GM-free Scotland

The legal threats to free speech in Ireland and in England (described in SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH – News, November 2007) prompted a number of representations to the Canadian Government to take responsibility for the undemocratic actions of its employees.

However, there is evidence that the Canadian Government itself may be implicated in the whole affair.

Canada is one of the world's biggest producers of GM crops. The country has a determinedly pro-GM policy which it has pursued despite damage to its own export markets through uncontrolled genetic contamination, in particular, of oilseed rape and honey,. Canada was one of the countries which sued the European Union through the World Trade Organisation in an attempt to force us to fall in with its GM plans. The country also has a history of secrecy in testing and marketing GM crops, and in refusing to give its people any right to know what they are eating by labeling.

The published scientific paper, later referred to as a 'fraud' which led to the legal threats, was part funded by the Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. It would be usual for the protocol of such a study to be examined and approved before any government funding is offered. Even before the presence of the extra hand-written signs which led to the accusation of 'fraud' had come to light, the potential for experimental bias from the huge, well-planned, PR exercise which accompanied the experiment, must have been evident, and condoned, by the awarding body.

Canadian Professor, Joe Cumins, has pointed out that public servants tend to be very wary of getting involved in public controversy. Also, Canada has earned a reputation for gagging and even sacking public servants who step out of line and express views about biotechnology not to the liking of senior Canadian bureaucrats (see www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid-5374). However, the Government employee who made legal threats abroad regularly used his blog to ridicule Irish and EU decision makers, besides targeting anti-GM NGOs. He was also well known for attacking Irish critics of GM through the media, and interfering with sponsorship of Irish green group activities. It seems hard to imagine that a public servant would have dared embark on such a vigorous public campaign without the reassurance that his superiors were at ease with his actions.

The Canadian Government seems to have employed this particular public servant in various capacities, all connected to the promotion of biotechnology, since 2001. Before this date, he was involved in a number of pro-GM initiatives and was one author of the 2000 study later referred to as a 'fraud'. His track record and modus operandi must be very familiar to his bosses by now.

You may have been hesitant after reading SLAPP ON FREE SPEECH to bother your MP, MSP or MEP about an isolated threat from a lone, overseas, pro-GM operator. The above seems clear evidence that this lone operator has the full backing of the 'democratic' government of a very large country. So, think again.

OTHER SOURCES

www.gmwatch.org/print-archive2.asp?arcid=8256 response to AgBioView article in Center for global Food Issues, 22.08.07