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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 10, 1996

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[English]

The Chairman: Good morning, everyone. We have a quorum. Welcome, everyone. I think we have an interesting day ahead of us in discussing the regulatory system for biotechnology, the products therefrom, and the opportunities that new technologies represent for the agriculture and agrifood sector. I'd like to make a couple of comments and then we'll go into the presentations.

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As we all know, technology is certainly no stranger to agriculture. For many years it's been playing an active role in improving genetics, nutrition, disease prevention and pest control. Genetic modification of plants and animals by selection and cross-breeding, for example, has long been part of agriculture, as has been the use of micro-organisms in food production.

In the rich history of agriculture, agricultural technology, and technological advancement, agro-biotechnology is seen not so much as a revolutionary force about to change everything overnight as it is a tool to benefit farmers by gradually improving agriculture and agricultural methods. In doing so, it brings together numerous scientific disciplines such as biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics, computer science and a blend of all of those.

Agricultural biotechnology enables desirable genetic characteristics of crops to be reproduced more quickly and more precisely than by means of conventional plant breeding methods. Crops with improved resistance to disease and pests, for instance, will make it possible to reduce the chemicals now used in agriculture. Beneficial applications of biotechnology to livestock include veterinary vaccines, disease diagnostics and feed additives.

Despite this phenomenal progress, we must acknowledge that some members of the public are alarmed by descriptions of biotechnology as being inherently different from all previous technology and as having possible harmful repercussions on human health and the environment. The population must have a level of comfort with respect to the technologies that are being introduced. I remind everyone that it's not an issue unique to biotechnology. It applies to any new product coming onto the market.

If the public has faith in the regulators, it will not reject innovation on principle, but will remain open to the potential benefits of having foods with better nutritional value, longer shelf life, higher quality and improved taste.

As we know, Canada has a worldwide reputation for producing safe, nutritious foods. It's a model for other countries in finding a balance in the regulation of new products. We are wisely cautious without blocking economic development. The United States and Japan, for example, are taking a similar approach, which is based on a thorough assessment of products before they are marketed.

Earlier this year some members of the committee and other members of Parliament had the good fortune to be able to take the opportunity to attend a very informative biotech tour at the agro-biotech centre in Saskatoon. I see today's meeting as a continuation of our efforts to update ourselves and others on this important field in the agrifood industry, with the growing opportunities and challenges that are before us.

I also want to state that as a further follow-up to this meeting there is a group of organizations, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, that will be holding a further information meeting on October 29. I suggest that there is a role we could all play there, including the regulatory agencies and those departments involved in the regulatory agencies, in order to further the challenge and the duty that we have to inform people about this. Everyone should certainly make themselves available to be at that meeting so we can continue with the process we are taking part in today.

With those comments, I'll just give a brief outline of how we are going to approach today. We have some people here today. We have with us Dr. Art Olson, assistant deputy minister of the food production and inspection branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, who will make a presentation to us, along with his officials. After that we will have discussion, questions and comments with the officials.

After that, we have a number of groups that will each make a 15-minute presentation to us, one after the other. Then we will have an open discussion with those people. So we have a considerable period of time allocated for our use today, if we wish to use it, and I'm sure we will.

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So with those opening remarks, I'll ask Dr. Olson to introduce his two colleagues - no strangers to many of us - and proceed.

Dr. Art Olson (Assistant Deputy Minister, Food Production and Inspection Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation with regard to October 29. We'll follow up with our colleagues in terms of ensuring that the information on the regulatory framework is available at that meeting.

I'm pleased to have with me this morning Dr. Brian Morrissey, the assistant deputy minister for research branch and, as you said, no stranger to this committee; and Margaret Kenny, the director of the biotechnology strategies and coordination office with the food production and inspection branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Also with us this morning is Dr. Paul Mayers, of the health protection branch of Health Canada. Dr. Mayers is one of the people most critical to the approval of novel foods as they come through the biotechnology regulatory environment.

The Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food regulates products of biotechnology under a federal regulatory framework that was announced by cabinet in 1993. This framework, also agreed upon by eight other federal departments including Health, Environment, Fisheries and Oceans, and others, is based on principles that build upon health and environmental safety assessments already in place for non-biotechnology-derived products.

I have provided copies of my paper, Mr. Chairman. I won't go through it all in detail, but I would like to cover portions of it at least.

The basic principles of the framework are to use existing legislation and regulatory institutions to clarify responsibilities and avoid duplication. In order words, no new acts will be developed; rather, we will utilize Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's agricultural acts, Environment Canada's Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Health Canada's Food and Drugs Act, and Fisheries and Oceans' Fisheries Act as the regulatory framework in which we operate.

We will maintain Canada's high standards for the protection of the health of workers, the public and the environment. The principles also include the development of clear guidelines for evaluating products of biotechnology that are in harmony with national priorities and international standards. I would stress the phrase ``international standards.''

The framework provides for a sound scientific database on which to assess risk and evaluate products, ensures that the development and enforcement of Canadian biotechnology regulations are open and consultative, and intended to contribute to prosperity and well-being by fostering a favourable climate for investment, development and innovation.

The framework sends strong messages: to the public, that safety considerations are an important priority; to the research community and industry, that clear rules and requirements will be put in place in a timely fashion that encourages product development in Canada; and to the provinces and our trading partners, that internationally accepted standards will be met.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's part in the regulatory framework is a recent example of the department's long history of involvement in regulating new organism introductions into Canada. As early as 1910, for example, the Canadian Destructive Insect and Pest Act was promulgated to enable the department to conduct pre-import and pre-market assessments of new plants into Canada in order to prevent the entry of pest organisms.

As an aside, Mr. Chairman, we have had discussions before this committee regarding a number of issues with diseases, both animal and plant, and how we've managed them under the current regulatory framework. Those same capabilities exist in terms of what we have as part of the biotechnology framework itself.

While the department has always been in the business of conducting these types of assessments, the scope of assessments themselves have widened in recent years to accommodate the new products of biotechnology.

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By early next year another change is planned to come into place. All federally mandated food inspection as well as animal and plant health services will be consolidated into a new Canadian food inspection agency. Administrative details are still being finalized, but broadly, Health Canada will have responsibility for establishing policies and standards relating to the safety and nutritional quality of food sold in Canada. In addition, Health Canada will assess the effectiveness of the Canadian food inspection agency's activities related to food safety. The regulation of biotechnology products will continue under the principles of the 1993 federal framework, but the relevant acts that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is currently responsible for will be administered and enforced by the new Canadian food inspection agency.

In essence, we have a separate regulatory agency responsible for food safety and quarantine matters. Among those matters is included the issue of biotechnology.

There are five agricultural acts under which biotechnology products are regulated: the Seeds Act, Feeds Act, Fertilizers Act, Health of Animals Act, and Plant Protection Acts. In 1994, Justice Canada confirmed that these acts have the authority to regulate biotechnology products with respect to environmental safety, including the safety of humans in the environment.

In 1995, a special committee of cabinet approved the addition of the definition of biotechnology in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA. The definition speaks of the application of science and engineering to the direct or indirect use of living organisms or parts of products of living organisms in their natural or modified forms. They agreed to the addition of this definition to these regulations.

This definition includes both living products such as microbes and plants and non-living products, including certain types of animal vaccines. The technologies used to derive these products are both modern, such as genetic engineering, and traditional, such as the selection of useful individuals with desirable characteristics from a population of similar organisms.

Regulatory amendments relating to notification in environmental assessments under the Seeds, Feeds, Fertilizers, and Health of Animals Acts all were pre-published in Canada Gazette part I on August 17, 1996, together with Environment Canada's proposed safety net regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The public has until October 16, 1996, to comment on these amendments, after which additional changes will be reviewed in preparation for publication in Canada Gazette part II. Publication of this final step in the regulatory amendments is anticipated for early next year.

Complementing these regulations, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has developed guidelines for each of the commodity areas. These have benefited from extensive national and international consultations. They provide an interpretation of the regulations and assist in their application by laying out specific information and procedural requirements.

Within the regulatory branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which is soon to be consolidated within the new Canadian food inspection agency, there is a variety of expertise to carry out the application of these regulations and guidelines. This expertise includes animal nutritionists, animal and plant pathologists, ecologists, entomologists, human and environmental toxicologists, molecular biologists, microbiologists, plant breeders, soil scientists, veterinarians, virologists, and weed scientists.

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Mr. Chairman I have a lot of sympathy for the translators in terms of going through each one of those definitions of professional competence, and I do appreciate your admonition to slow down a little bit when it comes to that kind of phraseology.

This combination of expertise is important for a complete evaluation of the safety of agricultural products of biotechnology and for the other more traditional products that result from the endeavours of industry and Canada's scientists. It is critical from the point of view of the international acceptance of our products.

I'll step back for a minute, Mr. Chairman, to the Seeds Act, Feeds Act, Fertilizers Act, Health of Animals Act and Plant Protection Act, which focus regulatory oversight on these areas. Environmental assessments of organisms or novel products, regardless of the process used to develop them, are part of the responsibility of these acts. This requires a thorough knowledge of the biology and ecology of the organism, and includes a review of the source of foreign genes and how they were introduced.

Regulatory oversight is exercised on the potential for injurious effects on human, animal and plant health, and on safety to the environment. The acts allow Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to refuse or cancel the importation and/or release of an organism or a novel product if potential injurious effects are suspected. Further, the acts provide for the field testing of organisms or novel products under conditions that confine the novel product in its ability to spread or reproduce. They also allow for the larger commercial production of organisms or novel products.

Under these pieces of legislation, under these acts, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has approved 3,025 field trials and 18 pre-commercial releases of plants with novel traits. We have approved 16 new plant types for livestock feeds, 141 microbial feed products, including living microbes, fermentation products and microbial forage additives, none of which were genetically engineered. We have registered close to 100 microbial-type fertilizer supplements, none of which were genetically engineered. We authorized 170 fertilizer-based research trials, 2 of which were genetically engineered and authorized in 1991 and 1996. We licensed 41 veterinary biologic products, 33 of which are diagnostic test kits for animal diseases. The rest are vaccines for viral and bacterial diseases. There are 14 diagnostic kits and 9 vaccines currently undergoing the licensure process.

It should be noted that the above assessments may involve other federal departments, such as Health Canada, Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Approval for food use for any organism or novel product is covered separately by the assessments of Health Canada under their guidelines for novel foods.

To make information widely available concerning the Seeds Act, Feeds Act, Fertilizers Act, Health of Animals Act and Plant Protection Act, and the department's regulatory system, we maintain a site on the Internet that allows public access to this information.

The regulation of agricultural products of biotechnology is based on internationally recognized scientific methods that over the past decade have been critical to a clean and appropriate process. During this period of time, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has worked through a process of consultations with scientific experts, stakeholders and the public in developing safety assessment criteria for products of biotechnology that fall under the purview of the legislation I've mentioned.

Taken together, these acts, and others such as the Food and Drugs Act, provide a framework of laws and regulation that safeguard consumers, producers and the environment, provide for an orderly commercialization process, and maintain Canada's high standards for safety in the Canadian food system.

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Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask Dr. Morrissey to provide an overview on where technology is going in terms of biotechnology, if that would be appropriate at this time.

The Chairman: Yes, I think that would be very useful and worth while. Dr. Morrissey.

[Translation]

Mr. J.B. Morrissey (Assistant Deputy Minister, Research Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen members of the committee, it is a pleasure for me to appear before your standing committee this morning to share with you some thoughts on the use of biotechnology within the Research Branch of the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

[English]

Mr. Chairman, we all use the term ``biotechnology'', but there's the possibility that we may each have a slightly different interpretation. I think it might be useful, Mr. Chairman, to go over the definition used by all federal regulatory departments. It's as follows: biotechnology is the application of science and engineering to the direct or indirect use of living organisms, or parts or products of organisms, in their natural or modified forms. To put it simply, biotechnology is the application of technology to biology.

This is a very broad definition. It includes traditional activities by using bacteria to make cheese, as well as new activities such as moving a gene from one cell to another.

A little background, Mr. Chairman, on the evolution of this wide range of biotechnology might be useful. During the beginnings of civilization and the emergence of agriculture, humans started what I think of as their first phase of biotechnology activities, applying technology to biology by the cultivation of plants and the rearing of animals to provide food, fibre, and fuel.

The second phase of biotechnology began with the selection of those naturally occurring plants and animals that were most useful. For instance, a grass with bigger seeds would be used or animals that were tamer would be kept.

As civilization advanced, more sophisticated technologies were used and a third phase of biotechnology began. For example, deliberate selective breeding of plants began. We started breeding only from those individuals that had the desired characteristics in an attempt to produce more useful crops and more useful animals.

From the humans' perspective, better varieties of plants and better breeds of animals were created. ``Better'' not only meant higher yielding but also included characteristics such as disease resistance, early maturity, cold hardiness, and so on.

Yield, Mr. Chairman, is an easy characteristic to think of. In this case, the application of technology to biology has made a major contribution. For example, in some areas of Asia, cereal yields rose fivefold between 1961 and 1991. In Canada, for example, Ontario winter wheat yields have increased by up to 75% in 20 years. Some of these gains, Mr. Chairman, came from breeding. Some, on the other hand, came from the use of additional nutrients, and some came from the control of disease.

In the 1940s and 1950s, discoveries were made that laid the foundation for new areas of knowledge in fields such as computer science and biotechnology. More specifically, in relation to biotechnology, scientists found their first evidence within the living cell that the DNA molecule was the carrier of genetic or heritable information. Subsequent research demonstrated that the arrangement of only four basic units, known as bases, within this molecule actually determined all traits of an organism such as the human being. These bases, Mr. Chairman, are found in clusters commonly known as genes, and these genes, as you know, can be passed from parent to offspring.

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DNA can be found in the cells of all living organisms ranging from bacteria to cabbages to salmon to songbirds or elephants. In 1962, Crick and Watson received the Nobel Prize for their work in this field. This in a sense, Mr. Chairman, marked the beginning of the fourth and most recent phase of biotechnology; that is, we now have the possibility of precisely moving genes from one organism to another. This increased level of precision in our application of technology to biology means that, for example, instead of making a male-female cross between two plants and in a sense hoping that the offspring inherit the useful genes, we can produce offspring that we know have the gene we want.

For example, in attempting to improve a corn variety's disease resistance by conventional breeding, the crossing of two parents involves the mixture of their thousands of genes, some desirable, some undesirable. The breeder then hopes that some of the offspring have the desired combination of traits. This relatively random process may take years. However, by using the new technologies that have been developed since Crick's and Watson's discoveries, it's conceptually possible to identify, for example, a disease resistance gene, physically remove it from a corn plant, and introduce it into a more commercially useful corn variety. This can be done with greater precision than with traditional breeding technology alone. It can also be done in a shorter timeframe. This specific application of technology to biology is often called genetic engineering.

In this overview of the evolution of biotechnology over time, each step might be visualized as a shift in how things are done rather than in what's done. In improving crops, it could be visualized as moving from a propeller-driven aircraft to a jet-driven one.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to provide a few examples of some relatively non-controversial applications of biotechnology used within the research branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The first is genetic fingerprinting. An example of this is determining the gene pattern of different types or different cultivars of the same species of plant. This is used in our tree fruit and berry crop program at Kentville, Nova Scotia, for routine plant identification. This is increasingly important in these days of plant breeders' rights. It's useful to have a method for the reliable identification of new plant varieties.

The second example is disease diagnosis. The conventional methods for identifying disease-causing organisms have required, for example in the case of fungi, the isolation of the fungus and then an extended period of testing and assessment. This is time-consuming and laborious. It may require months or even years for some diseases. Today crop scientists across the research branch are developing rapid methods for identifying disease-causing organisms. This can cut the time required from weeks to hours. Growers are realizing the benefits of this new biotechnology. For example, the grape growers of southern Ontario co-funded the final steps in the development of a biotechnology-based, quick method to identify the organism that causes a major disease of grapevines.

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Third is DNA or marker-assisted breeding. This involves using knowledge of the genetic code, which is associated with a desirable characteristic. It is widely used in the research branch for rapid identification of disease-resistant lines of crops or lines with superior quality traits.

What it really means, Mr. Chairman, is if you're looking for a particular characteristic and you don't know exactly where to find it, but you know it's linked to another characteristic that you can find.... For example, if you're looking for red hair and you know that it happens to be linked to freckles and you know where to find freckles, then if you introduce freckles, red hair comes with it.

Mr. McKinnon (Brandon - Souris): How about no hair?

Dr. Olson: I think Dr. Morrissey did okay on that, actually.

The Chairman: I think he had firsthand knowledge of how to figure that one out.

Dr. Morrissey: The fourth item, Mr. Chairman, is gene transfer or gene movement between variants of the same plant species; in other words, moving from peas to peas or from wheat to wheat. This refers to the movement of desirable agricultural genes such as those conferring disease resistance from one member to another of the same species.

So, Mr. Chairman, these are four examples of the newer biotechnology used fairly often within Agriculture Canada, and which are relatively non-controversial.

In the research branch we also move genes from one species to another species. This is more controversial; it's a more controversial aspect of the application of technology to biology. As an example of the kind of work we do in this area, I'll use the control of the potato leaf roller virus. This is a disease affecting potato production in Canada. This virus has a protein coat or capsule, which must be shed before it can make more copies of itself as it infects the cell.

The research branch has moved from the virus to the potato some genes that affect these coat proteins. The idea, Mr. Chairman, is that these genes block the virus's ability to remove its coat and thus block the virus's ability to infect the potato. You might think of it as somewhat analogous to vaccinating a human against a disease.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, the research branch uses biotechnology in many of its activities. Some uses are traditional; some are new. However, whether the technologies used within the research branch are new or old, controversial or non-controversial, we follow the guidelines of international agencies such as the OECD and the regulations that government has put in place to control their use and protect the interests of the Canadian people.

[Translation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen.

[English]

The Chairman: Thank you very much both to Dr. Olson and Dr. Morrissey.

Do you have any other comments, Dr. Olson, or your colleagues, before we move to questions?

Dr. Olson: I would be very pleased to enter into questions.

The Chairman: Before we move to those, I don't often speak from the chair on this matter, but I would like to commend the presentation here today. In my view, you have outlined and explained a word, the word being ``biotechnology'', that as I said in my opening comments, raises a number of questions and thoughts, positive and otherwise, in people's minds. The presentation today, in my view, has helped in educating all of us in this field, as I'm sure the rest of the day will. Thank you very much.

First of all, I'll go to Mr. Pickard, then Mr. Benoit, and Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Pickard (Essex - Kent): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I was very interested in Dr. Morrissey's definition of the way biotechnology is working within our system. It's a shift to visualizing how things are done, rather than what is done, and is really critical. We're speeding up the process rather than changing what evolution would naturally occur anyway over a long, long period of time.

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I was concerned about a statement that Dr. William Leiss of Queen's University made to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which was that genetically engineered products specifically should be regulated by a single agency, regardless of the use or type of product.

What is your opinion of the suggestion that a single agency should control a transgenetic entity agency for the regulation of products in biotechnology? In other words, it means supervision by a single agency to control all biotechnology, without any linkages or connections to other work they're doing within the sphere of agriculture in Canada.

Dr. Olson: Mr. Chairman, in response to the member's question, I wasn't at the presentation that Dr. Leiss made last spring, but I was at one this week when that issue was discussed at the environment committee.

I believe Dr. Leiss's thesis goes back to the chairman's comments on the need to deal with public awareness, and also to a concern that he raised regarding the conflict of interest that might exist within a particular department, whether it's in agriculture in terms of the research people putting together the use of biotechnology with the department's regulatory officials within the regulatory framework or whether it's in Environment Canada in terms of bioremediation and biotechnology types of work versus their regulatory framework...and Health Canada and so on. It's the conundrum of the structure of government that we're all faced with.

The example that comes to mind for me as a pilot is the difficult role that Transport Canada has in terms of balancing the need of the aircraft industry to make a profit at the same time as ensuring safety. The answer could be that you have a separate agency for every function. That gets to be pretty complex government.

Dr. Leiss raised the issue again this week and we walked through it. The one piece of information that Dr. Leiss did not have available last spring, of course, was the decision by the government, as announced in the 1995 throne speech, to work towards the creation of a Canadian food inspection agency and the government's decision this past spring to in fact move in that direction. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that there is a referral of legislation coming forward to this committee in the very near future, possibly even today, with regard to that piece of legislation.

That being the case, we are creating an agency with responsibility for regulation as it relates to food safety and quarantine. In fact, perhaps we've achieved what Dr. Leiss was suggesting.

One of the difficulties with the creation of agencies for specific types of product is that you end up with two sets of regulations for the same product. You're really regulating the process rather than product, so you end up with.... If it's a wheat variety that's produced by conventional genetics or conventional breeding, you have one regulatory process, and if it's a wheat variety that involves the introduction of a gene by a biotechnology process you have another regulatory process. There's a rather major duplication, and as I noted in that long list of technical expertise that is essential to the review of a product, it's also costly to governments and to the taxpayers.

My sense is that the creation of the agency will in fact achieve the separation that Dr. Leiss feels is important on the issue of public concern and risk management. Hopefully that resolves the issue.

Mr. Pickard: Thank you very much, Dr. Olson. I believe that legislation you're referring to will have three hours' debate in the House today and be referred to the committee later on.

The Chairman: Just so that we know how we're going to handle it, I have five names, and since we're going to have a round-table discussion later today in which the Agriculture and Agri-Food officials will be back at the table for questions and comments from members, I think what we'll do is go to Mr. Pickard, Mr. Benoit, Mr Chrétien, Mr. Calder and Mr. Reed. Then we will go ahead with the rest of our presenters after that so we can hear from them. Later in the morning, we will have everybody back around the table. Just so that everybody doesn't think they have to get all their questions before us right now, note that we'll have plenty of opportunity.

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Mr. Benoit.

Mr. Benoit (Vegreville): Thank you, Mr. Vanclief. Welcome, gentlemen.

Dr. Olson, If you could, I'd like you to respond to a statement I'm going to read. It's a couple of sentences. I'd like you to respond to it, and that will lead into some other questioning I have.

I'd just like you to comment on that. I could read part of it again if you -

Dr. Olson: Mr. Chairman, I was trying to find a way to avoid making comments regarding the political process.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Dr. Olson: I think there are a number of factors that come to bear in any decision, Mr. Chairman. Obviously the science has to be right. That is critical. The responsibility that my organization carries is the one of imposing duties that society has asked us to impose, and the carrying out of that imposition implies that it had better be done right. The science had better be right, the process had better be right, and so on.

There is, I think, a need for overview on that. I think it is the responsibility of elected officials to ensure that the process is correct, but the marketplace, once the standards or criteria have been met, is the final arbiter in terms of the decision as to whether that product will be used or not.

So I would phrase it in that context to Mr. Benoit, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Benoit: Are you saying that based on a certain category, you would be guided by ``society asks us to impose certain standards and regulation''? I think that's the way you put it. It was something like that. So in a certain category of products, society sets those standards. What about individual products?

Dr. Olson: If I could step back a bit, Mr. Chairman, the carrying out of a regulatory function is part of the role of government. It's for the carrying out of the imposition of duties that society creates governments. This is the police force function, military function, food safety inspection function and the quarantine kinds of things. With those impositions of duties go an obligation for truth and good science and those kinds of issues. The reason we have a political framework is to ensure that the imposition of duties reflects the public input and that there is an overview by elected officials of that process. In that context, it's an imposition by our society on our society in that regard.

When it gets to the individual, if a person wants to work outside that framework, they obviously do that with some risk to society, which is why we have police forces, regulations and that kind of thing.

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Mr. Benoit: What I was getting at is that once Canadians, through their politicians, determine how they want biotechnology, for example, to be dealt with, isn't there a danger in allowing politicians to get involved on a individual product basis after that time?

Dr. Olson: Perhaps Dr. Morrissey would give me a moment here to get my thoughts collected. He could provide some direction.

Dr. Morrissey: I'll try to answer it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Benoit: I'll give an example. There were rules in place when BST was proposed by certain people who wanted to produce it. The process that was in place was kind of forgotten. Instead, a political process interfered. It took the place, I think, to some extent, of the process that should be the duty of the regulatory service. The politicians got much more involved in that process than they had any business in getting involved in it. Isn't there a danger of that happening?

Dr. Olson: I think it's important that where there is a public concern, there should be that kind of intervention.

The regulations as they stand.... The framework in which we're operating deals with safety and efficacy. It does not deal with need, and I think what you're talking about is the issue of need. It's whether or not the product is needed.

Mr. Benoit: Not at all. To me, that shouldn't be an issue for government to decide at all. It was in terms of safety that BST became a political issue. Some people were concerned about safety.

The Chairman: Dr. Morrissey, do you wish to address this?

Dr. Morrissey: My sense, Mr. Chairman, as I understand the question, is that right now the legislation in Canada says that a product is registered or not registered based on safety, purity, potency and efficacy. Those are relatively concrete, measurable criteria.

As Mr. Benoit said, as I understood it, the regulatory agencies use safety, purity, potency and efficacy right now to decide whether a product is registered or not registered. The market decides on the acceptance from a social point of view. One individual likes it, another doesn't, and the marketplace decides on the economic acceptance of it. There are some winners and some losers.

My sense about the implication of elected officials on it is that it's the duty of those officials to reflect the values of society. I'm not surprised that elected officials would be expected to intervene in an issue like BST; however, having reflected on the issue, the law of the land still stands. If elected officials decide to change it, they're perfectly empowered to change the law of the land; however, having changed it, my sense is that it would change for all like products. In other words, it would change for all products that had the characteristics that you defined in your legislation around BST.

For example, in the European Union they speak about the fourth hurdle. They speak of safety, purity and efficacy as the first three, as I understand it, and then social and economic acceptance as the fourth. In this country, that isn't part of the legislation, but if parliamentarians wanted to change the legislation, they could do that.

Mr. Benoit: With the establishment of the Canadian food inspection agency, how will it likely affect the process, as best as you can guess? How will it affect the completion of BST going through the rest of the process, or going through the process again? Will it have an impact? Will it have an impact on a like product coming ahead again? Will it be handled more efficiently? Will it be handled more quickly?

Dr. Morrissey: Again, subject to correction from Dr. Olson, who's involved in the food regulatory process, my sense is that they're two separate issues. One will be an act of Parliament, or a decree, that will change the plumbing of government, if I can use that term, or the organizational structure of the regulatory agency for food safety. It will bring together pieces that are now in different homes. However, the legislation administered by that agency on food, on animals and on plants will not be changed by the fact that they're brought together. So on the registration process for BST, the legislation under which that's done shouldn't change by the fact that there's a single agency.

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The Chairman: Okay, very quickly, Dr. Olson.

Dr. Olson: The agency will be responsible inspections. It will be responsible for the registration of seed-feed fertilizers and those kinds of products.

In the case of BST, that product is under the bureau of veterinary drugs, which is part of Health Canada. The decision itself on BST, which has not yet been made, will be done by Health Canada.

With regard to other biotechnical products, though, those will come under the direction of the new agency. Where there is a food issue, Health Canada will carry out their responsibilities under the novel food regulations. So we have that check and balance built into the system.

The Chairman: Mr. Easter, could we have you speak a little later? Mr. Chrétien has to speak in the House, so we'll have him with his point first.

Mr. Chrétien.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien (Frontenac): I listened to the presentation of your briefs carefully. Sometimes I felt like applauding and sometimes I was reminded of some of the courses in ecology that I have taken. I was also remembering the year during which I was a member of the Standing Committee on the Environment.

I see the earth as a huge ecosystem, and I am thinking again about the principles of biomass and supporting capacity. I see from your notes that in Ontario, the winter wheat crop was increased by 50%, while in the West, the yield of another crop was increased by 70%. In Asia, there were increases between 61 and 91%; these incredible figures were achieved because of biotechnology. But I am still bewildered in some respects.

Like my colleague from the Reform Party, who mentioned the problems expected with the use of BST, I have some fears. We all saw what happened in Europe with mad cow disease.

Some people, rightly or wrongly, say that there is a carcinogen that could affect one person out of three. Some make almost direct links between cancer and the growth of biotechnology.

In spite of all these fears people have, which are often heightened by scientists, should we not be focussing more on natural, biological approaches to problems, which may take longer and be more difficult, but which would certainly have some advantages?

In closing, I would like some clarification about biotechnology regulations in Canada. Apparently they came into being quite recently, in January 1993. Am I to understand that before January 1993, there were no regulations on biotechnology in Canada?

I would also like to know whether the percentage of the GDP invested by Canada in biotechnology compares favourably to the investment made by other countries.

Thank you.

[English]

Dr. Olson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chrétien, for the question.

I see biotechnology as a continuum. I am - or used to be - a biochemist; I used to be molecular biologist; I've been an administrator and a research manager, and have developed a variety of other skills over time.

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My sense is that biotechnology is a step, and frankly, not as large a step, in terms of technology, as people would want it to be seen as. The analogy was used to me yesterday that biotechnology, compared to some of the biochemistry, is sort of like moving from a propeller-driven aircraft to some of the early jet aircraft. It still gets you there. It basically is aerial transportation and does it a little faster, but it's a step. It is not that big a jump in a lot of ways.

The framework for regulation for biotechnology as a science.... Biotechnology is a word that really only came into play in the late 1980s, as people realized that there was an opportunity here.

The first forum that I was involved with, as the vice-chairman for the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council, was in 1988, where we had about 300 interested people here in Ottawa who talked about the coming need for regulatory framework. There were no products, but people were talking about what that framework might be. In 1989, we actually put in place the first plant guidelines for products of biotechnology.

In terms of adjusting to the newer technology, that's a recent process, I think quite consultative, and frankly ahead of the technology in its own right. We're just starting to see the products become available from a regulatory point of view.

Dr. Morrissey might wish to comment a bit on the science side of the issue as well.

The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Olson.

Mr. Easter has, I hope, a very quick point of clarification, then we're going to go quickly toMr. Calder and Mr. Reed and then move on.

Mr. Easter (Malpeque): I have a point of information to the remarks for the member from Vegreville, Mr. Chair. I think he was implying that members on the government side were playing politics on this issue of BST. For the record, I just want to indicate that the member for Vegreville, in April 1994, signed the report calling for the moratorium, which was basically applying political pressure to ensure that the safety and health standards were in fact met. This is just for the record.

The Chairman: Mr. Calder.

Mr. Calder (Wellington - Grey - Dufferin - Simcoe): Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Briefly, please.

Mr. Calder: I know, as usual. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the short piece of time you're going to give me.

Art, Brian, and Margaret, welcome here this morning.

One of the things you were talking about is that we're going from that propeller-driven aircraft to a jet aircraft, so you're saying that there is a time factor here that we are speeding up. We are in fact walking in lock-step with a clock of sorts, because by the year 2020 we're going to have 8 billion people on the face of the Earth.

Mr. Easter and I, a couple of years ago, were down in Washington for Vision 2020, the world food conference, and right now when we take a look at tonnes per acre, in a short period of time I think we're going to be looking at protein per acre.

What I want to talk about basically is biotechnology, because it is one of the very important components to keep in step with that clock. One of the things we found with the BST issue, when we dealt with it here, was basically education of the public. The public's perception right now of the farmer is that guy in bib coveralls, and quite frankly it was my grandfather who wore those. My dad didn't, and I sure don't.

So the education of the public I think is a very important component in biotechnology, because when we come out with these new advances in agriculture to feed those 8 billion people, we don't want to have anything that's really going to interfere with it, and quite frankly the public has a right and a responsibility to know what we're doing. I'd like your comments on that.

Dr. Olson: I have two comments.

In terms of the technology, most of us have read the history of computers during the Second World War. For example, there was the ENIAC machine that was used for cryptanalysis in terms of intercepting foreign governments' messages and a huge room full of vacuum tubes. We also saw mainframes developed. I can remember buying my first home computer in about 1979, and being so impressed with its 16K of memory that I spent another $500 and doubled the memory. I finally got my wife to agree that I could add the final 16K to make it a full-fledged home computer.

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That home computer in 1979 was faster than the University of Alberta mainframe when I was doing my graduate work. That 1979 computer has less memory than my hand calculator now.

I think about how fast technology has moved. We're going to see advances in nanotechnology, in microscopic mechanical devices for a variety of human health and other purposes, in remediation of environmental problems, as the next generation of technology.

I'm sure there are those who opposed the use of computers because they might do things to our society they didn't want to see happen. Part of that was a reaction from lack of knowledge. We've passed that stage. Biotechnology is still seen to be a new science, and frankly it isn't. It's part of an ongoing evolution of a particular science. But that concern is there.

To go back to your final point, it's key to what we're doing. That's why I was very pleased with your chairman's invitation for October 29, because we have an opportunity to provide information to members of Parliament on the regulatory framework we're trying to operate within. There is an obligation for transparency. There is an obligation for information. We'll try to meet that to the best of our ability.

The Chairman: Mr. Reed.

Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): To help Dr. Olson with his perspective, this little gizmo here has 128K of memory.

The Chairman: It's a lot smaller than his home computer was too, I think.

Mr. Reed: It shows where we've come and where we're going. It's nice to be in the middle of it.

I would like to ask you where your regulatory connection ends or how you relate to other branches of government in terms of the regulatory process. We're dealing with agriculture, but some elements of agriculture now have the prospect of involving themselves very actively in the medical field, for instance. I read about the prospect of being able to produce genetically altered pigs, which would produce an organ bank that would make these organs compatible for transplant into humans. So there's some place where your regulatory parameters come to an end and somebody else's regulatory parameters pick up. Can you help clarify that?

Dr. Olson: We've actually received an import permit application for transgenic pigs to be brought into Canada. The pigs contain a human gene that makes them amenable to organ transplants, into monkeys to start with and so-called xeno-transplantation. Both we and Health Canada have asked for more information about the pigs and about the genetic make-up that is altered.

There is a series of responsibilities. I should say, by the way, that the working relationship between the departments on the creation of the framework, the policy environment we work in, is effective. There is a check and balance in it, but it's there deliberately. There is debate, as there is on any scientific issue, but it is a good working relationship.

Perhaps we could ask Dr. Paul Mayers to join us at the table to discuss this issue further, if that would be appropriate, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Yes, we'd like to have some brief comments and then we'll move on.

Dr. Olson: In this particular case, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's role really rests with the quarantine side. We're concerned that they not bring any diseases into the country, that they're treated humanely during transportation to this country, how they are handled once they're here. The bulk of the responsibility really rests with Health Canada. This is a significant opportunity for health care and they want to be sure it's done appropriately.

I will pass it to Dr. Mayers.

Mr. Paul Mayers (Head, Office of Food Biotechnology, Health Canada): The relationship is certainly one of cooperation. Many issues actually cross these types of boundaries. For that reason there is a group that includes several departments with a regulatory impact on this technology, within a subgroup on safety and regulations, and it looks at these issues in a broad context.

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At the working level, there are several working groups in specific product areas. They are interdepartmental and involve all the players to ensure cooperation and to ensure a clear and comprehensive approach to the safety assessment of these products, to ensure clear regulation of these products, and to ensure that the various aspects - environmental concerns, safety concerns - are all addressed within the context of the assessment of these products prior to their becoming available to consumers.

Mr. Reed: I have one final question in this regard. How transparent is the process for the public? I think the objective here is education, knowing what is happening. To me it is the root of this whole exercise.

Mr. Mayers: You raise a very interesting issue. Transparency and public consultation are an important part of the process. Health Canada, jointly with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Environment Canada, has held consultations over the last several years in the area of regulation of biotechnology to gain public input into the process. We all have provided documentation of our intent, whether it be the intent to regulate or proposals regarding policy, for public consultation. We have done that jointly where it is appropriate for it to be a joint effort because of overlaps in the product types. We certainly realize the importance of transparency of the system, and we look for mechanisms to involve the public within that framework where possible.

The Chairman: Thank you very much to the officials at the table. I understand that you will be spending the rest of the day in our presence, and there may be more questions as we proceed. Thank you very much for your contribution and your information to us now.

Our next presenter is from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Sally Rutherford, the executive director.

We are going to move through five presentations, so we will not have questions to Sally immediately after Sally's presentation. I'm sure Sally can stir us to the extent that we will remember what we want to speak to her about later. We will have a round table after that.

Sally, you're no stranger to this committee. We welcome you here again.

Ms Sally Rutherford (Executive Director, Canadian Federation of Agriculture): Thank you. I was going to say that my reputation obviously precedes me.

The Chairman: It's a good one, Sally, so relax.

Ms Rutherford: First of all, I apologize for Jack Wilkinson, who wasn't able to be with you today. He called late yesterday afternoon and said he had some problems at home, one of which is trying to get his harvesting done before the weather turns really bad. I'm here in his place and I hope you'll accept that.

The presentation we would like to make to you today, just for the record, is the document we tabled with the environment committee earlier this year. We did that for a couple of reasons. First, our position has not changed. Second, we wanted to ensure consistency in the message we bring forward.

CFA has had for some time a policy position supporting the development of biotechnology, but within the bounds of meeting the test of health and safety and the test of environmental sustainability, and ensuring that it does not impede or negatively impact either the agrifood system or Canadian consumers in general.

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I'll just briefly run through the comments that are in the document and then make a few other comments in addition.

Certainly CFA sees that biotechnology, as a technology and as a process, is an important part of the significant possibility for Canadian farmers, consumers, and the Canadian economy. The use of biotech has the potential to increase the competitiveness of the Canadian agrifood industry by increasing the individual competitiveness of farmers and of Canada in exporting high-value agrifood products.

The use of biotech has significant possibilities also for environmental benefit, such as the replacement of existing less environmentally friendly technologies and providing agents for the mitigation of environmental pollution.

CFA supports the federal regulatory framework on biotechnology as described by the previous presenters. It does maintain in our view Canada's high standards for the protection of health and safety of workers, the general public, and the environment, it uses existing legislation and regulatory institutions to clarify responsibilities and avoid duplication, and it continues to develop clear guidelines for evaluating products of biotech that are in harmony with national priorities and international standards.

It provides a sound scientific database on which to assess risk and evaluate products. It ensures that the development and enforcement of Canadian biotech regulations are open and include consultation. It contributes to the prosperity and well-being of Canadians by fostering a favourable climate for investment, development, innovation, and adoption of sustainable Canadian biotechnology products and processes.

With regard to the regulation of biotech under CEPA, CFA made its point in the spring of this year to the environment committee that we support the regulation of biotechnologically altered products through the modification of existing legislation as is on the books at the moment.

CFA opposes the regulation of products under CEPA, except when there is not the possibility of amending or establishing legislation under the responsibility of a line minister.

CFA does not believe this regulatory situation would be in conflict with CEPA's goals, purpose, or implementation. Ultimately, it's the Government of Canada that has the responsibility for any regulation of biotechnology, not one minister or his or her department.

CFA supports strongly the principle of mandatory labelling for known health and safety risks, such as allergies, and of identifying nutritional and compositional changes in food.

CFA agrees, however, that labelling should not be extended to include labelling for all foods derived from genetic engineering, which is a process and which is not in itself inherently dangerous. The blanket labelling of all products is not practical or even possible. The concept of labelling a bulk commodity like canola is an example. Even if this product were harvested, stored, and shipped separately from other crops on a farm, it would still be a bulk commodity on which a label could not be directly applied.

CFA would urge the Government of Canada to press for harmonization of labelling policy with our major trading partners. Canada must be in step with our major partners to ensure that Canada's labelling policy does not conflict with those of our trading partners and thereby reduce the competitiveness of Canadian producers.

The development of labelling regulations must recognize that the imposition of a labelling regime that is not based on science would have a negative trade implication for Canada. The CFA believes the approach taken in developing the proposed federal labelling regime that is not based on science would have negative trade implications for Canada.

The CFA believes that the development of voluntary ecolabelling should be explored as an alternative to blanket labelling. Goals for ecolabelling should include transparency, equal access, scientific or factual basis, and harmonization.

To expand a bit on those basic points, the issue of competitiveness is a very important one for Canadian farmers. We believe that this issue, like many others, expands far beyond the farm gate into the Canadian economy as a whole. What is produced on farm in Canada is now turned into food products, textiles, pharmaceutical products, etc. There's a vast and growing use for products produced on farm that increasingly over the years will benefit, we believe, from the application of biotechnology. Therefore the economic impact of hampering the development of a process is not a positive one for this country.

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Another point to make is that farmers have the same concerns about biotechnology as all other consumers do. Farmers are not willing to adopt a new technology, a new product or a new technique simply on somebody's say-so. They have the same concerns about their own health and safety, and certainly about the health and safety of their land base and their animal stock.

The only way you can make money in agriculture is to maintain a healthy base. So farmers are loath to take risks that are not very well calculated in terms of the long-term viability of their operations and the tools they work with, which are largely land, water and their livestock.

Consumer awareness is an issue we believe has to be addressed. It's becoming increasingly difficult. As was just pointed out to me, we have one journalist here today, who writes for a farm paper that has wide circulation in the prairies, but still largely within rural communities.

A voice: Read by farmers.

Ms Rutherford: Yes, read by farmers.

We'll be televised, presumably on CPAC, but as most of you are probably aware, it will mostly be seen by insomniacs who flip by and see a familiar face at 3 o'clock in the morning. That's usually when I get recognized.

Trying to get this message out, as with many others - this is certainly not the only one - is a very difficult problem that faces us all. As members of Parliament trying to help your constituents understand the issues you deal with on a day-to-day basis, you understand the problems.

We have to collectively try to develop some new approaches to creating an awareness within the consumer population of what biotech is and what the issues actually are. It's not to necessarily come out and take a position one way or the other, but to ensure they have the information they need as consumers to make informed decisions.

I've had the opportunity in the last couple of weeks to participate in the Food and Agriculture Organization negotiations around the world food summit and the development of a document that will be adopted there, hopefully. One of the major issues on the table within the negotiations - there were a number, but one of the ones that kept coming back - was the ability to feed 800 million malnourished people in a world with a significantly growing population that is going to have to live on the land where food is now being produced, and how that's to happen.

Much of the need will be met by better distribution, better storage and better infrastructure, but there will be the need for increased production. There's significant concern within the developing world, where the green revolution had a major impact a generation ago, that the technology used to accomplish this is no longer acceptable. It had some detrimental impacts that they're not willing to suffer through again. They're looking for new ways to develop product and increase production to feed people. Biotechnology is certainly an option that can't be ignored from that point of view.

This may not be news to you, but I was told yesterday that Germany did put some significant dampers on in the form of very onerous regulations that, from a non-scientific point of view, exceeded the regulations that we're considering in Canada and that are in place in other countries.

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What happened in Germany was that they lost their research capability and much of the investment around those industries where biotechnology was a process, a technology, that companies and the economy as a whole could benefit from. Germany now is in a desperate process to try to get some of that back.

We would not like to see that happen in Canada. We believe there is a huge potential in this country in terms of agriculture and agrifood to produce the quantities of food that are necessary to feed hungry people, to increase the potentials for processing, marketing, and trade within our country, and to better the nutritional position not only of farmers in the economic position but of Canadians as a whole.

With that, I'll pass the torch to the next presenter.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Sally, for your presentation and your comments. I'm sure we will have some comments from some of the members a little later in the day.

Our next presenters are from the Consumers' Association of Canada, Chris Mitchler and Marnie McCall. I apologize. I did not get an opportunity to meet you before the meeting started today, so I don't know which one is which. Maybe you can clarify that.

Ms Marnie McCall (Director, Policy Research, Consumers' Association of Canada): My name is Marnie McCall. I'm the director of policy research for the Consumers' Association of Canada. With me is Mrs. Christine Mitchler, who chairs CAC's national food committee. This is a volunteer position, and Mrs. Mitchler gives us more than full-time commitment to this work. She will be making a presentation.

The Chairman: Welcome. Go ahead, please.

Ms Christine Mitchler (Chair, National Food Committee, Consumers' Association of Canada): Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, I'm honoured to be asked to give you the Consumers' Association of Canada's perspective on the regulation of biotechnology this morning. I'm here today as chairman of the national food committee for the Consumers' Association of Canada.

CAC is a national volunteer-based association with a national office here in Ottawa and nine provincial offices across Canada. CAC has a national board of directors, provincial boards, and a nation-wide network of active and committed volunteer representatives, as well as a national newsletter that reaches more than 250,000 consumers.

CAC has had a long and highly respected history of consultation with agrifood stakeholders, as well as federal and provincial governments, for more than 50 years. Our role is not to promote, support, or endorse any product, regardless of its origin. Rather, CAC, to the extent of its limited resources, monitors the Canadian marketplace, undertakes consumer research, identifies issues that concern consumers, and builds consensus within CAC and the larger stakeholder community to move a wide range of consumer issues forward.

CAC tries to undertake responsible advocacy to present the consumer voice to agrifood stakeholders in a fair and equitable manner. Another important role of the Consumers' Association of Canada is to provide a communication link between consumers and agrifood stakeholders to provide education and awareness to consumers and our representatives on issues of concern to them. Our communication tools consist of our national newsletter, our network of regional and provincial offices, volunteer representatives, and information kits and brochures on specific consumer issues such as literacy, nutrition, and, most recently, biotechnology. In the area of biotechnology, it has been CAC's policy and practice to advocate, protect, and ensure consumers' right to information, the right to safety, quality, and choice, the right to be heard, and the right to participate in decision-making as applications of biotechnology are developed in health and food production.

It is CAC's belief that a comprehensive and integrated approach to the regulation of novel foods and foods derived from genetic engineering is essential to addressing such issues as labelling requirements, enforcement, legal redress, and product quality and value, in addition to health and safety. Such an integrated framework must be able to accommodate existing technologies and, to the extent possible, new and emerging applications of the future.

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The Consumers' Association of Canada believes jurisdiction and regulatory authority for regulating products of biotechnology is best left to those departments which have been regulating both novel food and traditionally derived agrifood products. These departments have the expertise to cost-effectively evaluate new and emerging agrifood products for human, animal and environmental safety, regardless of how they were derived.

To use a different analogy, as a consumer, I would want the most knowledgeable and experienced doctors to look after me and my family. I fail to understand why agrifood products, whether traditionally produced or derived from genetic engineering, would be any different.

Therefore, CAC continues to fully support the current principle of building on existing legislation rather than reinventing the wheel with new legislative authority or transferring the responsibility for regulating novel food products to a different government department without the current level of expertise now available. This simply does not make good sense in terms of cost-efficiency or effectiveness.

Regarding human and environmental health and safety, the Consumers' Association of Canada has full confidence in the ability of the present departments involved to effectively ensure products of biotechnology are as safe as possible. CAC believes the risk assessment process now used in Canada is second to none anywhere in the world.

We know Canada is increasingly being seen as a world leader in the regulation and safety of agrifood products. Indeed, many countries around the world are looking to Canada to set important and needed benchmarks for the regulation of novel food products and their subsequent entry into the global marketplace in a timely and safe manner.

While health and safety should continue to be paramount, CAC wonders where and how non-health and safety issues such as economic impacts, social and religious concerns, consumer education and awareness issues will be addressed. Will they be included as part of the formal regulatory framework, or is it expected these issues will be addressed through public policy processes? Will there be mechanisms to manage these issues and communicate about them to those most affected through risk management and risk communication mechanisms like those that are well established in PMRA?

Please do not misunderstand. CAC is not advocating a single-agency approach like PMRA, only some of the risk management and risk communication mechanisms that appear to be working well within it on a consistent product-by-product basis.

CAC believes jurisdiction and legislative authority for regulating products of biotechnology is best left to Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, with input from Environment Canada. These departments have the expertise in regulating both novel food and traditional agrifood products. CAC believes these departments have been effective in evaluating both traditionally derived and genetically modified products for health and safety without waste of resources and duplication.

As I have already mentioned, CAC continues to support the principle of building on existing legislation and regulation rather than creating new legislation. Also, risk assessment for evaluating human, animal and environmental health and safety of novel food products should continue to be science-based.

How do we know the present regulatory system is relatively effective? Well, we know Canada has a world-reknowned reputation for health and safety, second to none anywhere in the world. We know the international arena is watching to see how Canada and the U.S. regulate and manage products derived from biotechnology. They're looking to see how the issues relating to process versus product are resolved, approved for market, regulated, inspected, labelled and communicated to those most affected.

We also know our food system and the system that regulates and manages it has not often let us down. While various countries are experiencing difficulties with BSE in beef or cyclospora parasites in strawberries, the Canadian government has taken these real or imagined potential threats to the safety of our food supply seriously.

Each time there has been a crisis elsewhere or even in Canada, as with adulterated ground meat in Nova Scotia in June, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Health Canada have responded with a clear plan of action.

First and foremost, all possible efforts were made to ensure the Canadian food supply is safe.

For example, with cyclospora in strawberries, the federal government voluntarily conducted tests for the parasites on imported and domestic strawberries to ensure the parasite was not present in strawberries Canadians would eat.

In the case of adulterated ground meats found in Nova Scotia, inspection and testing are routinely required under the Meat Inspection Act to ensure Canadian meat is processed safely and with high quality. When ground pork and poultry were found in ground beef, health and safety were quickly and decisively found not to be an issue. Rather, the issue was consumer confidence in the product. It was clear that consumers must believe they are buying what they think they are buying and not something else.

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One of the lessons learned from BSE this year is that perceived consumer confidence, whether it be in the safety or quality of the food, can be the greatest factor in ensuring success in the marketplace. In each case the Consumers' Association of Canada has been impressed with the communication and coordination that take place within and between federal departments when there is a crisis, regardless of whether the crisis is domestic or imported into Canada.

Where CAC has some degree of concern is that the high level of risk management, coordination, and risk communications between departments and with the public during a crisis as with BSE in beef, cyclospora in California strawberries, domestic adulterated beef, or even salmonella in eggs, does not appear to occur on an ongoing basis, particularly with reference to biotechnology. If there are consistent mechanisms for risk management and risk communication inherent in either the regulatory system or in the public policy process, they are not readily apparent to stakeholders.

We know there has been some degree of perception that ``the left arm does not always know what the right arm is doing'' within the federal government. This is a problem that is being addressed with the single-agency federal inspection system due to be implemented in April 1997.

However, there is a big difference between this single-agency approach to food safety and proposals to create a single window for the regulation of all biotechnology in Canada. It is CAC's understanding that the new single-agency inspection system will be independent of standard-setting and will provide effective monitoring and inspection of the Canadian food supply under the existing system of legislation, regulations, guidelines, standards, and policies. These standards and policies will continue to be developed by the line departments that have always done it and have the expertise to do so.

With proposals to give the jurisdiction for the regulation of biotechnology to one department, the existing legislation administered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Health Canada would not apply to biotechnology. The sole jurisdiction to develop new legislation for products and processes of biotechnology would belong to a single department. I'm referring to some of the proposals that have been proposed by CIELAP and so forth.

This department would evaluate and approve products for market. Such a proposal would take the management of maintaining health and safety of food products derived from genetic engineering out of the hands of those most experienced in assessing these products. This change will further result in unnecessary and costly duplication of resources when a food product must be evaluated for health and safety by separate departments and legislations, depending on how it was derived. A tomato that is traditionally grown would be evaluated by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, while a genetically modified tomato would be evaluated by a different department under separate legislation with duplication in departmental staff. This is an unnecessary expense this government has been determined to avoid.

CAC believes the existing regulatory system does an excellent job of evaluating all food products for human, animal, and environmental safety, regardless of how they have been produced or processed. It is a safety net that has been deliberately designed to catch all products produced in Canada or those imported into the Canadian market, with CEPA designed to catch those biotechnology products that fall outside of existing legislation. CAC believes if products of biotechnology are separated from the system of checks and balances based on how they are derived, gaps will soon appear.

This is particularly true when in many cases diagnostic testing does not exist to differentiate products produced through genetic engineering from those produced using traditional breeding methods, unlike pesticides which can be scientifically tested for the presence of chemical residue. Even if the diagnostic testing can be developed to determine whether or not a product has been genetically altered in its processing, separate collection systems will need to be created, with the consumer likely bearing the added cost. For sure we know that the federal government, the food industry, nor the farmer will absorb the added expense.

And what would be the benefit of such a separate system of checks and balances relative to the costs? We know these products are safe for humans, animals, and the environment, or they would not have received the required health and safety approvals to be on the market. We know these products are often the same as their traditional counterparts in terms of composition and end product. If not, the differences would be identified through the risk evaluation process and the products would be labelled accordingly.

We also have had many of the traditional foods such as potatoes, corn, tomatoes, canola, etc., for a long time. Through research and actual experience, we know quite a bit about them - their characteristics, the pests and diseases that plague them, the climate they require to flourish, how they grow, who their weedy cousins are or could potentially be, and on and on.

Further, despite contrary belief, we have been manipulating genetics since Mendel first moved genes around in peas. Research has provided us with selective new breeds of cows for higher milk production and quality, higher-quality beef, crops designed to be resistant to frost or disease or insects - research, I might add, no one has ever questioned before.

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Genetic engineering is another tool to add to our arsenal against the challenges nature has always put in our way. It is not intended to be, nor should it ever become, the ideal solution in all situations. It is a tool, and like any other tool, it must be used for the right job and the right situation.

In addition, Canada's highly regarded system of safety and efficacy checks and balances provides a highly effective safety net. It is not a perfect system. Communication among federal departments can be an ongoing problem, one the federal line departments are taking steps to correct. Risk management and risk communication in terms of how this technology affects different stakeholders and how it should be communicated should be examined to close that gap.

CAC does not believe that because there are gaps in or improvements needed to the present system, the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater. It would make much more sense in terms of time, use, and allocation of existing resources and cost-efficiency to identify where the gaps are and then plug them.

The Consumers' Association of Canada believes it makes more sense to put time and resources into better risk communication and risk management of biotechnology with consultation with stakeholders. We believe the federal government must do a better job of communicating to the agrifood stakeholder community, particularly the public, what the rest of the world knows the federal government does so well. If I had a nickel for every time I've had to act as a public relations agent for the Government of Canada as a CAC representative over the last year alone, I could be a comfortable self-employed consultant.

The Canadian consumer needs and wants to know our food supply is safe, of high quality, and provides good value regardless of how it is derived. Clearly we know from many studies and surveys done in Canada and the U.S. over the past few years that consumers are largely uninformed about biotechnology and genetic engineering.

We know fearmongering comes from lack of information or, worse, from misinformation. At the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development hearing earlier this week, I heard a great deal of misinformation and distortion, with Canadian consumers clearly caught in the middle, with the most to lose.

As a wife and mother myself, I am concerned about the conflicting information and misinformation about biotechnology that exists in the media. I am concerned about stakeholders holding a particular point of view and representing them as the only option or solution. This results in polarized views, with those opposed to biotechnology at one end, and those who would see biotechnology continuing at breakneck speed with a minimum of checks and balances at the other end. Common sense would seem to indicate that of course neither view is realistic or doable. Nonetheless, consumers read and hear about these extreme positions through the media with little or no factual, understandable information available to help them sort it out or provide them with a middle ground.

CAC is not certain where the middle ground should lie or what it should look like, but we are certain that we need to keep talking about it. And while we are finding our way through the many challenges and changes technology is bringing to us, we must be bringing the public and other stakeholders up to speed, because we have 24 products derived from genetic engineering now on the Canadian market, with more on the way.

We must be informing consumers about what biotechnology is and, more importantly, what it isn't. We need to demystify the science behind it, provide frank and honest information about not only the benefits of genetic engineering but its risks, impacts and issues. We need to face these issues head-on, with transparency in our communication with others. We need to provide facts, not value judgments or conclusions, or tell the reader what we want them to think, for this is for the consumers to decide.

If we want to understand what the public wants to know, we need only ask them and then provide the answers simply and transparently. This is risk communication pure and simple. It is not rocket science. It is a simple concept. It is only as complicated as we choose to make it.

To this end, CAC and the FBC have worked together to develop the consumer information kit in front of you - copies are available from Marnie McCall or me. It was designed with CAC's consumer representatives and consumers in mind, with simple language. We worked hard to put balance into it. We tried to explain the science of the technology, the food system and role biotechnology plays, the potential benefits, the risks and challenges it presents, the checks and balances built into the regulatory system, current agrifood product applications of genetic engineering now in the marketplace and those in R and D, as well as sources of additional information. It is not a perfect document, for we had no benchmarks to determine how balanced and how informative it had to be. We have done the best we could with the information and time we had available. CAC and the Food Biotechnology Centre welcome your comments and suggestions on how it can be improved.

In conclusion, CAC continues to support the principle that the regulatory system must continue to be science-based. But the system of checks and balances should also incorporate principles of risk management and risk communication in a consistent, cost-effective manner either formally or at the public policy level. Biotechnology should be regulated using existing legislation and expertise in the same manner as all food products are regulated, regardless of how they are derived, produced or processed. CAC believes this is the widest safety net the government can provide.

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CAC is generally confident in Canada's ability to regulate products of biotechnology - and, more specifically, products of genetic engineering - under the existing framework. While we feel there are problems and potential gaps, we believe they can be most effectively addressed within the present system.

Finally, CAC believes communication within government, with stakeholders, and most of all with the public, to be the most crucial element and challenge we face. None of us can face this challenge alone. We need to work together to ensure there is effective communication with the public and agrifood stakeholders about how changes in technology will impact on our society as a whole and as individuals. There needs to be transparent, accurate, consistent, and simple information about the safety and quality of the Canadian food supply, regardless of how it is derived.

Ultimately Canadian consumers simply want to know our food is safe and that it provides quality and value. They want to be able to sort out the conflicting information they read and hear about. Most of all, they want to know that biotechnology and genetic engineering will be managed with forethought, transparency, and fairness to those most affected, be they industry, government, farmers or consumers. We know the rest of the world is watching to see how we handle this task. We are in a position to show leadership by example to Canadians and to the international community. CAC believes we're up to the challenge.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Christine, for an excellent presentation. I'm sure you will raise some further comments later. I trust you will be able to stay with us for the remainder of the session today, as we look forward to comments and questions later. Thanks, ladies.

Our next presenters are from Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd. One of them, Mr. Bill Parks, is a long-time acquaintance of mine; he is president of Pioneer Hi-Bred in Canada.

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Parks. Would you be good enough to introduce your colleague and then go ahead.

Mr. Bill Parks (President, Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd.): This will be a joint presentation, Lyle. I guess both you and I are busy people; we wave as we pass.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be here with you today. Pioneer is celebrating its fiftieth year of being a reliable supplier of quality ag seeds to Canadian farmers. Our Canadian headquarters is located in Chatham, Ontario.

I was very impressed with the presentation of the Consumers' Association of Canada. Frankly, I think the rest of us could go home; they have done the job. However, since we are here, we will do our bit.

Today I want to tell you about the economic benefits of plant biotechnology to Canadian farmers. I will then ask Larry Zeph, our regulatory science manager, to share with the committee our experiences and why we believe the current Canadian regulatory framework works well.

First let me tell you a little more about Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd. We are a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., in Des Moines, Iowa. Pioneer Hi-Bred International was founded in 1926 and is now the world's leading agricultural genetics company, operating in more than 120 countries worldwide.

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In Canada Pioneer sells seed of proprietary Pioneer brand corn, canola, sunflowers, soybeans, alfalfa, wheat and sorghum sudan grass seed. We also market Sila-bac brand microbial silage inoculants. These products are distributed across Canada through a network of more than 300 farmer sales representatives who form the vital link between Pioneer and Canadian farmers.

Our canola product is distributed in western Canada through a joint agreement with the United Grain Growers. Our worldwide canola research headquarters are located in Georgetown, Ontario. Scientists at Georgetown use conventional plant breeding techniques and the tools of biotechnology. Some of you have met my colleague Ian Grant, who is based in Georgetown. Ian is unable to be with us today, so you have to do with a non-scientist like me.

I wish to point out to you that Pioneer has seven facilities at Canadian locations, including administration, seed corn, soybean research and production at Chatham; canola research at Georgetown; corn production at Ridgetown; corn research at Tavistock; canola research at Saskatoon; corn research at Saint-Télesphore, Quebec; and canola research at Edmonton, Alberta.

Pioneer's subsidiaries in Canada employ 136 people on a full-time basis. We also have 300 sales reps on a commission basis, seed contracts with 400 seed growers, and every summer we hire as many as 7,000 seed corn de-tassellers. These are basically young people and it's one of their first jobs. They are essential to our producing seed corn.

Over the past three years Pioneer has invested over $2 million in our Canadian research facilities. In 1993 Pioneer completed a $1 million upgrade of our canola research headquarters in Georgetown. In 1995 we added a new corn research location at Saint-Télesphore, Quebec, and a new soybean research station at Chatham, Ontario. Pioneer continues to invest over $10 million annually in Canadian product research, and this enhances the competitiveness of Canadian farmers. I think that is likely the theme of my talk - competitiveness.

The company's goal in hybrid seed is to develop products with greater than 5% yield advantage compared with competitive products in the field. A measurable and meaningful yield advantage is the single most important factor for farmers. Each year we introduce about six new corn hybrids in Canada with improved agronomic traits. We estimate that these improved traits give farmers a yield advantage of five bushels per acre compared with the competition. This translates into a $67 million value at the farm gate.

We recognize that developing products valuable to the end user is important in opening new markets. Our customers, Canadian farmers, are aware of and are asking for the newest crop technology. We will supply our customers with this new technology to meet their demand.

To get these products to farmers as quickly as possible, Canada must retain a consistent and predictable regulatory framework for technology developers such as Pioneer. These new technology improvements are important to farmers. For instance, herbicide and insect resistance traits not only control weeds and insects, but they also reduce the amount of chemicals required to produce larger quantities of high-quality grain. They are only part of a variety of special traits we offer Canadian farmers.

Delays in product introductions cost Canadian farmers through lost opportunities for higher yields and lower input costs. The annual opportunity cost for Canadian farmers waiting for approvals of a new corn hybrid with a novel trait such as B.t. corn borer resistance can be as much as$120 million per year. These costs include lower yields because of corn borer damage and the cost of applying insecticides to fight the corn borer.

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Delays are costly for product developers as well. Delays in product introductions are one of the greatest costs facing Pioneer and other companies seeking to develop and sell products in Canada. For example, a one-year delay in introducing a single new new canola product may equate to as much as a $28 million loss to our business. These same delays could cost canola farmers up to$200 million. A 5% improvement in yield from better weed control, from herbicide-tolerant canola, equals about a $100 million value at the farm gate. The new herbicides used on these crops are less costly, saving farmers approximately $10 per acre in input costs.

Pioneer develops and introduces many new products each year, and each of these products takes an average of ten years to develop. If some or all of our products face delays because of unnecessary or duplicated regulation, lost business is substantial. If companies are to continue investing in biotechnology product development in Canada, clarity and consistency in the regulatory system are of paramount importance. For Canada to remain a leader in the development and use of agricultural biotechnology products, government regulation must continue to provide a clear and predictable regulatory pathway for industry to develop and introduce new plant varieties.

I will ask Larry Zeph to talk to you on the regulatory side.

The Chairman: Thank you, Bill. Please go ahead, Dr. Zeph.

Dr. Lawrence Zeph (Regulatory Science Manager, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.): Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm the regulatory science manager with Pioneer Hi-Bred in Des Moines, Iowa.

Pioneer is pleased that the government continues to stand firm in its support for the current Canadian regulatory framework for products of biotechnology. However, we are concerned with the continued attacks on the current regulatory framework.

Today I plan to tell you why Pioneer supports the current regulatory framework, tell you a bit about our experience within the current system, and detail some of our concerns with some of the proposed changes. These proposals include, first, changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act that would add a new section on biotechnology; second, a proposal to allow third-party objections to regulatory decisions; third, a proposal on the release of proprietary scientific information; and fourth, the creation of a single biotechnology agency using a gene law approach.

Given our recent experiences in achieving product approvals for new hybrids and varieties, Pioneer is convinced that the current regime works well for regulating agricultural products of biotechnology. It's our belief that the current product-based system maintains Canada's standards for human health and environmental safety. At the same time, a clear regulatory pathway charts the way for industry to bring new products to market and protects confidential business information from competitors.

The current federal framework for regulating agricultural products of biotechnology was developed through extensive public consultations that began in the late 1980s. The resulting process is based on existing legislation, as you know, such as the Feeds Act and the Seeds Act. We believe this system is cost-effective for both government and industry. No new legislation was necessary to promulgate the current regulations and guidelines; no new legislation is necessary now.

The current biotechnology environmental safety regulations were developed in consultation with Environment Canada, and all departments have taken great care to harmonize their regulations with CEPA. We believe that product reviews and approvals should continue to be the responsibility of those agencies most familiar with the acts and the products they regulate.

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Canada's federal regulatory system is based on OECD standards and is similar to those of other OECD countries. For example, transgenic crop lands require separate environmental food safety and feed safety risk assessments in the Canadian, Japanese, U.S. and EU systems of biotechnology regulation. This ensures that the people with the right expertise are responsible for the review and approval of regulatory submissions.

This high level of compatibility and consistency in the regulatory systems among the major trading partners is essential to the continued success of agricultural biotechnology. Taking advantage of the existing legislation, such as the Feeds Act and the Seeds Act, makes the process cost-effective for both government and industry. For those products that do not fall under the jurisdiction of other acts, the authority falls then to Environment Canada under the current CEPA.

There is no need for a special new provision to provide this authority, as has been suggested by the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. This is especially true if the new provisions require a separate, additional environmental review by Environment Canada. This would take valuable time and resources from the agencies that are trying very hard to keep up with the pace of biotechnology approvals, and will strain already tight government budgets, while costing developers lost sales and costing farmers lost opportunities to be competitive in world markets.

I want to comment just briefly on the specific existing guidelines for biotechnology products. Late last year, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada released for comment a proposal for labelling novel foods.

Pioneer is supportive of these proposed guidelines. They are based on scientific principles that address the composition and nutritional properties of foods and food ingredients.

Similarly, proposed amendments to the seeds and feeds regulations were published in the Canada Gazette in August 1996. Pioneer generally supports these guidelines as proposed and is pleased that Ag Canada is following the fundamental principle that products should be regulated according to their properties, not by the process by which they were developed. We believe the requirements for information are well founded scientifically in these regulations, and that the regulations are protective of human health and the environment.

Over the past two years, Pioneer has received approval for herbicide-resistant corn and canola by using the current regulatory system. While neither of these products was developed through recombinant DNA or genetic engineering, the herbicide-resistant trait was considered a novel trait subject to review by both Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

This summer Pioneer received approval from Health Canada for canola oil with a modified oil profile. There is a human health benefit from this modification because the saturated fats in the oil are decreased. This new canola variety should be ready for farmers to plant next spring.

Let me list a few of our specific concerns about the proposals to change the regulatory framework in Canada, beginning with the potential for additional regulations under CEPA. Some groups have suggested that the additional regulation of biotechnology products under CEPA is still necessary. However, seeds developed through biotechnology are already subject to environmental risk assessments prior to sale in Canada. The proposed addition of a new part to CEPA translates to an additional set of regulatory requirements.

Additional regulation contradicts what we believe to be current government policy. It was our understanding that the government intended to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses. In Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada, the government said:

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New product introductions take many years, and our business projections are based on the current regulatory system. If companies are to continue to invest in biotechnology product development in Canada, clarity and consistency in the regulatory system are of paramount importance.

The second proposal was to allow third-party access to data. Pioneer supports public participation and input into the regulatory process; however, this current proposal to allow free access to scientific data discourages the development of products designed for the Canadian marketplace. Product developers spend a great deal of time and money developing comprehensive data packages to meet the requirements of regulators. Some of the scientific information provided to regulators is confidential business information, and it could be used by our competitors without compensation.

If this information was freely available to the public, product developers would not readily bring the newest and best products to market in Canada. Thus, Canadian farmers and consumers would be placed at a disadvantage.

Summaries of the government's evaluations of supporting scientific data are available currently to the public through decision documents that are generated by the departments. These documents for product approvals should help meet the public's desire to have more information on products with novel traits.

The third issue is the issue of a single-agency approach to biotechnology. Pioneer seriously doubts the benefit of a new gene law or single transgenic agency to regulate biotechnology products. We believe this idea reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of biotechnology, as we've heard from previous speakers. Biotechnology is simply a tool that's applied to a diverse number of industries and products rather than an industry in and of itself.

A single agency would make sense if it was responsible for a similar set of products with similar health and safety concerns; however, in reality, the application of biotechnology is quite different.

Transgenic crop plants are a good example. These crop plants can be used to produce feed, food, fibre, pharmaceuticals, biological pesticides and industrial chemicals such as special oils or enzymes. It is not scientifically sound or cost-effective to regulate all of these products within a single agency. As I said earlier, Pioneer believes the product reviews and approvals should continue to be the responsibility of the agency most familiar with the acts and the products they regulate.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, for Canada to remain a leader in the development and use of agricultural biotechnology, we believe government regulation must provide a clear and predictable regulatory pathway for industry to develop and introduce new plant varieties. The threat of denying product approvals without a scientific basis and the release of confidential information only serves to deny product development for the Canadian marketplace. Blocking the entry of new products into Canada puts Canadian farmers at a competitive disadvantage in the world marketplace.

The current system, however, is internationally recognized as an effective regulatory tool. This system provides a clear regulatory pathway for developers of biotechnology products, while providing adequate protections for human health and the environment.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Zeph and Mr. Parks, for your presentation today.

We will now go to our next presenter, Dr. Larry Milligan, vice-president of research at the University of Guelph.

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Dr. Milligan, welcome to the committee. We appreciated getting the letter and the request from you to make some comments. Welcome to the committee.

Dr. Larry Milligan (Vice-President (Research), University of Guelph): Thank you very much for your welcome, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to have the chance to have input into the committee. I think your work is extremely important.

I also have to make the point that I am pleased with the level and quality of discussion I heard earlier this morning. I'll try to tailor my comments to be fairly brief and not repetitious.

First of all, I would like to note that we at the University of Guelph take great pride, as a university, that we are an integral part of the Ontario and Canadian agrifood system. We see our work, particularly our research, as contributing annually to Canada's success and wealth generation through the agrifood sector.

We make reference to the point that we currently in Canada have the objective of attaining$20 billion in export sales in the agrifood sector. I would emphasize, Mr. Chair, to the committee that we're not going to do that unless we wisely make use of the tools that are available on a global basis, at least to our competitors, and then ratchet it up a notch ahead of that. We certainly do have competitors throughout the world who intend to market their products every bit as aggressively as we would market ours.

At the moment, an example of that to which I would refer is the Roundup-ready soybeans in the U.S. There are a million acres right now in the ground probably with a weed control advantage amounting to $20 per acre. We don't have that in Canada. That gives our competitors some considerable advantage at the moment. I think it builds on Mr. Park's point about his costing of the delays of introduction and the availability of technology in Canada to our agrifood system.

I would make the point, sir, that our global competitiveness does depend on our investment in research, our utilization of technology and our being able to get technology into practice, which is where the regulatory system comes into play.

Our regulatory system in Canada is, in my opinion, seen internationally to be rigorous and reliable and to work. I believe that although at times we're concerned about the timeliness, I think we can benchmark ourselves. I don't think we need to undertake a new system, although I am pleased by the indication of the new food inspectorate as being a consolidation and coordination of that current effort.

I think it's terribly important in our system to keep in mind that this is not an exercise just in the ultimate ideal of safety. As was indicated earlier by Dr. Olson and Dr. Morrissey, there's a combination of balancing safety with utility, the societal value of the products that are being looked at.

If you isolate this examination from the perspective of utility, I think we're liable to fall into a morass that never ends, because the ultimate safety simply doesn't exist. We don't have the capability of measuring absolute safety forever.

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So we do accept a level we depend on, which is an acceptable level of safety as we can best measure it. We have a good scientific system in Canada for doing that now.

We look forward at Guelph, and in the Canadian research environment, to the advances based on biotechnology, or entailing biotechnology, as described by Dr. Morrissey as examples from the research branch of Ag Canada. Perhaps a few other examples that one could point to would be useful to the committee.

I would foresee that before very long we will have smart packages for Canadian foods, not just in Canada but more broadly. We'll have labels on them that will be biotechnological. They will tell us of the presence or absence of pathogens in those foods. This is not just the date of expiry, but a real measurement of the presence of pathogenic or disease-causing organisms. I think that's going to be a major advance, because food poisoning still does cause a huge loss of time and productivity in Canada and in North America as a whole.

I think that's perhaps an advent of biotechnology that people are not necessarily fearful of. I see other advents of biotechnology as being important to us. We'll have more a precise measurement and identification of disease in our livestock, with earlier detection and less need for antibiotic treatment as a result.

We will have enhanced disease resistance created in our livestock. Again, there will be less of an imposition of additives in the food processing system. Some of the big, spectacular hits will be a greater range of crops that have associated nitrogen fixation with them. We had better be a part of that advance.

We will see a greater range of processes to allow the utilization of mineralized phosphorous from soils. Therefore, there will be less of an imposition of phosphorous on the environment.

We are going to see really remarkable advances. Yes, the speed has increased from the past. Yes, it needs to increase from the past because, as we heard, we're facing the prospect of 8 billion mouths to feed.

I think there's one point that hasn't arisen yet, and I would like to emphasize it. Not only does our agrifood system need to be competitive on a worldwide basis, but Canada has invested in a very strong agricultural research system in our universities and in other locales. There is a very big international business currently in the world in research in the agrifood sector.

We in Canada can be competitive for attaining that research investment on a worldwide basis, but we can only be competitive in that area if our work can lead to products that can be put into practice in a timely and reliable fashion. Our regulatory system, as it is now, is able to yield us that advantage in Canada. I would say this is another area of competitiveness in our technology and research base in the country that we should be thinking of in contemplating this area.

With those comments, Mr. Chair, I'll stop. I'll be available for further questions.

The Chairman: Thank you very much for your comments and for coming. I assume you will be able to stay with us for the remainder of the day.

We will now hear from Meg Claxton, president of the Signature Group from Saskatchewan.

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Welcome to the committee and to the presentations today. We look forward to yours. I believe yours has been circulated to the committee, so over to you. We look forward to your comments.

Ms Meg Claxton (President, Signature Group): Thank you. I bring greetings from the thirty organizations and corporations in Saskatoon involved in the development of agricultural biotechnology and from the various public research institutions that provide tremendous leadership and resources for us.

I welcome every opportunity that I have to talk about the immense potential that's generated by the use of ag-biotechnology, so when I was invited to come today to speak about the importance of this tool internationally, I was really quite excited. I thank you for this opportunity.

A comprehensive discussion of this subject, why biotech is important, would require several days, so this morning I hope I can consolidate it a bit for you, hit some of the highlights, give you a bit of a picture of where this instrument can take us, and show you how vital biotechnology is as a vehicle in the future of Canada and her sister nations.

Every span of time, every hundred years, brings us a special gift. The century we're preparing to move out of now, the one we're bidding farewell to, has been particularly generous to us in the provision of profound technological advancement. One of the most important breakthroughs in science took place in 1973, when techniques were discovered that allowed scientists to successfully cut, splice, and replicate DNA, the map of life. Out of the application of the resulting recombinant DNA technology came biotechnology and with it tools as varied as the range of nature and the creativity of the human mind. The scope is incredible.

The application of biotechnology was rapidly supported by activity in industrial microbiology, enzyme and cell immobilization, commonly known as enzyme engineering, cell fusion, bioreactor design, downstream processing, monoclonal antibodies, DNA probes, in vitro mutagenesis, and a range of other biological, chemical, and physical science research tools.

The products that emerged from the laboratories using those instruments are promising to have a major effect on agriculture, health care, energy generation, environmental management and recovery, industry, and manufacturing. Its influence has touched business sectors as varied as food processing, mining, energy, cosmetics, plastics, and paper.

The scope of biotechnology as it is used in agriculture will touch every segment of society in every country in the world, and I predict it will surpass every possible potential we have seen. Anything we have known in food production will soon be antiquated, looking at the use of biotechnology.

In every instance of advance, Canada must be there. We have an impressive record. In Saskatchewan alone, we were the first to produce genetically engineered animal vaccines through Biostar; the first to identify, at the Biological Research Institute, a fungal agent to control grasshoppers; the first to commercialize a biofertilizer, Philom Bios; the first to create genetically altered flax at the Crop Development Centre; and the first to develop a transformed canola. That's only little old Saskatchewan. The list of our national accomplishments stretches far beyond this.

Many factors contribute to the success of our endeavours, including the powerful research capabilities of our public institutions such as Agriculture Canada, the National Research Council's Plant Biotechnology Institute, and the university research facilities that we find across Canada. You can see programs like those at the University of Saskatchewan, where the Crop Development Centre is very active, the Animal Biotechnology Centre is playing a major role in genome mapping, and the Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization manufactures new products such as genetically engineered vaccines.

Our strong research is linked to very competent and far-seeing business communities. This group has been willing to take the necessary risks to bring ag-biotech products to market. This group in turn has been supported by federal government regulatory control agencies, which have performed so well that Canada was the first to have a really effective regulatory system in place around biotechnology.

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As leaders, we must understand the importance of the astonishing results that we're carrying to the international market. We must understand that we will have world-changing impact. With the careful application of biotechnology as a tool for agricultural innovation, we can realize tremendous potential for economic growth and enrichment of life in Canada and around the globe. Through biotechnology we have the capability to enhance and expand our food supply, heal the sick, protect the healthy, generate new wealth, ease pollution, reclaim lost land, and create a whole new selection of renewable resources.

The first issue that science and agribusiness are preparing to address is the supply of quality food, and that's the work that's been carried out most extensively in the last decade. There is an urgent need in our global village for food: more food, better food, safer food. The startling reality is that there are 5.6 billion people sharing this planet with us, and in only two and a half generations - that's just fifty years - those people, their children and their children's children will number 11 billion.

Today they tell us that 800 million people are malnourished and in need. What will the future hold when there are twice as many of us striving to draw sustenance from this overburdened earth? There are those who predict that we can't overcome this insatiable dragon of human hunger, and there may be reason for their pessimism. When we review the map of arable land on this earth, we see that in the next ten years less than 5% of our food production can come from breaking new land. Perhaps we can coax an additional 10% from land enhanced through irrigation, but the remaining 80% of our increased food supply must come from the finite resources already in production.

A significant portion of this land is already challenged by desertification, pollution, erosion, and non-sustainable farming practices. Without a new approach we cannot expect that land to double its yield.

In Canada we're becoming increasingly urbanized, but in other parts of the world the majority of people are still directly dependant on agriculture - 65% of the people of Asia, 60% of the people in Latin America and 80% of the people in Africa. But the resources for food production are scarce. For example, in Africa only 0.3 hectares of arable land per person is available for farming. In these circumstances food sources must be healthy, hardy, and highly productive.

With this situation, can we dare to imagine a world with sufficient food, fibre, and renewable fuels? Yes, we can. Part of the answer is to be found in the systems we apply: soil and water conservation, new approaches to land use and distribution, new approaches to storage and supply management, improved logistics on a global scale, aggressive programs for pest management, and the application of superior on-farm practices that maximize productivity and minimize destructive technologies.

Even a heroic effort, though, to bring about these changes would not be enough. We need a key that will open new realms of possibility. We need biotechnology and its ability to speed advancement. We do not have time to wait for conventional breeding programs, for conventional technologies to move us forward. We are in the pressure cooker.

The increased need for food supply is being addressed in a multitude of ways. Already biotechnology is helping to develop important new characteristics in plants and animals that will increase productivity while minimizing non-sustainable factors. The list of successfully transformed plant life grows monthly and reaches across most domestic plant species: Cruciferae, such as canola, mustard, broccoli, and cauliflower; flax; wheat; potatoes; corn; cotton; cucurbits, such as squashes, melons, and cucumbers; tomatoes; sweet potatoes; pineapples; bananas; ornamental fruits; and of course that very important plant, the Saskatoon berry.

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The list goes on and on, and still the modifications being developed continue to expand. In crops we have tolerance of frost and drought; resistance to pests, herbicides and disease; improved nutrient uptake; higher yields; added nutrients; longer shelf life; new chemical traits; and improved nutritional and pharmaceutical characteristics.

One example of the way we're using these breakthroughs to enhance the food supply is the work being done by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, which is working in conjunction with public research scientists to develop a Brassica juncea canola that is disease and drought tolerant. This new variety, which has been developed from a mustard background, will allow the planting of an additional2 million to 3 million acres of canola in Saskatchewan on previously unsuitable land, land that would not be producing this product otherwise. This is just one small example of how biotechnology is helping to ensure supply to the market, where needs and demands consistently exceed production.

The work being done with animals, poultry, and fish is also yielding excellent results in productivity, carcass quality, disease resistance, therapeutics, fertility, more efficient use of feed rations, improved behaviours, production of pharmaceuticals through the development of animals as bioreactors, development of diagnostics for animal and human use, development of vaccines, non-invasive fertility controls, and so on.

The addition of specially developed enzymes and bacteria, for example, to feedstocks for cattle, hogs and poultry increases the efficiency of feed use and allows products that have very low feed value to be used effectively as rations. That enhances standard products as well.

Genetic modification of livestock is also making it possible to increase the number of offspring produced by dams. For example, a cattle gene introduced into hogs will result in a breeding line that produces more milk and is able to nurse larger litters that gain weight more quickly and wean more rapidly.

The protection of animal health is a key factor in ensuring productivity. New genetically engineered vaccines for animals are safer since they prevent the threat of reversion that can sometimes be found in traditional forms of vaccine, and they tend to be more consistent in their performance. In many cases these vaccines are more reliable and less expensive than those manufactured using conventional processes.

Although the scientific expertise in this area is now focused on the crops and livestocks of nations that enjoy an economic advantage, the spillover to emerging nations is already felt both through the food being exported and through the native foods that will be affected by genetic enhancement. The recent Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference, which was held in Saskatoon, saw a strong contingent of representatives from emerging nations attend, and their voices were powerful in support of the rapid transfer of this technology to their homelands.

This again brings up the fact that biotechnology has been recognized as a tool for rapid development, rapid transfer, and a basis from which to grow a whole new agricultural reality.

Biotechnology is making a vital contribution to sustainable agriculture in production and environmental enhancement as well. In crop production, there are three major areas of development that contribute to the evolution of a healthier, more productive planet. The first is the creation of more productive plants that require fewer resources and less intervention to thrive. The second is biological controls that reduce the need for fertilizers and chemical pesticides. The third is the transformation of microbial and plant products that facilitate waste management, reduce pollution, and reclaim soils lost to heavy metals, fossil fuel spills, erosion, mining, and those sorts of things.

Provide is an interesting example of biological enhancement. It is a biofertilizer developed by Canada's Philom Bios, which stimulates phosphate uptake in plants. By using Provide, farmers may reduce the amount of phosphate applied to their fields and thus lower the level of phosphates in the water supply while reducing the cost of their inputs. Products like these reduce the need for applied fertilizers, in some cases by as much as 40%. That's a very significant number in terms of both cost to farmers and benefits to the environment.

In the area of insect pest control, we are also seeing rapid advance. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis genes introduced into crops to promote insect resistance have the potential to reduce chemical insecticide use by as much as 40%.

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In June of this year there were 46 biocontrol agents registered for use on farms. I think I heard this morning that there were more than 100 available in Canada. We're building a critical mass of support here for the farmer and for the crops and for the environment.

Many people believe that it's innovations like these that offer our most powerful hope in augmenting conventional approaches to agriculture while still protecting the environment and conserving our resources for future generations. We will always need fertilizer, but if we use it all up in the short term, there will be very little left in the future.

Livestock production is also made more earth friendly through the application of biotechnology-derived products such as transformed sunflowers, which take in heavy metals from waste lagoons and thereby minimize the damage caused by leaching. The waste problem we're seeing, particularly around the hog industry productions, can be addressed in natural and environmental ways.

The introduction of the enzyme phytase into livestock feed reduces phosphorus levels in manure. Again, we're seeing a way of handling waste problems. It's particularly useful in reducing pollution problems in feedlots. By adding microbially derived amino acids into the diet of hogs, farmers can reduce the amount of feed required and the accompanying waste while still achieving excellent growth.

The introduction of selected characteristics into the livestock population will eventually allow us to raise the level of productivity per animal and thereby reduce the burden of resources currently needed to meet feed needs.

Biotechnology has also made it possible to ease the burden on the environment by replacing toxic resources with plant-derived, ecologically friendly products. We have the capability to produce industrial stocks such as fuel, polymers, and oils from plant-based products. As this field develops, we're going to see a reduced use of petroleum products. The generation of fuel from plants will also see a move away from fossil fuel use and a reduced danger from air pollution, spills, and residue.

The application of specially selected microbes allows us to recover soil as well that has been rendered useless through industrial accidents, overuse, and so on. There's a whole new aspect there that's beginning to emerge. In the food technology area, which links so closely, we cannot simply be commodity providers. We must be adding value if we are going to be successful.

In the food technology area, biotechnology makes important contributions. An example of that is chymosin. This is the first biotech product in the world that was ever registered and received approval for use. It's produced from a transgenic culture and replaces calf rennin. It's now used in two-thirds of all manufactured cheese in the economically advantaged world. Like many biotech derived products, it has many advantages for industry and the consumer. It guarantees a reliable supply of pure, inexpensive - it's less than half the cost of calf rennin products - products that result in very high cheese yield.

We're stabilizing. With some of the situations we've been in previously, we had fairly unstable natural processes to work with. Biotechnology is allowing us to stabilize many of those activities.

Food flavours derived from bacteria, fungi, and microbes offer similar advantages in the quality area. In addition, they circumvent a number of problems related to chemically synthesized products and can produce flavours which cannot be artificially manufactured.

The potential market for value-added products enhanced by biotechnology is projected to triple over the next 10 years. This represents a significant economic level, since flavours alone generate$6 billion each year internationally.

In addition to ingredients, there are also new biosensors being developed to aid in the processing of food, such as microbial tags, which would detect deterioration of meat through the presence of pathogens or sniff out imperfections such as boar taint before a carcass is processed. So it's giving us a whole new advantage on the processing floor as well.

In the industrial area, molecular farming is in the early stages of production and plants are being modified to produce industrial stocks. SemBioSys of Calgary is working with canola and flax to develop surfactants for use in shampoo, detergents, and margarine. Calgene has been working in cooperation with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool to produce canola suitable for industrial use. Some companies, such as Esso, are using plant-based oils as lubricants in certain sectors of industrial use.

.1145

The application of biotechnology to agricultural products and practices enhances human health in many ways. It's enabling rapid advancement in the development of functional foods, which contribute added beneficial traits to the human diet.

Work is being done on most species of domestic livestock and plants to find ways to enhance human health naturally. For example, designer milks are being produced from cows that carry special genes for products such as lactoferin, a source of iron and a promoter of natural immunities. Poultry is being modified to produce eggs rich in lysozyme, an antibacterial agent used by food and pharmaceutical industries. Using human genes, a goat has been developed that produces BR-96, an antibody that delivers chemotherapy directly to the tumour.

You can see the range and scope of these functional foods is very broad.

Through the use of living plant tissue, animal tissue and microbes, biotechnology can facilitate reproduction of natural source material reliably, inexpensively and with enhanced purity. The successful production in hogs of insulin and hirudin, an anti-coagulant derived from a leech gene, is an example of the achievements made possible through this technology.

In future we will see even more creative endeavours. It is very possible we will see a vaccine for malaria being delivered through mosquitoes. The little critters that actually carry the problem are also going to be our solution. We're well down the road. Not here in Canada, but in the U.K., there's a very good chance that study will be completed successfully within five years.

The Chairman: Three cheers if you can get a productive use of the mosquito.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

Ms Claxton: And isn't it one of our most underused national resources?

The Chairman: We have plenty of it.

Ms Claxton: There are other ways biotechnology can assist.

Lactose intolerance, which is a very serious problem among people of Asian and African descent, can be circumvented through designer milks. There's a process under way right now to look at that. That has tremendous implications for infant survival rates internationally.

Biotechnology works in the field as well as the lab in supporting the production of plants that have fewer natural toxins and reduced levels of allergenicity. We can now tailor the specific outcomes we want within crops, once we find the gene. Of course that can be a challenge.

Coupled with the lower levels of pesticide residues resulting from the use of biocontrols during growing, we now have access to a food source from plants that is safer than it has ever been in history.

The scope of this activity goes on and on, but I think what I'm going to do now is take a quick look at what it means to have these tools of biotechnology to apply to agriculture and to agribusiness.

Between 25% and 33% of Canada's economic growth can be attributed to technological advance, and where there are declines in production, half of those declines can be traced back to a failure to apply or develop technology.

Canadian advances in the development of new products using biotechnology have been significant, but we must remember it is not enough to lead the world in invention, which is the work our scientists and research groups do. We also have to lead the world in innovation, bringing those inventions to the market. We must continue to develop and convert our early-stage projects into products that can be used internationally.

Our incentive is powerful. The current world market for ag-biotech products is $1 billion. Within four years - that's only four years - it's projected that will increase to $20 billion.

This economic activity flows out of a current research expenditure of $1 billion by the private sector and $0.25 billion by the public sector. Although it appears to be a one-for-one return right now on investment, we have to understand this is going to begin to shift, and we will soon be seeing a twentyfold return on the dollar using biotechnology.

.1150

Saskatchewan's ag-biotech companies provide a small example of what's going on in the entire country, although of course Saskatchewan has a particular sense of pride in what has been accomplished there. Those little companies in Saskatchewan generate an average of $40 million a year in sales. That number is projected to increase to over $300 million within four years and to reach $1 billion by the year 2010. As developments across the agrifood and industrial sector begin to reach critical mass, this economic activity will increase tenfold.

Where will these sales be found? In the cluster of products that are emerging today. The world market for rhizobium inoculants is projected to be worth $40 million U.S. by the year 2000. In 1995 one small Saskatchewan company generated inoculant sales of $4 million on one product.

You can see the potential that is beginning to build. You can see the critical mass that is beginning to emerge here. This indicates there are major opportunities for Canadian positioning in these types of markets.

The use of biocontrols to offset chemical applications will continue to grow. Right now it's projected at a rate of 3% to 5% a year, but as the products come to market, that will accelerate.

The use of growth hormones in livestock production will increase on a steady path and will increase production levels by 10% to 20% in many livestock species in less than a decade. That means we can in effect have fewer animals with more productivity or more animals with far more productivity.

Flavour ingredients and food enzymes will generate $12 billion in sales within half a decade. Plant-derived polymers will make serious inroads into the multi-billion-dollar plastics industry.

In effect, almost every international economic sector will be touched by the innovations tied to biotechnology and agriculture.

Ag-biotech promises to generate high-quality jobs, and the demands this industry makes on the human resource pool can be filled by Canadian employees, who are among the most well-educated, reliable, productive and adaptable workforces in the world. In Saskatoon, a relatively modest-sized Canadian city, 800 jobs are directly linked to biotechnology in agriculture, and thousands more are tied in indirectly.

Over and over again we hear from companies such as AgrEvo, Monsanto, Limagrain and others that Canada is one of the best places in the world in which to pursue ag-biotechnology research and development.

In Canada and the U.S., transgenic plant development activity doubled each year from 1988. In 1993 the number increased threefold to over 800 releases of transgenic plants, and that continues to grow, with North America - that's Canada and the United States - outperforming all other nations in the world combined.

Remember this is a quick snapshot looking only at the plant area. We've not looked at any of the other things mentioned earlier.

There are many reasons we've had this success, including strong public research institutions, good regulatory framework, close proximity to major farming endeavours and a very progressive farming community, government support in research and a credible international reputation that is linked, not incidentally, to a very strong regulatory control process here in Canada.

For the first time in history, Canada is in an ideal position to export value-added products and technology on a major scale. We are out in front. We lead the charge here.

A vast new resource is available to the world that will have unprecedented impact on the production of our food, fibre and fuel. It will greatly enhance the environmental sustainability of our agricultural products and practices, and Canada is at the heart. We must continue to create new opportunities for our farmers and our businesses, and we can do it with this very special gift, biotechnology, which has grown from the ingenuity and dedication of our scientists and entrepreneurs.

I thank you for your time this morning and I look forward to talking with you more later.

The Chairman: Thank you very much for an excellent presentation.

.1155

We are now going to take a break for no more than five minutes. We want everyone who made presentations this morning to come to the table. If we use all of the available chairs, we can have everyone come to the table.

I think I'll put it this way. We're going to have a break for the reasons that a medical doctor mentioned at a function I was at not too long ago: we're going to have a break for ``medical purposes''.

.1156

.1206

The Chairman: I welcome everyone back. Without question we have had some fantastic presentations today, and we will start our questions.

We have one hour. I will try to get around to as many members and individuals as possible. I don't think it will be a situation where everyone can comment on every question, or we won't get very far. If you feel strongly about commenting on an issue, I would ask members to try to designate who they would like to put their question or their comment to, so that we can move along.

I believe we have the room and we have the benefit of the televising of this until 1 p.m.

We will start with Mrs. Ur.

Mrs. Ur (Lambton - Middlesex): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't think of a more interesting morning we've spent in the agriculture committee. It has been so informative and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. It almost feels like a new day dawning here after I've listened to each one of your presentations. It certainly has been really interesting and informative, and your enthusiastic presentations this morning have gotten us going.

I should speak for myself; this has really gotten me excited about biotechnology. In the past, I think it's been the best-kept secret. As we've seen with the BST, maybe if we were a little more transparent and open, the rest of biotechnology would be an easier sell with the Canadian public.

I'm pleased to see that we have a presentation from the Consumers' Association. With strong allies such as you working with this kind of science and technology, you will be a good selling tool for this process. Your brief this morning was most welcome, Chris.

I just have a few questions. I'm not long on eulogies - if I were I'd go into the ministry - but I do have a few questions here.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: You have a choice of ministries.

Mrs. Ur: Right.

It's vital that we take a really hard, serious look at biotechnology, not only because of the fact that our population base is growing at a phenomenal rate but also because the land base is being used up. This is one avenue open to us that we certainly will have to look at.

I have a couple of questions. Where is the science of biotechnology more enhanced in the plants versus the animals review? Is it pushing forward more within the plant system or the animal system? Where is there a stronger display of force within biotech research and development?

.1210

Dr. Milligan: At present we're seeing in the agrifood system that there are probably more advances and changes taking place in the plant area than with animals. On the science level, because of the emphasis of biotechnology on medicine and the background understanding of animals, there's a great deal of understanding. But there is probably more concern about transgenic animals than about transgenic plants.

Dr. Morrissey: I would add to that, Mr. Chairman. Historically in the breeding of plants and animals, in my mind plants have had a terrific advantage. The cost of producing one plant has been so small - maybe a penny to produce one stalk of wheat - whereas it's thousands of dollars to produce a cow. Also the generation time between one plant and another, the adult and its offspring, is very short in plants and very long in animals. So they have been able to breed natural disease resistance, for example, into a plant. Theoretically it has been possible in an animal; it has just been too time-consuming and too long.

One of the developments I think we will see with biotech is...because you're working with a cell and not with a whole animal. Whether you're working on an animal or a plant cell, the cost will be very small and the generation time between two cells will be very short. You may see a catch-up over time by the animal community. They may be able to breed natural resistance into animals rather than having to rely only on vaccines before the fact or antibiotics for a cure after the fact.

Dr. Olson: I was trying to figure out whether micro-organisms fall under the plant side or the animal side. From what I've read in the literature and what I've seen in the science, a very large part of the activity has been with microbial systems. That has been advantageous as a tool in terms of plant, and it may eventually become the kind of tool that Dr. Milligan was talking about with animal tissues.

Ms Claxton: I think that in the animal area, if we look at things such as the new immunosterilants that are coming out, although they do not work directly with the animal, this injectable castration vaccine, fertility controls in that area - it's going to have profound effects on our livestock industry. It's going to give us much more finely tuned control. Both at the meat level and the basic production level, those kinds of enhancements, I think, are very strong. There's quite a bit of investment going on there. We're seeing a real movement forward in that area, certainly in Saskatchewan.

Mrs. Ur: I think Mr. Parks said in his statement, and rightly so, that safety and health are main concerns with biotechnology. You can't be absolutely sure with the safety as to how many years you can go on measuring. What timeframe would you be looking at? You said five years or ten years to register a product. Is there a general timeframe you feel comfortable with in saying, okay, we'll go to the public with it? What's the guideline?

Mr. Parks: I think Dr. Milligan was the man with the line, but let me talk to you this way. We wish our consumers to be happy with our product. If we put a product on the market that is not fit, we will have the government on our case and we will have consumers on our case.

We did create a soybean with Brazil nut genes that had greatly improved oil profiles. We chose to discard that soybean because of the possibility of an allergen in it that would cause human problems. I think there was a little fluff about that in February of this year in America and in Canada. Someone had pulled out a report that was about three years old saying that we were doing this, and they were in error. We had discarded it three years earlier.

We are very concerned and we try to ensure that every product we bring to the marketplace will be healthful. We test it internally and with the regulatory authorities to ensure that it is.

.1215

Mrs. Ur: In what area are you getting the most negative impact on biotechnology? Who is giving you the most trouble?

Mr. Parks: I think most of our trouble is how we get to the marketplace most quickly. Sometimes we are the enemy in that we don't have communication among the various partners. If you're watching plant biotech today, we have Monsanto, Dow Elanco, Calgene, Pioneer, Dekalb. That's a few of them. We are trying to get our acts together and get to the regulators as quickly as we need to.

We would not like to see the regulations as they exist stirred up. If you stir them up and create a new set, it's likely going to take a three-year learning process for the new group to get the hang of the technology. Three years is many, many millions of dollars for farmers and many millions of dollars for corporations. We'd like to stay competitive, so we very much support the current format we work through. The people are experts at the government level. We think our internal experts are very competent, and the two work together positively for safety for consumers.

The Chairman: Chris, did you want to comment?

Ms Mitchler: I think it's important to bear in mind that there are consumers out there, and consumers use these products for different reasons. For example, a lot of the applications approved for the market have been applications a farmer would use as a tool. They're not products that consumers would buy in a grocery store as they would buy a food product off the shelf. The genetically modified seed or whatever will result in an end product, but the actual seed is not something the consumer buys. The farmer does. It's important to be aware that we have different kinds of consumers.

The Chairman: Mr. Chrétien.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien: I was also pleasantly surprised at the quality of our witnesses this morning. When I go to bed this evening, I will have learned some new things.

Before asking my question for Ms. Meg Claxton from the Signature Group of Saskatoon, I would like her to tell us how many people are in her group, who it represents and what its objectives are.

[English]

Ms Claxton: The Signature Group is a communications firm that works on the business development side with the biotechnology industry. We work with a number of the agricultural biotech companies in Saskatoon. We also collaborate with the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada group, the plant biotechnology group and the people at the University of Saskatchewan in various sectors. They were unable to send a representative today. We do a lot of public education and information programming around agricultural biotechnology, so they asked if I would attend.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien: I now understand your brief much better. When I was listening to you, I was thinking about reading a Tintin story, in which he was on a very distant planet. He ate an apple and threw the core away behind him. A few minutes or hours later, a huge apple tree had sprung up with enormous apples on it, and an apple fell off the tree and knocked him out.

.1220

That was the image that came to mind when you were presenting your brief earlier. You favour using growth hormones for animals. You would probably approve the use of BST tomorrow morning for dairy cows. And you would probably favour similar things for hens, strawberries, and so on.

If we start from the principle that nothing is created and nothing is lost in nature, how far can we go in increasing plant and animal production through biotechnology?

[English]

Ms Claxton: Do you mean how far can we go, or how far should we go?

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien: How far can we go? If we answer this question, we will probably have an answer to the other one as well.

[English]

Ms Claxton: I am not a scientist, so I can't predict how much intervention we can have, for example, with a chicken, but I think that as we grow in the knowledge of this technology, as we experiment with this technology, and as we deliver the products and we find that they are useful, then the appropriate balance of when we will use science and when we will choose conventional methods evolves.

I think we have to be very careful when we talk about biotechnology to try not to push the concept to the extreme. We ran into great danger in the early years in this country. For example, when we first introduced vaccination among children, some people were afraid that we were causing disease in the children rather than protecting them from disease, or that the potential was there. I think we must always work forward one step at a time, and we must always evaluate as we move as to whether we are creating something that is healthy and fits with the rest of the universe. We should not proceed beyond that point.

So in looking at, for example, the introduction of genes into chickens so that their eggs produce products of pharmaceutical value, that has proven to be safe. That does not harm the chicken. We know those things, so that is an area we would explore. But if we were to create a chicken that had neon feathers to put in a stage show at Las Vegas, the use there would be inappropriate and indeed sinful. I think we try to create the balance and ensure that nature and humans gain mutual benefit.

The Chairman: I believe Dr. Morrissey would like to answer that, Mr. Chrétien. I think it's an excellent question. I'd like to hear the answer, and I believe Mr. Parks wants to comment as well.

[Translation]

Mr. Morrissey: I would like to add a small point, if I may. All living beings, whether human or plants, are the result of the genes they carry within them and the environment in which they live. The genetic baggage determines what we can become, and the environment in which we live determines what we will become. For example, because of my heredity, I might grow to a height of two meters, which would very tall, but if I am raised in an environment in which I do not have enough to eat, the result could be that I may grow to a height of only 1.5 meter. So the genetic baggage determines what we can be and the environment determines what we will be.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chrétien: Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

.1225

[English]

The Chairman: Did you want to comment, Mr. Parks?

I'll give you time, Mr. Chrétien.

Mr. Parks: Mr. Chairman, to give a plant answer, the regular corn yield at most farms would run in the neighbourhood of three tonnes per acre. I have seen corn fields where that corn yield is twelve tonnes per acre. So let's say a fourfold increase is possible, even today. The area that has the fourfold increase obviously has excellent soil, excellent rainfall or irrigation, and good fertility. In addition, the plant population is right and everything cooperated - nature cooperated, the science of genetics cooperated in building the particular corn plant. Even with our beginnings in biotech today, we can have a fourfold increase.

To back up a little and get to something that's not quite so dramatic, we look at about a 1.5% increase per year in the yield of the corn plant through the hand of man and the science of man to make that crop produce more, and I think we are very responsible in doing that.

I'd like to have a little bit more time and suggest to you that safety is still of the utmost concern in everyone's mind, and if we cannot bring safe biotechnology to the marketplace, we should not bring it to the marketplace. That's the golden rule of biotechnology, if you will.

[Translation]

Mr. Chrétien: I'm in full agreement with the president of Pioneer Hi-Bred Ltd., Mr. Parks. However, if we think back to all the houses that were insulated with urea formaldehyde foam insulation, or to all the women who received breast implants, there is every reason to be vigilant and to ask questions.

Having said that, I would like to ask a very general question for all our panelists, for our information and that of many television viewers.

The question is about labelling. Some of you said that when we were ill, we were entitled to the best doctors, the best surgeons and to the best drugs. We do not fool around with our health, much less with our lives. You drew a parallel when you said that we were entitled to know what we eat.

Some of you suggested that negative labelling should be considered. In other words, milk produced with rBST would have to carry a label stating "milk produced using rBST hormones to increase milk production". However, the so-called natural milk would not require a label.

I also noticed, Mr. Parks, that you did not seem to favour labelling that would indicate all the biotechnological products that may have been used to produce the product in question. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

For the good of consumers, would it not be desirable to have a label stating what went into the product being purchased? It would give a little more information than just packaging date and "Best Before" date.

[English]

The Chairman: Chris Mitchler, do you wish to address that?

Ms Mitchler: Yes, please.

Our position on labelling at CAC has been that mandatory labelling is not necessarily the best answer. I think when one looks at it on the surface, one would wonder why you wouldn't have a genetic engineering logo or whatever on a label, that to do so would make sense. It might on the surface, but when you look a little further and you ask yourself what information a symbol or a logo provides a consumer, I would suggest to you that a logo actually doesn't provide the information. It doesn't tell me what genetic engineering is, it doesn't tell me why the product was genetically modified, it doesn't tell me what its benefits are, and it doesn't tell me whether there is anything I would want to be concerned about.

.1230

I would see that a symbol is not really an informative way to label. In some cases, as some of the speakers have mentioned, you are going to have some real practicalities with labelling canola, for example. You can have canola seed, you can presumably have flour, and you can have canola oil. They may or may not be separated, they may be pooled.

I would be concerned about seeing all canola oils...and potentially down the road, when we see more and more genetically modified products in the marketplace, we could see labelling on everything.

I don't know how much information there should be. Recognize that we have an itty-bitty space, in two official languages, so there's not a lot of space to put an awful lot of meaningful, relevant information, which people may or may not understand and may not even read. What would the purpose be, when a lot of these products are going to be exactly the same at the end product as their traditional counterparts? Would there be a concern? I'm not sure there would be.

I think we have to look beyond just labelling and at broader communication, awareness education programs, so that we don't put all our eggs in the labelling basket. That's not the only information or education tool. We wouldn't support the use of labelling for that purpose.

The Chairman: Another interesting question.

Dr. Morrissey, do you have some comments?

Dr. Morrissey: I would add two points to that. Two arguments come up in my mind. One is the reasonableness argument, and the other is the conflicting rights argument.

I think you've just made the reasonableness argument. The first point is that if you can't detect something, you really can't label it. It's unreasonable to expect the labelling of something that you can't detect. That's sometimes the case in biotech.

The point I think you made is the reasonableness one: how do you label second-, third-, and fourth-generation biotech products when, for example, wheat has been taken, blended, and its constituent parts included in muffins or something like that? That's the reasonableness argument; a right has to be reasonable.

The other is conflicting rights. It's the John Stuart Mill principle that my right to do something mustn't harm Paul's right to do something. In that case the argument in my mind goes something like this.

The freedom of an individual to sell something under reasonable conditions shouldn't interfere with or harm the freedom of somebody else to buy something under reasonable conditions. So you have two sets of rights there - one to buy and one to sell - and they both have rights established. You have to find some common ground where one right doesn't unreasonably harm another.

Ms Margaret Kenny (Associate Director, Biotechnology Strategies and Coordination Office, Food Inspection Directorate, Food Production and Inspection Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food): I would add one small point, and that is that the responsibility for the labelling of foods is jointly shared between Health Canada and the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

We work under the Food and Drugs Act and this is a matter, the area of labelling of foods from biotechnology, on which we have been consulting for quite some time. We have had workshops. We have also had written consultation. The conclusions to date would certainly support whatMs Mitchler has described.

I would point out, though, that under the Food and Drugs Act, when there has been an evaluation of a food derived through biotechnology, which Mr. Mayers' group would carry out, if they identify a safety concern for any small portion of the population, there would be absolutely mandatory labelling. If there were a significant change in the nutritional composition of the food, there would also be labelling.

These are areas on which we have consensus, that labelling is required and absolutely would be required.

Ms McCall: CAC has participated in these consultations and submitted a detailed brief. What we have called for, and what I believe everybody involved in this is working on, is establishing a framework to help decide when labelling would be useful, reasonable, and meet those conditions and when it would not, and when other methods of providing information should be used instead of labelling. By saying there are circumstances in which it may well be unreasonable to label, we don't mean to say there are circumstances in which it's unreasonable for people to know. We think those are two separate things and the right to be informed has then to be addressed in a different way.

.1235

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Mr. Hoeppner.

Mr. Hoeppner (Lisgar - Marquette): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yesterday I was on a high, I guess, as far as financial situations were concerned. This morning when I heard Mr. Martin's statement being analysed.... Economists have told us we have the lowest rate of savings in 30 years, we have the highest debt-to-asset ratio in history, and we have record numbers of personal and business bankruptcies. One of the institutes came out with a statement that said the regulatory system today costs Canadian consumers $10,000 each per year. Can we live with that kind of system? What do we have to do about it to bring it down, if it's possible?

Ms McCall: I think there's certainly a lot of room to streamline regulatory systems, and I think the government has been working on it and some progress is being made. I think this is an area in which changing the existing regulatory system would increase the costs and reduce the benefits.

Yes, I agree with your point in principle, but I don't think this is one of the places to try to do something about it.

Mr. Hoeppner: The cost of food is why I'm bringing out that point.

The Chairman: Okay. Others want to comment.

Mr. Mayers: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's a very interesting question and certainly one we have recognized. There may be opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of our program by closer collaboration between us and Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on safety assessments. For example, in dealing with these types of products, in the food safety assessment we give consideration to how the product is developed. In the evaluation of the environmental safety of the product, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada also gives consideration to how the product was developed. We are looking at mechanisms to allow us to combine that effort when looking at how the product was developed so we can achieve some cost savings while not compromising the effectiveness of either safety assessment.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Dr. Olson.

Dr. Olson: I'm a bit at a loss to understand the $10,000 per consumer figure, because when I do the math, multiplying it by 3 million people in Canada, that's $300 billion. That's an awful lot of money. I know the budget I deal with in terms of the food production and inspection branch and the proposed budget for the Canadian food inspection agency is of the order of a couple of hundred million dollars for all the inspection in Canada. I'm not sure how the math works out in that regard.

Some of us - I am in particular - are very actively involved with Health Canada, but there are other people around the table who were involved in a rather extensive regulatory review in the early 1990s; we went through all our regulations. As I recall, a pressure we faced in terms of input was not deregulation, it was reregulation - redoing a regulatory framework. From that came initiatives such as the Canadian food inspection agency and a number of the other changes. That I think, as Dr. Mayers has indicated, has encouraged a different way of doing government to ensure those costs are under a reasonable level. Many changes have come from that in terms of overlap, duplication, cost reduction, cost avoidance, and those kinds of things.

However, Mr. Chairman, I can't make the math work in terms of the $10,000 per consumer.

The Chairman: I won't comment. I agree, I wondered whether Jake had his decimal places in the right spot, but....

Dr. Olson: Certainly, we could use the budget.

The Chairman: Dr. Olson, I have never seen a bureaucrat who couldn't use the budget.

Sally.

Ms Rutherford: Maybe it's value that is....

The Chairman: That's it, Sally, it's $10,000 worth of value to each Canadian consumer. Sally, do you wish to make some other comments?

Ms Rutherford: Maybe if Mr. Hoeppner has something else.

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Mr. Hoeppner: I was just looking at the past management of our regulatory agency. If you look at your information, you'll see that it has 4,500 bureaucrats involved in it now, so we have a huge bureaucracy. I didn't go back and figure it out. I just took the number that was specified as coming from a fairly well-known institution. I don't always question everything; otherwise I wouldn't be here, because the Liberals give us so much information that we can't question.

I'll go to my next point, unless somebody else wanted to comment.

The Chairman: I just want to correct you on that 4,500, and maybe Dr. Olson would like to correct you as well. In the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which is in the Ministry of Health, at their wildest projections I believe they're talking about 416 or 426 employees, not anywhere near the number you mentioned.

Mr. Hoeppner: That's in Ottawa.

The Chairman: No, that's in the total agency.

Mr. Hoeppner: Well, somebody got these figures printed wrong.

The Chairman: Dr. Olson.

Dr. Olson: We have the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in the process of coming together. We have legislation coming forward in terms of the Canadian food inspection agency, which will be dealing with about 4,500 people. It sounds to me like we have a name transposition, Mr. Hoeppner.

There were about 140 or 150 persons who came in with the transfers from Agriculture, and I believe about 50 or 60 came from Health Canada into that regulatory agency. We currently have around 200 people. In terms of meeting the obligations of the pesticide registration review, I think full up it's something of the order of a bit more than 400, as Mr. Vanclief has indicated.

The Chairman: Do you have another question, Mr. Hoeppner?

Mr. Hoeppner: Yes, I have two more.

I have heard Ms Rutherford say that in Germany they had to more or less give up on research and go to production because of the cost squeeze. When I look at biotechnology, we're working on animals for transplants to humans and then in the next breath we're talking about doctor-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and setting up regulations for that. Does that make sense?

The reason I'm asking is that when I look at today's animal world and grains, insects, and weeds.... We know we have chemical-resistant weeds. We know we have diseases that are resistant to drugs. So there is a change in our human anatomy or in the system because of the use of drugs or the use of chemicals on certain weeds.

I am seeing a development in western Canada where we're starting to desiccate our crops instead of waiting for the natural process to ripen them. We see soybeans resistant to Roundup, which is used in the desiccation of food crops. Are we using a lot of our expertise in technology for the wrong purposes and possibly creating more problems than we're solving?

Ms Rutherford: Maybe I'll answer your first question first. Frankly, from our point of view the regulatory system is expensive. There are reasons to have regulations for certain purposes. Even beyond the health and safety regulations, which are very important and which we have never advocated be diminished, there's a need for some regulations just to continue to foster our trade. Other countries require certain guarantees that they will only accept from government. So there are various reasons for regulations.

Certainly we believe the cost of the regulatory system is too high. But as Dr. Olson mentioned, there is an attempt, which I think could be larger, to decrease the cost of that regulatory process. I believe it's simply going to have to happen that way over time, because there isn't enough money to pay for it. It will eventually come to pass.

In terms of your second question, there's an economic and a social aspect to it as well. As Meg said, if one were going to develop a chicken with fluorescent feathers to put on display, that would not be a very good use of technology or of science.

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There are reasons that people are using desiccants on products. They're trying to beat out the snow. They're trying to ensure that they have a crop that's adequate to meet their contracts. As we move on, they're going to be looking to have a crop that's going to be adequate to feed people, and not just in this country.

One of the things we do in Canada is an awful lot of research. One of the things we have to do better, frankly, is doing research and keeping control over it so somebody will pay us to use it, rather than giving it away. We're doing better that way, too, but that's clearly one of the things we have to keep in mind.

One can abuse natural processes as well. It wasn't that long ago that we were trying to produce 50-pound turkeys by regular, ordinary breeding, and discovered that the damn things couldn't stand up. It's not just that biotechnology can be used and misused; it's a matter of trying to determine what the appropriate use is and ensuring that it's used in that way.

There's no doubt in my mind that people are going to misuse biotechnology, just as they've misused every other kind of technology from time immemorial. It's a matter of ensuring that the products that are commercially available for sale are safe both for humans and for the environment and that people have the knowledge, because they have the information, to use them appropriately. I think that's our biggest safeguard. We need a regulatory system that's going to ensure that we have products that are safe and that people have the information they need to use them properly.

The Chairman: Thanks, Sally.

Dr. Morrissey.

Dr. Morrissey: I have a comment on resistance. My understanding of resistance in crops is that it's a natural phenomenon so that crops can evolve to resist stress. The stress can come from cold, diseases, weeds that are competitors, or the types of nutrients or absence of nutrients in the soil. My sense is that it's part of the natural, competitive, evolutionary survival process of living things like plants. They will adapt if you put them in a cold, diseased, weedy, or hostile soil, and pesticides are simply another stress for them.

It really isn't surprising that humans develop resistance to antibiotics or that crops develop resistance to pesticides. It's part of our evolutionary mechanisms so that we can survive.

Thank you, chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Hoeppner.

Mr. Hoeppner: This is a quick one. I want to come back to the protection of confidential information from competitors. I think Mr. Parks and Dr. Zeph hinted at that.

We have heard before this committee about instances where that information has also been kept from regulatory agencies and cannot be accessed until 30 or 40 years afterward. What do we do to make it transparent so that regulators are comfortable with the data that is given by the researchers, that it isn't harmful and that they've done the proper amount of research and provided us a health guarantee against catastrophes?

Dr. Olson: We don't approve anything until we're comfortable with the data we have.

Mr. Hoeppner: What if you can't get the data, if it's held in confidence for 30 years, such as what we heard about in the U.S.?

Dr. Olson: We've not had that problem. The product isn't approved in that case. There is no product on the market until we have that data.

The framework is proprietary for a reason. A company has made a huge investment in a product and they want to walk it through the regulatory system. It's in their best interest to put all the information on the table. As Mr. Parks has indicated, he's not in the business of putting products on the market that are going to affect consumers in an adverse way. He's going to want to be very sure that all the information is on the table.

You mentioned the case with soybeans, Mr. Parks, where the company made a decision long before it ever got to the regulators to withdraw a product that had potential risks - not even real but potential - and they made that visible. I'm comfortable that the information is there. The other reality is that we do share with other countries, so that this information is pretty broadly known.

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A product of the nature that Mr. Parks is talking about will go into export trade. Our trading partners will expect that we've carried out with all due vigilance the necessary process to ensure that it is in fact safe for their consumers. We share information to make sure that happens. Industry, quite frankly, is very cooperative, and so are our trading partners, in making sure that happens.

There's another reality. Nobody has enough money. Even if you gave me that munificent gift that you were offering earlier, nobody, frankly, has enough money to do all of this work. So we in fact share the load. There is a fair bit of interchange between countries and the process of setting international standards, which in fact ensures that the information flows appropriately and in a way that guarantees the kind of performance we were talking about earlier.

I've not seen a situation in my experience - and I've got a lot of it - where a company has held back information. In fact, the biggest problem we have is volume. The biggest complaint we have with many applications is getting the data into an organized format so you can make a regulatory decision. The companies in many cases err on the other side in terms of ensuring that they've got all of the information on the table.

The Chairman: Dr. Zeph, do you have a comment?

Dr. Zeph: I would agree with those comments completely. I guess I'm struggling a bit to see where, in the plant genetics business, we could withhold information like that. Given the reality of the way this business works, we do need approvals in a number of countries, and each of those countries, hopefully, has good protection of confidential business information. It would be very difficult for us to get all those approvals and hold back information.

Mr. Hoeppner: Maybe my mind is going a little blank when I hear.... We had a witness here who said contrary to that - a doctor from the United States. He had been fired from the USDA and there was a court case over it. We were given the indication that there was certain information that could not -

The Chairman: I have a point of clarification, Mr. Hoeppner. What committee are you referring to and what witness?

Mr. Hoeppner: Agriculture. When we were debating the BST issue. I know there was a big issue over that at the time.

The Chairman: Okay. I think it's been clarified here, as far as the issue that we're talking about here goes.

I know some of you may have other commitments, and I recognize that. We do have the availability of the room for a few minutes past one o'clock - actually, until 1:30 if we wish to go that long. I know there are others who wish to make comments, but I do recognize very clearly that if you have commitments you may have to leave.

Bill Parks.

Mr. Parks: I'd like to reply, Mr. Chairman. Somewhere in this world there's still a thing called human decency and self-survival. I think that most people - I say most and I think that's 99.9% - would follow the golden rule, treat the other guy as they would like to be treated. There's also the factor that if you want to be in business, you'd better be darn sure your product is safe and reliable for the consumer, because the consumer can very quickly put you out of business by boycotting your product or by not buying your product.

Mr. Hoeppner: [Inaudible - Editor]

The Chairman: Jake, we're going to move on. When I said we had more time, I didn't say it was all yours.

On the way back through the chair to Mr. Calder, Mr. McKinnon, and Mr. Easter, now that we've got some time I would like to ask one question to Meg Claxton and one to either Dr. Olson or Dr. Morrissey.

Meg, because you're involved with so many companies, I'm just curious about what is happening and where Canada stands in terms of attracting investment in the biotech industry compared to our competitors out there - other countries and other areas where they could go. Where do we stand in this?

Ms Claxton: In the area of agriculture it is my understanding that Canada is first in attracting investment in agriculture biotechnology. We do not have the same style as in the pharmaceutical area; the U.S. outranks us there. But from what I was able to learn at the ag-biotech international conference, we have the most investment activity around ag-biotech, both in the small and medium-sized business development area as well as in the funds that are moving in our direction through the larger international players who are locating to do research and commercialization within this country.

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The Chairman: To either Dr. Olson or Dr. Morrissey, my other question is, how does Canada compare in the stringency of its regulatory structure in this whole process of biotechnology? Margaret, you may wish to answer as well. Where do we stack up? I'm being very blunt. Is the interest here because we're easy? I'm not insinuating that we are.

Paul.

Mr. Mayers: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Actually, no, I think our regulatory system, in terms of agricultural biotechnology, is a model internationally for the regulation of biotechnology. Certainly our approach to safety assessment - and I can speak from a food safety perspective because I've been intimately involved internationally in the international developments in that area - has formed the model that is being used internationally for the development of an international approach to guidance in safety assessment for food products derived through the application of genetic modification technology. Just recently the United Nations FAO and WHO held a consultation and used our approach in developing its guidance.

The Chairman: Murray Calder.

Mr. Calder: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to go back to the question I asked earlier, and that's on communications and education. In the schools right now we have a generation coming up that's going to be at least four or five generations away from the farm and thinks that all their food comes from the grocery store. We have a consumer out there who is three to four generations away from the farm, and quite frankly, when we do come out with some new innovations, it scares the heck out of them.

As was stated here previously, the press was here for a farm paper and is going to have about3% of the population read about what we did here. On CPAC, as was previously stated, the ones who want to stay up late are going to see that. So in essence 97% of the population here in Canada is not well communicated to, is not well educated on what we're doing in agriculture.

Conventional agriculture was spoken of here. What's conventional? Twenty-five years ago you had conventional agriculture. That's 25 years outdated by today's conventional agriculture. And 25 years from now, when we start talking about feeding 8 billion people on the face of this earth, our agricultural practices of today are obviously going to be outdated. So the question is what's conventional, and I go back again to communications and education.

From that, when I give a speech on agriculture I usually use an apple, and the apple is the earth. You take a 1/32nd slice out of that apple, pulp and skin, you throw the rest of it away because that's the oceans that are on the face of the earth, the mountain ranges, the deserts, the forests, the cities, the highways. You take that 1/32nd slice and you cut the skin off it, and the skin represents class 1 and class 2 agricultural land currently feeding 5 billion people - and as I said, in another 25 years it will be feeding 8 billion people. And by the way, our cities are built right in the centre of that. That's another thing we have to think about.

Mr. Chairman, I have to compliment you this morning, because when I ask about how we're going to communicate and how we're going to educate...I think this is a pretty good start. We have all the stakeholders here around one table. We have Sally representing the primary producers under the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and we have Chris here at the other end of the scale representing the consumers, and we have everybody in between.

I would like to hear Sally and Chris's comments on what I've just said, and anybody else who wants to jump in, on communications and education.

The Chairman: Sally.

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Ms Rutherford: That's a really tough question. It's something we've been struggling with for a while. When you ask people around our board table and just about everybody else what they think we should do to try to educate people, they talk about ag awareness; we'll just go into the schools and tell everybody about farms. Well, it's not quite that simple. How do you reach everybody else besides that?

I think education has changed; the way people are educated has changed. The simple numbers of people out there has changed and the way people buy groceries has changed. I was reading a piece in the paper the other night about a pilot project in Quebec where people essentially buy their groceries over the Internet, and it appears to be successful. These people aren't even going to go into the grocery stores to see all the display counters showing that your milk comes from a cow. That becomes a real challenge. The latest thing is to put it all on a CD-ROM and have your own home page, and frankly that's not going to work either.

I do not have any answers. I think it's one of the things we really have to struggle with over the next little while. I know the CAC package that Chris was referring to this morning is aimed at essentially educating their reps so they can go out and educate other people. I think that's maybe the way we have to look at it. We're not going to go out and teach classrooms full of kids about anything. It's trying to ensure that the message is very widespread and using a very wide range of tools. If we simply plump for putting everything on a CD-ROM or putting it over the Internet, we're going to lose.

In the end, as Chris pointed out also, the products we're talking about today are primarily bits and pieces that are going to go into food products or other types of products that consumers are going to buy. If you're going to be talking about wheat, there's a wheat that's been genetically altered and it's part of the binder in hot dogs. How do you deal with that?

There are lots of questions for consumers generally, not just about biotech but about agriculture. It's not just an agriculture and food issue; I think it's generally an education and awareness issue around pharmaceuticals and all kinds of other products. We're in an information age, but we've had a major revolution in the way people think and approach information and we haven't quite caught up with how you do that yet.

I think your question is a really good one. We certainly don't have the answer. We're trying, but we don't have the answer.

Now I have just a small plug. The latest project we're going to undertake to try to address that particular issue is to develop a package for guidance counsellors in colleges and high schools, because one of the greatest requests we get is from guidance counsellors looking for information about jobs in agriculture and agrifood. We figure that if we can try to encourage somebody who may have grown up in downtown wherever but has an interest in biology, for example, and if we can steer them towards the agriculture and agrifood industry, we're probably doing a greater service than putting another picture of a pretty cow on the Internet.

The Chairman: We have four other people who wish to comment on this: Chris, Sarah, Meg and Bill.

Ms Mitchler: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think there's a real learning curve. I've found that in my experience as food chair over the last eighteen months or two years. When I think back to the first speech I ever gave on biotechnology, that was almost two years ago. In fact, I was just reading that speech a couple of days ago, partly to prepare for the presentation I gave to you this morning, and frankly I'm more than a little embarrassed by some of the views that were contained in there. I feel I've come a long way and I've learned an awful lot of stuff about biotechnology and I've become much more comfortable about it.

Am I supportive of biotechnology? Personally, I think I probably am. But more importantly, I've become much more aware and much more comfortable about what biotech is, what genetic engineering is, and that it is in fact another tool.

I'd like to draw an analogy in terms of technology. I'm not quite sure when exactly this was happening, but I'm told about our parents or our grandparents and all the furore that pasteurization in milk caused x number of years ago. There was a huge hue and cry over it, with people saying don't mess with my milk. I'm not sure we would ever consider drinking unpasteurized milk today. So it's a learning curve, and I think we have to aspire to a comfort and awareness level.

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Second, I worked over the summer on a project in which I did an inventory of educational resources that exist in Canada and the United States. Frankly, I'm absolutely appalled at the lack of Canadian educational sources on biotechnology. There's darn few of them, and I'm talking about educational sources that provide a sense of balance, that provide not only a sense of what the potential benefits are but also talk about the risks, issues, and challenges and putting in context that this is another tool, it's not the be-all and end-all.

I also think we need a coordinated approach. I think someone needs to take a leadership role in our public communication. I can see the federal government taking a real leadership role in this. The left hand needs to tell the right hand what it's doing so that as stakeholder groups are putting the materials together on informing the public, there's a sense of the big picture, there's consistency of message, so that when materials are put out publicly, whether they be to schools or wherever, consumers aren't getting mixed messages and even more confusing information. There's enough of that in the media. We don't need more. I think what we need is clarification and coordination.

Also, I think a lot can be done to adapt educational tools. The United States is coming up with some marvellous ones. I'm going to be going to the University of Iowa education conference the week after this, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's taking place in the way of education biotech. I'm hoping to bring some of that information back with me, so that I can share it with other stakeholders and tell them some exciting stuff is going on, here's what the art of the possible is, and ask how we can adapt it to the Canadian reality, be it the regulatory framework, which is different here, our culture, which is also a bit different, or whatever.

If these educational materials are effective in informing our children, they'll be effective in informing the moms and the dads. It's not enough just to inform the children, we have to inform the consumers who are going to be in the grocery stores buying these products or who are going to be reading the newspapers and hearing these mixed messages.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Sarah Fiedler Thorn. Go ahead, Sarah.

Ms Sarah Fiedler Thorn (Government Affairs Manager, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Calder, I think you hit it right on when you said people don't understand where their food comes from. With an educational process, they'd understand where their food comes from, how it gets to the grocery store. They don't even know that Dr. Olson and his group are inspecting food and that there's a safety mechanism in the system. It's a process I think everybody has to get involved in, not just the people here.

Another group that needs some education are the people who actually process the food. I think it's everybody's responsibility. We're all working very hard to come up with the best plan. I'm not sure anybody has a magic bullet on that. Farmers are very good communicators and they're well respected. The Consumers' Association has a very fine packet of information, which I've looked over. It's a very balanced thing.

I think the government can do a job in educating the people that there are safety checks in the system. Of course, companies also have the responsibility. We've struggled with the problem that at times we may be considered self-serving as we're talking about these issues, but we all need to be involved in that. Every single one of us in this room has a responsibility to educate.

The Chairman: Thank you, Sarah. Meg is next.

Ms Claxton: There are a couple of points I'd like to make, and one of them is that we're kidding ourselves if we think it's difficult to communicate to people and educate people. There's no country in the world that does not recognize the Coca-Cola label. If we decided in Canada we were going to make that kind of serious commitment to education, it would happen.

Our problem is nickelling and diming our education packages to death. We look at the U.S. and say we will borrow, adapt, and so on. As long as we have the attitude that this is a third-rate project and does not deserve financial commitment and organizational resources to be committed towards it, it is not going to happen.

I think when we have seen a model in which some small effort has been made in that area - and I would look at Saskatchewan, where the level of acceptance towards ag-biotechnology and awareness is fairly high - it's come about with a relatively small commitment of resources. It's not enough, it's never enough. When we talk about what we're going to do in relation to the education program and so on, we always short-change.

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I think that is very unfair, but let's quit kidding ourselves and saying it's tough to get to the consumer, it's tough to get to the public. That's a lie. It is entirely possible with appropriate commitments.

I think our instincts are right. We look towards the schools. That's definitely the first level of understanding, not only because we want the young people to respond to consumers but also because we need the intellectual base, the scientific base, to continue to grow. It's the young people who will do that for us. So there's an urgent need to move into the education system.

I think there's also an urgent need to get serious with the media. We've been playing a game with the media. We've been saying they won't carry our stories, they're not cooperative, they always show the wrong side, they sensationalize. At one time I worked in the media, and I know how very difficult it is to make an exciting story out of a red list of regulatory achievements. There has to be joy there. There has to be enthusiasm. There has to be a clear message about the kinds of benefits and potential we see.

Again, I'm sorry to keep using Saskatchewan models, but that's what I know best.

With the ag-biotech international conference, we had coverage in 144 publications around the world. We had coverage in The Financial Post, which was a major breakthrough for us. We were told this was not a group that would respond. We had coverage every day for nine days, full-page items.

It's a matter of the approach and it's a matter of being serious and making a dedicated effort. In the same way as we dedicate resources to regulatory concerns, in the same way as we dedicate resources to commercialization, we should also dedicate resources to communication and education.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Bill Parks.

Mr. Parks: Mr. Chairman, in reply to Mr. Calder's question - somewhat humorously - we should clone you. Your example is excellent. I have heard the example before, but it does not get said enough times.

I think corporately we have sponsored education in the classroom. We do it primarily where we do business, so that's mostly in Ontario and in Quebec. There's a little bit in Manitoba, a wee bit in Saskatchewan, a wee bit in Alberta. My fear is that agriculture in the classroom happens in towns like Chatham or Fort Macleod or Medicine Hat, where they are fairly rural to begin with, and that we don't get into Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto very effectively at all. I think Meg is entirely right. We nickel and dime it.

Art, there was a bunch of money spilling around here a few minutes ago. Let's scoop up half a billion -

The Chairman: No, no, the money left the meeting.

Mr. Parks: Let's scoop up half a billion dollars of it and do an education system. We aren't doing our job. The Government of Canada is not doing its job. Pioneer's not doing its job. We do not devote enough dollars to the education of our community called Canada. If we put some more dollars into it, I think we could all have people understand us much better. I would encourage that.

The Chairman: Dr. Morrissey. Then I'm going to Mr. McKinnon.

Dr. Morrissey: Thank you, Chairman.

I agree with previous speakers. I think this is the key issue. I think it's the key issue because with new technologies such as biotech, fear of the unknown is the underlying problem. If you ask yourself how you overcome fear of the unknown and make the issue known, that raises the question of how you do it. The best way I found to do it is to provide objective information - and the key word is ``objective'' - and let people draw their own conclusions. Don't push your conclusions on them. Respect their intelligence.

Again, the underlying principle is if you take a position of high advocacy, you have low credibility.

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So how do you do it? Provide objective information. That raises the question of who to target. I would have been tempted to target opinion leaders because it's a smaller number to get to, and I would have targeted a few limited groups who tend to be the groups consulted by the media when an issue breaks. They are people who are seen by the public as having high credibility.

So the first group I would target is elected officials, the reason being that they decide whether you'll be allowed to use these technologies or not. The second would have been consumers groups because they're interviewed regularly and they're seen as having high credibility, and the environmental groups would be third for the same reasons. Those two groups have significant credibility in my mind around whether the public will accept it. So I would target elected officials regarding whether you'll be allowed to use it and consumer and environmental groups around whether the public will accept it.

Thank you, chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

We have six other people who wish to comment and we do not have a lot of time. I waited until after Mr. Calder spoke this time to say that we had to be brief. He took offence when I told him that before. But I will tell the rest of you that we don't have nearly as much time to spend on your questions, so probably everybody won't get to answer.

Mr. McKinnon.

Mr. McKinnon: Let me simply compliment all of you for your presentations here today.

It's boggling to someone of my vintage when I think back to some of the things I've read over the years. I'm reminded of a story I heard, I think when I was in grade 4. None of you will be able to recollect this, but it was about the child who was sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner and the food was reduced to a pill, and he reached out unknowingly and grabbed the turkey and ate it all by himself, one pill.

Maybe our expectations of what we're doing with food have varied. I'm talking about the 50-pound turkey. I'm reminded also of the brontosaurus that I studied in university. Of course, it had to live in water in order to support its own body weight and when the water started to dry up it actually became extinct because of climatic changes.

That is not what I'm trying to get to. My thesis today would be that what we're talking about here is the management of change. That's really what we're trying to do.

I attended a reception, I think in the fall of 1994, put on over in the Press Club by the people who were involved in the production side of biotech. They were concerned about the fact that the regulations weren't keeping up with the technologies at that time. My question is to you as a group. How are we doing in that area, in terms of keeping technology abreast of the needs that the corporations that are involved in this enterprise are facing?

Dr. Zeph: I'm the voice of the regulated community here.

It's a very difficult issue, because again our experience comes from the plant genetics area. The changes and the technological breakthroughs over the last ten years have been tremendous. Just keeping track of the methodologies that are used is very difficult. By and large, I'd say across the major industrialized countries they've managed to increase staff enough, to bring in experts who know the areas of molecular biology, ecology, and genetics. They keep pace, but I think it's just barely keeping pace. It's a very difficult challenge.

Our experience with the Canadian system in particular has been quite positive. They've had the expertise in each of the areas. I think it comes back again to the issue that because of these specialized technical issues, it's very important that the individual agencies with the expertise be allowed to regulate the products.

The Chairman: Mr. Collins.

Mr. Collins (Souris - Moose Mountain): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Again, on behalf of all of us I commend you for excellent presentations. It's always a pleasure to be able to have the expertise that each of you brings to this forum for us. I really believe as part of the group that we get a lot more done through cooperation than confrontation. I think that's where we really have to get to the essence of where we're going.

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It bothers me. Somebody said it takes ten years to get things by, on-stream, and going. If we're going to move into the 21st century, I hope that's one of the things we get dedicated to.

Coming from Guelph and out west, I know there's a tremendous amount of respect for the work being done through the university and, I'm sure, Doctor, through your efforts.

As I travelled around, especially over to Ireland and England...it seems that people have moved away from concern about BSE and the problem with the cattle. As a consumer, I absolutely refused to take anything that was a variety of beef. Everything became chicken or something else. Yet I read that the agricultural people think it will go away. We're going to pay, I think, a very, very expensive price in doing that.

I listened to what you said with regard to a producer. I think it's right. If we can't trust one another and be on-board with 99% of what we're doing - because it's in your best interest to bring on a product that people are going to accept, respect, and utilize - if we're going to wonder about your motives, we'll certainly wonder about your product. You have to be a leader.

I really say to you from the consumer advocate group that it was a pleasure to have you here. You're part of all of us, and as you feel comfortable I think you make us feel comfortable as we move through.

What I want to know - and this is on the agricultural side - is how we are going to improve shelf life for a product moving into southeast Asia. I know they're looking to us as a prime provider of that.

The Chairman: I'll ask Dr. Olson to address that, and then I'm going to Mr. Easter, because our time is running out.

Dr. Olson: We use a variety of technologies. Mr. McKinnon and I share somewhat the same age, I have a feeling.

The Chairman: The same barber too.

Dr. Olson: When I was doing my undergraduate work at the University of Alberta, I visited a dairy plant in Edmonton, at which the federal government then required inspectors whenever the line was running. We now visit a dairy plant about three times a year. I don't know when any of you had a litre of milk that was sour. That is not an issue any more. It is no longer a concern. The milk supply that was considered high risk forty years is not. It's one of the safest products you can buy in a whole variety of ways.

Transferring that technology to other countries is what we do rather well. The kinds of things that Canada has done with its processing systems, its health of animals, its feed production systems, and all of those kinds of issues are what made our dairy industry as safe an industry as it is. Part of the benefit, in fairness, goes to the structure we have for marketing milk, but the reality is we created an opportunity that guaranteed good product. That technology can be transferred, and we're hopeful we'll do it.

We also have the advantage - and I know Dr. Morrissey could comment in depth - of being very effective in making international contacts with new technologies. The work on meat that comes from his research station in Lacombe, for instance, has guaranteed access into the Pacific Rim that we would never have had otherwise...because of the shelf life he's been able to bring to products going into that market.

The Chairman: Brian.

Dr. Morrissey: I'll take a moment, Mr. Chairman, to add to what Dr. Olson said.

Shelf life is largely a function of two variables: one, getting your bacterial counts low at the start; and two, keeping them low.

As Art has said, at Lacombe we've devised for meat the sort of technology we've had for milk for a long time. We are pasteurizing whole hog carcasses by in effect passing them through a shower at the right temperature. That gets you down from about three logs of bacteria to one. The second part is to keep those bacterial counts low. One of the techniques available - and now I'm moving from hogs to other things - is modified gas atmosphere. The product is put into an atmosphere that discourages bacterial growth and the old technique of refrigeration.

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Thank you, Chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Easter.

Mr. Easter: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, certainly want to congratulate all of you on the information brought forward today. As Lyle and I well know, we had a good tour...if we hadn't walked all across Saskatoon to get there, Lyle.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: They told us it was just a little distance away. They didn't tell us the meeting was on the other side of the campus.

Mr. Easter: We got our exercise.

I do get concerned when we start to talk about selling biotech, because I think you can sell anything. In today's society, through advertising, you can sell a harmful product or a good one, either through misinformation or information.

I, for one, have taken a lot of flak on the rBST issue from some people within the industry. And I don't mind that. Earlier Dr. Zeph talked about favouring a product-based system, and I think, Dr. Zeph, that you mean a system that approves products on a product-by-product basis. Even if rBST passes the system, that's acceptable to me, but I want to be able to ensure that it does pass the system.

The key for me, Mr. Chairman, is that we must have confidence in our system. That's what has to be sold, not biotech. We must have confidence in our system, so that whether it's a biotech product or any other product it passes the regulatory requirements and the health and safety standards, and when it's through the system consumers and the international public can feel confident about that product. We have a great reputation in that area.

As well, Dr. Zeph, I think you raised four points. I didn't get them all written down but I'll pull them from the record. I think points one and four are concerns. One you raised was CEPA, which concerns me too, with the possibility that there may be an overall policing agency over and above what we currently have. Would you comment on that? I think you'll find that there's favour in this committee for the current system and improvements to it. But the House of Commons is out there, and there are others who are saying we need a CEPA or a super-agency. I don't think we do. What is your view?

Dr. Zeph: This is an issue that has been debated quite extensively, even internationally, and the conclusion of the majority of countries is that it's just not feasible or even scientifically sound to have a single agency regulating this diverse set of products.

Look at the chemical industry, which is a good analogy. This would be the same as trying to regulate human and animal pharmaceuticals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, food chemicals and feed chemicals all in one agency. The amount of expertise you would have to combine in that agency is something that I don't think any government has attempted. I think it's a good analogy. The majority of governments around the world have come to the conclusion that it's best to just focus on the end use and the existing legislation to regulate these products.

The Chairman: With that, ladies and gentlemen - and looking at the time - we will conclude. Thank you, committee members. Thank you, witnesses and presenters, for what I think has been a very worthwhile meeting today.

I think we have emphasized that in this tremendous industry that we're all involved in, the agrifood industry, we face a lot of challenges, but we also face an incredible number of opportunities. It's up to all of us and to others to meet and beat those challenges and take advantage of the opportunities.

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In the last few minutes it has been emphasized - and I tend to simplify things too often - that the best way to be in business is to have confidence. You must have confidence in those who wish your product. What product do human beings need more than food? We may vary on the other needs and desires we have in life, but we all need food.

We in Canada are justly proud. We don't have to gain confidence with our own consumers domestically or outside our country regarding the standards, quality and safety of the food we provide. We have that confidence now. When technologies change, we need to continue to provide that confidence to consumers at home or abroad, because the only way anybody stays in business is to do a good job. If we can continue to do the job that we have done in providing safe, high-quality food to all those who use products produced here in Canada, whether here or abroad, we will continue to have a strong industry.

Thank you very much. We look forward to other meetings and activities that will take place. I hope a good number of people take at least a few minutes to watch portions of this on CPAC, as I'm sure it will be televised more than once. We've gone a long way today in doing some of the things we were talking about, in particular broadening the knowledge and awareness of this issue. So thank you very much for your participation.

Mr. Parks: I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be part of your consultation today and also thank you for your hospitality. It's been very much appreciated.

The Chairman: You're welcome.

The meeting is adjourned.

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