MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2002

Liberals kill study on GMO labelling

Ottawa - Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians today condemned a government move that ends a crucial Commons health committee study into the labelling of genetically engineered food.

The study was the health committee's first look into genetic engineering, but it will stop prematurely this week. As a result, the biotech and grocery industries are free to complete their own voluntary labelling policy through a government advisory board.

"First, the Liberals defeat a bill that would enact mandatory labelling of GE food, and now they end the study they promised Canadians instead," said Eric Darier of Greenpeace. "Anne McLellan's just let Monsanto and Loblaws decide what Canadians are allowed to know."

Darier said the Liberals' slide began last October, when they defeated a Liberal MP's private member's bill, C-287, that would have implemented mandatory labelling. MPs from all parties voted for the bill, including 34 Liberals, due to massive public support. Polls put support for mandatory labels at 95 per cent.

A week before the vote, senior cabinet ministers Rock, Tobin, Pettigrew, and Vanclief (Cabinet's leading opponent of mandatory labeling) referred the issue to the health committee, advising all Liberal MPs that they wanted a more in depth study of this issue.

"Many of us have always viewed this call for a committee study as a delay tactic," says Nadège Adam of the Council of Canadians. " This latest manoeuvre confirms it."

Adam explained that Health Minister Anne McLellan delayed the study by referring Bill C-53, her pesticide bill, to the health committee. NGOs fear their request to have both issues dealt with simultaneously will be ignored causing the GE label study to be delayed.

"By introducing Bill C-53, Minister McLellan is killing two birds with one stone," affirms Adam, "first, they get to appear to be proactive on crucial environmental issues and second, they get to shut down a public discussion on GE labelling that could have been quite embarrassing for this government."

Nadège Adam and Eric Darier will appear before the Health Committee tomorrow at 11AM in Parliament Hill's West Block, Room 269. They will be two of the last people to present arguments in the labelling debate before the study is suspended.

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