More than three years after scientists with the Royal Society of Canada recommended how to strengthen Canada’s regulation of genetically modified foods and crops, a new report from GM skeptics accuses the government of failing to follow the advice it requested.
The report by the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute, which campaigns for citizen action to counter corporate power, said the government’s failure to act means it should adopt the Royal Society’s fallback position of mandatory labelling.
“It is the only way for consumers to be able to make a judgment,” said Peter Andrée, a policy researcher in the environmental and resource program at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and co-author of the report.
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“The reality is that the government has not taken most of the steps recommended to strengthen the regulatory system.”
He said one of the greatest government failures is that there is no co-ordinated program of long-term research into the impact of GM plants and food. A 12-year study at the Agriculture Canada research centre in Lethbridge is “the only longish-term study on this that the department is doing. That’s hardly enough.”
He said there also is little evidence that the government, including the health and agriculture departments, is conducting the ongoing monitoring of GM decisions and the resulting products that the Royal Society scientists recommended as part of a strengthened regulatory regime.
There has been no serious examination of “the ongoing domination of the public research agenda by commercial interests,” said the report.
Andrée said it is clear the federal government and Agriculture Canada have a pro-biotechnology bias and it could affect regulatory decisions.
“There obviously is a close relationship between Agriculture Canada and the biotech companies,” he said.
“When they have to make a judgment call, it is not surprising they lean toward the industry. They often are partners.”
While lauding the government for responding to several Royal Society recommendations including a study of the interactions between transgenic and wild fish, the Polaris report said not enough has been done.
The government still is not committed to using the precautionary principle of “looking carefully before you leap by weighing all options and the potential risks involved,” the report complained.
“There are many holes in the regulatory system and we believe that the limited progress made now requires the government to legislate mandatory labelling of GM foods,” said Andrée.
The labelling issue likely will be raised in the House of Commons during the next year through a private member’s bill. Prime minister Paul Martin has promised more parliamentary votes on private members’ motions and more MP freedom to vote their opinion rather than the party line.
In previous Parliaments, the issue has been voted on and each vote has been closer, despite strenuous lobbying by agribusiness and most farm lobbyists against mandatory labelling.
The new Parliament contains more than 100 new MPs and the mandatory labelling lobby believes there is a chance the next vote could win.
