Forcing labels onto genetically modified food in Canada would cause a
major trade crisis, Agriculture Canada officials warned MPs last week.
They were testifying before the House of Commons health committee,
which opened hearings into GM labelling.
A mandatory labelling law “could place our agricultural trade at risk,”
Michael Presley told the committee Feb.7.
The director general of Agriculture Canada’s food bureau said
mandatory labels could violate World Trade Organization and North
American Free Trade Agreement rules.
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A requirement to label food according to their GMO content “would
almost certainly be strongly rejected by the United States,” he said.
It is one of the reasons Agriculture Canada has been promoting a
voluntary labelling scheme.
Meanwhile, Canadian Food Inspection Agency vice-president Peter
Brackenridge told MPs that enforcing mandatory labels would be “a
challenge.” It would require better testing for food content and a
sophisticated trace-back system for food product ingredients.
“It would be a formidable task to deal with it,” he said.
In a later interview, Brackenridge said mandatory GM labels would force
regulators to spend more time assessing food labelled GMO-free than
they would food labelled as containing GM ingredients.
“If they were claiming that it did contain genetically modified
ingredients, we’d probably be assuming they were being truthful and not
being misleading,” he said. “Our efforts would probably be focused on
those who would be claiming non-genetically modified ingredients
because presumably they would be expecting to get some kind of market
opportunity with that statement.”
Administering a mandatory labelling system would be a costly and
uncertain enterprise, he added. It would be some years before the
technology and tracing system exists to make enforcement credible.
