Fall
2015
grainswest.com
35
GMOs and GMO
Labelling
Neonics
Trans-Pacific
Partnership
and Supply
Management
Mark Eyking
Liberal,
Sydney-Victoria, NS
Gerry Ritz
Conservative,
Battlefords-Lloydminster, SK
Malcolm Allen
NDP, Welland, ON (running in
new riding of Niagara Centre)
“There’s nothing that shows that
GM foods are less than nutritious.
They’re far more energy efficient.
[GMO labelling] is totally unnec-
essary. Everything goes through
an extremely stringent process by
Health Canada. To talk about man-
datory labelling, especially as the
NDP have talked about, is redun-
dant. It serves no purpose.”
“We would never be heavy-hand-
ed and mandate that kind of thing,”
he said regarding reductions in
neonic-treated seed. “Farmers and
seed guys themselves have coated
seed and newways to put it in the
ground. Industry is adjusting to the
realities of the day. There’s no sci-
entific, peer-reviewed [study] that
says neonics is the culprit. It might
be any number of things.”
“There’s just not enough science
from our perspective to totally ban
neonics. So we are not on the same
side as the Ontario government
right now. Ontario growers are
competing with growers just a cou-
ple hundred miles south of them or
east or west. So I think when you’re
approaching not just neonics, but
any kind of decision like this, it has
to be more of a national decision.”
“We’ve continued to say we need
to look at the science of it. We want
the partners to work together. If it
becomes, ‘let’s not do it here, but
we can do it over there,’ that’s not
a good situation for farmers. They
want to know that everyone is on
the same playing field. I think that’s
appropriate. So we’ve never called
for a moratorium, nor have I called
for banning.”
“I think we can have both GMand
non-GMcrops in this country, no
doubt. I mean some of the Euro-
pean countries have dabbled in
picking winners and losers, but I
think we can have both. At the end
of the day, science says both prod-
ucts are safe, healthy and nutritious.
We’re not in favour of mandatory la-
belling because there’s no reason,
because it’s not a food safety issue.”
“We’ve been genetically improving
and changing grain for eons. We
just used to basically do it in a very
crude way, whereas nowwe do it in
a more scientific way. Certainly, on
the labelling piece, what we said
is we’d go back and take a look at
labelling. We’ve always been clear
that we think we should have clear
labelling that makes sense to folks.”
“There’s huge potential with [the]
Pacific Rim and [the] TPP. I’m quite
optimistic that we’ll end up with a
result at the end of the day. Things
will get done. Everybody recogniz-
es that. Every country has conces-
sions. The supply-managed farmers
want to be part of the solution,
not part of the problem,” he said,
indicating the TPP does not mean
the end of supply management.
“They’re willing to take a little water
in their wine. We all are.”
“I think with the European agree-
ment and [the] TPP they’ve done
a big injustice to supply manage-
ment. One of the biggest issues
in any agreement with any other
country is always agriculture. I have
yet to find a country that doesn’t
have some sort of protection or
sensitive crop or product in their
country. So I think, at the end of the
day, they’ve failed supply-manage-
ment farmers by even having it on
the table.”
“We’ve been clear that we support
supply management. The big issue
for me with the Canadian delega-
tion and this government is if you’re
desperate for a deal, you get taken
advantage of. If you’re going to
bargain a deal and your opponents
know you desperately want it, they
will take advantage of you. That’s
how bargaining works. This gov-
ernment is desperate to get a TPP
deal, and you end up not in a good
position.”
GrainsWest
quizzed
AgricultureMinister Gerry
Ritz, Liberal agriculture critic
Mark Eyking and NDP
agriculture critic Malcolm
Allen about their positions
on a variety of issues that are
important to farmers. For the
extended interviews, visit
grainswest.com.
