In an unexpected twist, MPs have decided to end public hearings into a contentious private member’s bill that would add a market impact assessment to approval of new genetically modified varieties.
Bill C-474 is now back before the House of Commons for a final vote, which almost certainly will see it defeated since both Liberals and Conservatives will vote against it. The vote could come later this autumn.
On Oct. 27, MPs voted on a request from the agriculture committee to extend public hearings by up to 30 days. Although the Conservatives opposed the request, it was expected to pass because opposition parties had united at committee to ask for the extension.
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Instead, because they wanted to avoid voting on another contentious private member’s bill that would create a code of ethics for Canadian mining companies operating abroad, more than a dozen Liberal MPs and four New Democrats skipped all the votes.
The Conservatives won the C-474 vote by a margin of four.
The agriculture committee was so certain of the outcome that it had organized a meeting early the next morning that had representatives of the Canadian Wheat Board, Grain Growers of Canada, CropLife Canada and the University of Guelph fly in from across the country. The meeting was cancelled and the witnesses sent home the next morning.
An angry Atamanenko blamed the Conservatives, accusing them of sabotaging his bill by arranging the vote on the same night as the mining vote that they knew would be skipped by some opposition MPs.
He called it “an affront to the democratic process and a personal affront to me.”
Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, blamed the Conservatives for killing the hearings “in order to protect the biotech industry from any more scrutiny.”
But it was the absence of Liberals who supported the extension of hearings that killed the proposal. The Conservatives had been clear they would vote against it.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter, who was there for the count, said it was a mistake by the Liberals not to make sure there were enough members present to win the vote. MPs could have voted on C-474 and then left before the mining vote happened half an hour later.
“It is embarrassing and it didn’t have to be that way,” he said.
Saskatchewan Conservative MP Randy Hoback, a member of the agriculture committee, said the no-show MPs were typical of the Liberal dual message on the issue of GM technology. They vowed to oppose the legislation but wanted more hearings.
“Why would you waste committee time when the two sides of the argument are clear if you plan to vote it down at the end?” he asked. “The Liberal position, Wayne’s position, confused and frustrated me and I’m sure it did the same for farmers.”
Easter said more hearings were useful because the market impact of GM varieties is an issue that must be addressed, and while Atamanenko’s bill was too vague on how it would be done, it is an issue that must be addressed.
“There were a lot of good witnesses who wanted to be heard and some good information they have that needed to be gleaned,” he said.
Opponents of Atamanenko’s bill saw the outcome of the vote as a good one.
Groups including Grain Growers of Canada and CropLife Canada lobbied strenuously against the hearings and the bill, arguing that the debate was creating doubt about Canada’s commitment to science-based regulation of the biotechnology industry and already was having an effect on investment in Canada’s plant development companies.
“We are pleased by the result because since the Liberals had said they would vote against it in the end, why waste the committee’s time for weeks on hearings on something that is not going to pass,” said Grain Growers executive director Richard Phillips. “The debate was undermining confidence in our science-based approach.”
National Farmers Union president Terry Boehm, who was scheduled to speak Oct. 28 in favour of the bill, shot back that economic analysis is considered a science.
“At least it was when I studied economics.”
