Joe asked:
what is the status of GMO in Canada? in crops and in product labelling?
My reply, in general, is below. How much GMO food are we eating?
But it’s about to become a WHOLE LOT MORE.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is trying to make significant regulatory changes to Seed Variety Registration in Canada.
See 2013-05-21 ACTION ALERT: Stop Corporate Control Over Our Seeds. Deadline Thur May 23
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MY REPLY TO JOE’S QUESTION IS GENERAL:
– LABELLING: There is no labelling of GMO content in food in Canada (or in the U.S.)
There was an early and huge battle to obtain labelling of GMO’s. In the end the decision was going to turn on the input from the Consumers Assoc of Canada. The industry got to them with lots of money and guess who the Consumers Assoc supported?
We lost the battle to require labelling of GMO content.
The food supply in Canada is as laced with GMO’s as is the American (“harmonization” is focused on conformity with the corporate interest in “North America”).
– CROPS: (GM plants spread; visually you can’t tell the difference between a not-GM kernel or seed and one that is GM’d. The seed has to be tested in a lab. Also, the industry tells a distorted story. The focus may be on “virus resistance” (squash), or “delayed ripening” (tomatoes), or “improved nutrition” (rice). They don’t tell you that the majority of the crops are genetically modified so they can withstand chemical applications, that “super weeds” and “super bugs” are Nature’s response (within a very short time) and the situation is that MORE chemicals are required and MORE POTENT chemicals (poisons). This is now built right into our food supply.
CANOLA (the first and the biggest in Canada) – GM canola has taken over; it’s not possible to get canola that isn’t GM. Any product that contains canola oil has GMO content. The industry has done a thorough job of convincing people that canola is a superior and healthy food.
CORN – Corn is one of the largest GMO’d crops in the U.S. Not much is grown in Saskatchewan, I don’t know how much you have in Ontario. The Mexicans tried to protect their corn (original maize) by passing a law against GMO corn. But their corn is now contaminated with GM corn.
Who knows how much GM corn we are eating in various foods? Think of just one ingredient, corn meal – tacos, corn chips, . . . lots of different foods.
GM WHEAT AND ALFALFA – two crops that the industry is fighting hard to get. The battle has been raging for a few years to stop them.
GM FLAX – another battle (about 15 years for some people) that seemed to have been won, but then these pernicious interests come back and infiltrate in another way. After reading the last Flax Growers Newsletter, I am afraid that GM (called by another name) flax is on its way.
– Regulation of GMO’s in Canada is “harmonized” with the U.S. (done through the CFIA (Cdn Food Inspection Agency)). The U.S. side of the regulation is effectively run by Monsanto. I am encouraged, the outrage is mounting – citizen demand for a congressional hearing into Monsanto’s skulduggery and the recent Monsanto Protection Act May Soon be Repealed, Thanks to Activism
– Canadian tax-payers generally foot at least half the bill for development of GMO food through Government matching of research dollars spent by the corporation.
– In addition, UNIVERSITIES are used to develop the “science” around GMOs. And to produce the agricultural reps who become the bureaucrats in the CFIA and PMRA and provincial departments of agriculture. In Saskatchewan the Government recently gave directed funding to the University for the “Global Institute for Food Security”. It’s a centre to serve the “research needs” of the chem-biotech industry.
– It doesn’t end there. The NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (NRC) is heavily into GMOs. (My nephew had a summer job there a few years back.) Yesterday I talked with a scientist from the NRC. He said that they are feeling the effects of the Feds withdrawing money from science. “The NRC will do anything for money and it doesn’t matter who it’s coming from, or for what, whether it’s Monsanto or BASF or Bayer Crop Science.”
That’s a bit of a run-down Joe, I hope it answers your questions.
Keep up the good fight!
Sandra