GE-free Prince Edward Island

Nearly a decade after the introduction of GE farming in Canada, Prince Edward Island Premier Pat Binns has initiated public hearings to examine prospects for a GE-free PEI. The public hearings are of great interest across Canada. A GE-free PEI would be a guaranteed source of GE-free food for Canadian consumers. As in the case of labelling in Quebec, it would set an important precedent for the rest of the country. Finally, PEI's initiative is a reminder to other premiers, especially Quebec's Jean Charest, who has promised GE labelling - that the provinces are fully empowered to assume leadership on the GE issue on the basis of a precautionary approach. Provinces do not need to wait for the federal government to act.

Greenpeace supports a GE-free PEI and presented a brief to the Prince Edward Island Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Environment to encourage PEI to become a GE-free province. Greenpeace recommends the following measures for PEI to become an authentic GE-free zone:

• Ban GE crops on the island.
• Eliminate GMOs in animal feed.
• Ban GE fish.
• Institute mandatory GE labelling.
• Adopt policies to foster ecologically and socially sustainable agriculture.
• Publicize the GE-free zone and encourage other governments to follow suit.

On December 1, 2005, the Standing Committee recommended that the government of Prince Edward Island support the use of labelling of food products, produced or sold within Canada, indicating they contain or do not contain GM ingredients. To provide consumers with a choice, the Committee also supports labelling of foods that are and are not products of genetic modification, and points out that such labels should be informative, understandable and verifyable. Further, the Committee believes that the speed at which labelling appears in the marketplace will be driven by the importance of the issue to consumers and points out that labelling may provide a producer or processor with flexibility to accentuate or differentiate their product in the marketplace and thus provide a market advantage. '

For more information on the Standing Committee go to: http://www.assembly.pe.ca/reports/1-3-62GMOs.pdf