BC voters demand GE labelling

Canadians want to know what they are eating.  When sitting down with the family for dinner in the evening or packing school lunches, they want to know whether or not the food they are feeding their children has been contaminated with unnatural organisms engineered by agricultural and chemical companies bent on increasing their profits. Right now people have no way of telling if their food has been genetically modified. Unlike many countries around the world, there is currently no requirement in Canada for genetically engineered (GE) ingredients to be listed on the label, as there is for fat content, the amount of salt or the calorie count.

DNA for dinner
Greenpeace intends to change that with the backing of BC residents, who, according to a new survey conducted by Stratcom Canada for Greenpeace, overwhelmingly want GE food to be identified. By far the vast majority of those polled (79 per cent) support legislation requiring all GE ingredients to be labelled, with support particularly high among women (84 per cent), voters 35-49 years old (84 per cent), and Green and NDP voters (90 per cent and 85 per cent). 

This should not be surprising as BC residents made clear their wish to avoid GE food when Powell River and Salt Spring Island were declared GE free zones in 2004.

Nor is Greenpeace the only one calling on the BC government to make labelling of GE ingredients mandatory. As well as other environmental and farm organizations supporting such legislation, the province’s own public health officer, in his 2005 annual report, made the same recommendation. He also called for the implementation of the 2001 Royal Society of Canada Report, which criticized the approval process for GE organisms because of a lack of proper scientific testing. The Royal Society of Canada’s expert panel on biotechnology warns that GE food could pose serious risks to human health, cause extensive irremediable disruptions to the natural ecosystems and seriously diminish biodiversity. To date, though, BC health officer’s advice has not been heeded.

Concerned Canadians
British Columbian residents are not the only Canadians concerned about what is in their food. In Quebec, residents have been overwhelmingly responsive to Greenpeace’s campaign there to get the province to make labelling the law.