Early in his mandate that begins late this week, prime minister Paul Martin will be asked by Canada’s largest consumer lobby to reverse the government’s opposition to mandatory labelling for food containing genetically modified material.
Last week, the Consumers’ Association of Canada published the results of an October national poll indicating that 91 percent of Canadian consumers want government to require mandatory GM labels on their food.
“Once the new government is in place, we will be there to put some pressure on,” CAC vice-president of issues and policy Peggy Kirkeby said in a Dec. 5 interview from Edmonton. “This has become in a lot of ways a battle over the rights of citizens in a democratic country to have their views respected by their own government.”
Read Also
Government, industry seek canola tariff resolution
Governments and industry continue to discuss how best to deal with Chinese tariffs on Canadian agricultural products, particularly canola.
Martin has said one of his priorities will be ending what he has called the democratic deficit in Canada that has reduced citizen influence over government.
The CAC rejects government and industry insistence that mandatory labelling is impractical.
“Voluntary systems just don’t work and consumers don’t trust them,” Kirkeby said in a statement when the poll results were published Dec. 3. “It’s time for the federal government to stop stalling, listen to consumers and introduce mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods.”
As it stands, a voluntary system of labelling is expected to take effect early in 2004 and the chair of the government-supported committee that created the proposed standard said consumers can use the presence of a voluntary system to pressure food companies to label.
“If Canadian consumers really want labels, then they can pressure the industry and I would suggest the industry should listen to what their customers are saying,” said Doryne Peace of Toronto, chair of the Canadian General Standards Board committee that spent more than three years developing a voluntary standard.
In a Dec. 5 interview, Peace said the results of the CAC poll conducted by the polling company Decima did not surprise her.
“There have been earlier polls that said much the same thing,” she said. “But there are other criteria that Canadians should think about (on food issues) but I don’t think they do in answering a simple question like that.”
The food companies, many farm groups and government argue that labelling should be related to health and safety issues. GM-containing products are put to the same tests as conventionally produced food and labels should not reflect the production process but the health, safety and nutrition content.
Kirkeby said consumers simply want more information. The food industry fears that labels proclaiming GM content may make consumers suspicious of the product.
“I would assume if they have a good product they will be able to educate people about its benefits,” she said. “It is ironic that the industry says we don’t need the information we are calling for through mandatory labels but voluntary labels will give us all the information we need and their commitment is to informed consumer choice. There seems to be a contradiction there.”
Kirkeby said there are two private members’ bills in Parliament now calling for mandatory labelling and Martin has promised more free votes. She also noted that when the last vote was held on the issue, Martin did not take part.
Until earlier this year, the CAC was part of the attempt to design voluntary labelling standards. Then, there was a personnel shakeup in the national volunteer organization and the CAC pulled out of the general standards committee and its “dead end.”
In November at the annual meeting, CAC delegates voted overwhelmingly in favour of mandatory labelling.
