A letter to a Mayor

To: Mayor of Delta BC

Sun, 7 Jul, 13

Dear Ms Jackson

This letter requests your support for the resolution on genetically engineered (GE, also known as GMO) crops and animals at the 2013 UBCM Convention. The resolution reads:

that UBCM ask the British Columbia government to legislate the prohibition of importing, exporting and growing plants and seeds containing genetically engineered DNA, and raising GE animals within BC, and to declare, through legislation, that BC is a GE Free area in respect to all plant and animal species.

Serious concern has been expressed across BC about genetically engineered crops and animals. To date: 12 municipalities have passed individual resolutions declaring themselves a GE Free zone (Powell River, Salt Spring Island, Denman Island, Nelson, Kaslo, New Denver, Rossland, Richmond, Saanich, Metchosin, Telkwa, City of North Vancouver). At the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities meeting in April 2013, the same resolution as above was adopted by 51 municipalities. In addition the UBCM has endorsed four resolutions expressing concern about genetically engineered crops in 1999 concerning monopolization of our food supply, 20006 and 2009 concerning mandatory labeling, and 2012 concerning the GE apple.

My concerns about genetically engineered crops and animals are as follows:

Safety Questions

• GE crops are not an extension of traditional breeding methods (or hybridization), they are created by inserting new gene sequences into organisms, often from unrelated species.

• GE crops have not been demonstrated to be safe; the standards for judgment by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada are lax. When the CFIA reviews an application for a novel food, its “evidence” comes from the corporation making the application and this data is kept secret. There is no independent testing of GE crops or animals in Canada, so the bottom line is we don’t know if these crops are safe or not.

• Unlike 166 other countries, Canada, along with USA, has not signed the Cartagena Protocol which provides guidelines to be adopted for placing rigorous safety checks before GMO is introduced into a region and an environment. As a result, there are insufficient safeguards at the federal level against damage to health and environment through GMO.

Corporate control

• GE crops are about making profits for companies, often large multinationals. Five agricultural biotechnology corporations now control most of the technology needed to develop GM crops, as well as the agrochemicals and crop germplasm and seeds.

• GE seeds are patented which allows companies to take control over living organisms.

Pollen drift

• Contamination of non-GE crops by GE crops is inevitable

• Some species, such as canola, cross-pollinate more easily than others. If you are next to a farm growing GE canola it is impossible to grow non-GE canola because of contamination from GE pollen.

• The same is likely with some of the GE crops that have recently been approved or are now being developed, for example the GE alfafa (recently approved) GE apple (under development). This will lead to significant economic loss for organic farmers, who use alfalfa as a rotational crop.

• Now GE alfalfa has been approved it will make growing conventional and organic alfalfa impossible over the long term.

There is consensus across British Columbia that we urgently need to consider other possibilities than GE crops, and to support farmers transitioning away from growing GE crops to sustainable farming practices.

May I recommend three important sources of information on GE crops and animals?

1) The first is GMO Myths and Truths, a synthesis of 600 scientific studies carried out by three geneticists, and published in 2012. LINK

2) The second is a TED talk given by geneticist Dr. Thierry Vrain, who formerly worked as a Federal spokesperson for GE crops but, after analysis of recent studies, is seriously concerned about their health and environmental impact, which can be found at: LINK

3) The third is an expert panel report prepared by the Royal Society of Canada on request received from Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Environment Canada, on the future of Food Biotechnology. The report stresses on the need for precaution and conducting rigorous and independent testing of GMO for health and environmental effects before they are to be approved. These recommendations are not being followed. LINK

I hope I can count on your support in this crucial matter.

Yours sincerely,

For residents of Delta BC, of British Columbia, of Canada, of North America, and for the citizens of the world - here is an appeal, referenced to the letter sent by me to the Mayor of Delta regarding fighting off GMO at the grassroots level, till such time Governments set up independent and rigorous testing of GMO prior to approval.

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Appealing to all residents of Delta, BC, to consider sending a similar letter to the Mayor and to each councillors of the Corporation of Delta, to seek their support in passing the UBCM resolution towards declaring all the municipal areas of BC as GMO free.

Appealing to residents of all other regions of BC to amend as needed and send similar appeal to their mayors and council members to help pass this resolution at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) next september, to have the GE free BC resolution passed.

Appealing all other residents of Canada, that are interested, to take this sample and try to organise similar movement in their own municipalities. British Columbia already has 62 municipalities that declared themselves GE free, but none others have, to best of my knowledge, done this outside of BC. So there is room for such efforts at the national level.

Finally, sending this as a sample to some of our friends south of the border in USA, who showed interest in this issue and might consider checking with their own municipalities towards this end.

Lastly - suggesting interested folks check up on the precedence making case of Hudson versus Canada, where the township of Hudson, Quebec, banned the cosmetic lawn pesticide, and survived a legal challenge by corporate giants through several levels of court cases , going all the way to the Canadian supreme court, and won all of them, keeping the pesticide ban in effect till today - while the product may have been approved by Health Canada - Canada's regulatory authority at the federal level.

Thank you.