Mulcair needs to clarify GMO stance

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Published: August 4, 2015

A Saskatchewan farmer says Tom Mulcair should be honest with producers, and all Canadians, when it comes to genetically modified foods.

Monday night an Ontario producer posted a photo of Mulcair on Twitter, where the NDP leader posed with advocates and activists who support mandatory labeling of GMO foods in Canada.

The photo, taken this winter in Ottawa, shows Mulcair holding up a “GMOs just label it” t-shirt with Rachel Parent, an Ontario teenager who opposes GMO technology and is campaigning for mandatory labeling.

Lucy Sharratt, who leads the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, an anti-GMO organization, was also in the photo.

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Rob Stone, who farms near Davidson, Sask., said a six month old photo doesn’t prove that Mulcair supports GMO labeling. But the NDP leader and potential Prime Minister needs to clarify his position.

“I think it’s a really important thing for everyone to know,” said Stone. “This is a serious, massive thing for Canadian agriculture.”

Last year Murray Rankin, NDP MP from Victoria, introduced a motion in the House of Commons asking the federal government to introduce mandatory labeling of GM foods.

As well, a petition on the NDP website, http://petition.ndp.ca/the-food-you-eat, asks Canadians to back GM labeling rules.

Stone said that sort of information suggests the federal NDP support mandatory labeling, but their position should be more definitive.

“We have to make an assumption because we haven’t had any clarification,” said Stone, who checked the websites of several NDP candidates, to see where they stand on the issue. “It would be up to them to clarify for us… for the people knowing where they stand.”

Stone said this is larger than labeling of GM foods. If anti-technology and anti-agriculture campaigners are influencing politicians, it has implications for all sorts of agriculture policies.

“What does this do to innovation in the future?… What does that do to investment in Canada if we have a very backwards approach to things?” he said.

“Canada has prospered and built itself around science, technology and innovation. To see that type of back in time, listening to the activist approach to how they’re going to run our economy, it’s really very concerning for me.”

The Western Producer called Malcolm Allen, NDP agriculture critic during the last parliamentary session and a candidate in Welland, Ont., to discuss the party’s position on GM labeling.

Allen wasn’t available as of press time.

Robert.arnason@producer.com

 

 

 

 

 

About the author

Robert Arnason

Robert Arnason

Reporter

Robert Arnason is a reporter with The Western Producer and Glacier Farm Media. Since 2008, he has authored nearly 5,000 articles on anything and everything related to Canadian agriculture. He didn’t grow up on a farm, but Robert spent hundreds of days on his uncle’s cattle and grain farm in Manitoba. Robert started his journalism career in Winnipeg as a freelancer, then worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Nipawin, Saskatchewan and Fernie, BC. Robert has a degree in civil engineering from the University of Manitoba and a diploma in LSJF – Long Suffering Jets’ Fan.

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