Thank you for the opportunity to address you on CEPA.

Living Oceans Society is a non-profit dedicated to ecosystem-based management of Canada's oceans. I serve as its executive director.

It's been 22 years since the act came into force, and during that time genetic engineering has developed with very little public consultation or oversight. The introduction of GM animals into the food supply and into the environment raises questions of ethics, health and safety that are matters of profound public interest, yet part 6 of CEPA suffers from a lack of transparency and opportunity for public input that's striking when it is compared to other Canadian legislation.

I'd like to illustrate that point by describing our experience of trying to participate in the approval of the world's first genetically modified food animal, AquaBounty's AquAdvantage salmon, or AAS. We have concerns with respect to the damage to the habitat and the genetic integrity of endangered wild Atlantic salmon should AAS eggs or the brood fish from which they were produced escape into the environment. Our concerns are shared by fishermen, first nations, social justice groups and conservation groups.

Requests made to health and environment ministries for information were refused point-blank. Everything we learned about the Canadian government's process for approving the manufacture and sale of AAS we learned through the U.S. government, through filings made by the company in the U.S. Health Canada's reply acknowledged that this matter is one of significant public interest but advised, “As you may know, the Department is not legally permitted to release information that companies submit and consider confidential.... This includes even the mere fact that a submission to the Department has been made.” The letter went on to suggest that media coverage of the issue was adequate notice to Canadians.

We filed for judicial review and we filed an access to information request to see the risk assessment that had been done. The document that was ultimately produced was very long, but there wasn't much to read in it. It was mostly redacted.

It transpired that Health Canada had waived the requirement for toxicity assessment with no notice to the public. The risk assessment confirmed that the environmental hazard of a release from the facility was high but found that the activity was “CEPA non-toxic” provided that the activity was confined to the quantities assessed, to be produced in the P.E.I. facility, and that the manufactured eggs were exported to Panama for grow out where the environmental risk of release was considered low.

All of those conditions were dropped when the government issued its significant new activity notice. This opened the door to AAS being manufactured in any contained facility, in any quantity, for grow out anywhere without a risk assessment that justified the finding of “not CEPA toxic” in all of those eventualities.

As it stands today, CEPA permits all of the aforementioned process to take place in absolute secrecy with no opportunity for citizens to have input—

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