Protesters were expected to gather outside selected Agriculture Canada research centres across Canada April 1 to protest use of public facilities to test and develop genetically engineered crops.
From Ottawa to Indian Head, Sask., Charlottetown to Morden, Man., representatives of environmental and organic groups planned to demonstrate against what they say is an inappropriate alliance between the department and multinational biotechnology companies.
While the government refuses to say publicly where GE crops are being grown experimentally, claiming that it is the right of their private sector partners to have commercial privacy, documents obtained by environmentalists point to at least 12 Agriculture Canada research sites across Canada. These include four sites in Saskatchewan (Swift Current, Scott, Saskatoon and Indian Head), three in Manitoba (Brandon, Winnipeg and Morden) and two in Alberta (Lethbridge and Fort Vermilion.)
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The experimental crops include potatoes, wheat, canola, alfalfa and sugar beets.
“They are doing a tremendous amount of research that benefits primarily Monsanto and other large biotech companies,” Andrea Peart of the Sierra Club of Canada said in a March 28 interview in Ottawa. “We’re talking about a shift in how public facilities are used and in whose benefit. Shouldn’t public money and publicly financed facilities be used to help farmers rather than multinationals?”
In a statement issued by the organizers, Marc Loiselle of the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate in Saskatoon said contamination from modified crops is an “imminent threat” to organic growers.
At Steinbach, Man., Janine Gibson of Canadian Organic Growers said Agriculture Canada should stop genetically modified crop experiments.
“We are calling for an immediate halt to further testing of GE crops, particularly wheat, at government facilities,” she said.
In Ottawa, access-to-information researcher and organic farmer Ken Rubin said co-operation between the federal government and private sector developers and promoters of genetically engineered foods “conflicts with how many Canadians want to see research done and taxpayers’ money spent.”
Rubin has been responsible for prying many of the GE-related documents out of the government.
