wagner of Malaspina University College writes, "...after 11 years of consumption of food containing GM ingredients, there is still not a single case of harm documented. Even in Europe where anti-GM attitudes prevail, the European Commission states food from GM crops is as safe or safer than food from conventionally bred plants." (Vancouver Sun, Saturday Aug 11, 2007, C3).
When it comes to terminator seed technology, apparently there currently are no applications for approval, so why the hue and cry? Because our MP's party believes that fear will outweigh rational thought. For example, is it not safer for a hypothetical crop not to be able to propagate itself while it is being tested for safety, thereby keeping safe and secure existing crops? Developing drought resistant or higher yield crops can only make our own food sources more secure, and in turn make us less dependent on foreign sources of food stuffs over which we have much less control.
The most rational way to protect our food safety in this country is to buy local when possible and support our farming community. A picture that ran in the Penticton Herald Newspaper recently showed a float entry in the 1948 Peach Fest Parade that had written on the side of it "Who Grows the Peaches? Who creates the Payrolls?" Our farming community deserves our support and those questions are as relevant today as they were in 1948.
- Rob Zandee
Candidate, Conservative Party of Canada
BC Southern Interior
