FEDERAL government and food industry officials likely don’t see it this way but they are losing ground in the political battle to deny consumers the right to know if their food contains genetically modified ingredients.
Despite official efforts to promote a voluntary labelling scheme, consumer support for mandatory GM labels remains strong and evidence grows that the federal agency which oversees GM products and the department it reports to – the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture Canada – are too close to the biotechnology industry to credibly claim an arms-length overseer role.
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It wasn’t supposed to be this contentious. More than three years ago, Agriculture Canada and its industry friends thought the appropriate way to end the labelling debate was to develop a voluntary labelling standard.
But hope of a quick introduction of a voluntary standard evaporated when groups gathered under the auspices of the Canadian General Standards Board were unable to come up with acceptable rules.
The committee is asking for more Agriculture Canada money to continue the process, and will likely get it, but the political momentum has been lost.
More accurately, it has shifted.
Critics of GM foods have used the three years of voluntary rules delay to expose the close ties between government and the industry.
Access-to-information documents unearthed by anti-GM campaigners have shown the extent to which Agriculture Canada research has been involved in developing GM varieties.
They have exposed political collaboration so close that when Greenpeace planned a labelling demonstration at Toronto supermarkets several years ago, CFIA officials and Monsanto leaders consulted on how to get “their” message out that GM foods are safe and don’t need mandatory labels. Access to information documents show that government and the developers of GM products see themselves as being on the same team.
In late April 2001, for example, a memo to deputy agriculture minister Samy Watson after a meeting with the chair of a pro-GM industry task force reminded him that government-sponsored consumer research on GM labelling would be turned over to the industry.
It came when the Liberal government and industry were teaming up to defeat a private member’s bill by former Liberal environment minister Charles Caccia that called for mandatory labelling.
These examples of government-industry collaboration surely undermine the perception of the government as an arms-length overseer. Industry’s inaccurate contentions that credible scientists don’t have doubts and that political support for a voluntary scheme is solid surely undermine credibility.
Government and industry insistence that industry-controlled voluntary labelling meets the consumer demand for more information stretches common sense, particularly since government agrees not all is known about effects of long-term GM consumption and post-marketing research is needed.
And the insistence that consumers have no right to expect content information beyond science-based health and safety assurances defies democratic logic.
It is akin to suggesting consumers would have no right to insist automobiles built abroad using forced labour be excluded from the Canadian market, or at least be labelled as long as they pass safety tests.
