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On Wednesday of this week a meeting was held in Moose
Jaw that was profoundly disturbing. Here is what Edwin Wallace, from the Swift Current
area had to say about the meeting:
"I was to a Canadian Grains Commission meeting in Moose
Jaw yesterday. My frustration with farming was heightened by the information that
it is almost impossible to keep the varieties of wheat separated. And, with GM wheat
virtually here, how are we going to manage? I just don't know. Two thirds of our
world markets don't want anything to do with GM wheat, but people who think they
can personally gain are leading us headlong into that jeopardy."
There is no way of handling genetically modified
wheat, once its in a field it will be, or might as well be, in all fields and Canadian
producers can kiss European exports goodbye as well as most other places. Nothing
can stop the wind, it passes over us and our land oblivious to the things we are
doing or think that we can control
Bread is so basic to the Northern Hemisphere it is the basis for our whole civilisation.
No one can mess with it and think they can get away with it and the consumer is
going to resist any genetic tampering with the baseline of all food.
Those who have created it are suicidal and every biologist knows it can not be contained.
But here is the silver lining, organic growers in North America could mount a dandy
of a class action against Monsanto. Since it would be relatively easy to
make the case that GM products are unmanageable and thereby will exterminate the
whole organic food industry. With them banned together the law suit would be so
huge that Monsanto would simple succumb to its implications.
Similarly, wheat producers could mount a class action against GM developers that
would claim total loss of income from the development.
Though cases of this size would take years to be resolved in court, the ultimate
threat of such action should halt all field experimentation and development.
Such cases would be in the billions of dollars since all income lost would be shown
as the result of the GM development.
Our legal system is able to handle such a case and we now have class action capability
in Saskatchewan. American lawyers have recognised the power of the court system
to establish fairness when faced with a possible wrongful action by someone or some
corporation. We in Canada have not had this same willingness to litigate largely
because our court system has been less accepting of frivallous law suits and we do
not have as many lawyers with time on their hands who are ready to sue first and
ask questions later.
Under the free trade agreement for North America (NAFTA) there is an important provision
that allows a
party to sue if its earnings and ability to trade are impeded by governmental regulation.
United States companies have done alright going after the Canadian government for
banning a dangerous chemical additive to gasoline. It would be well worth considering
that Canadian farmers are suffering unduely from the United State Department of Agriculture's
liberal subsidisation of United States farmers and a substantial class action suit
should be mounted against this impediment to free trade and the wrongful deprivation
of Canadian farmers by depressing commodity prices and the United States Arm Corp
of Engineers maintenance of American waterways providing unfair trading subsidy to
United States farmers.
Timothy
W. Shire
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