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An edited (shortened) version of this article was featured in the May/June issue of THIS Magazine <http://www.thismag.org/> It is based on access-to-information research by Bradford Duplisea, born and raised in PEI. What appears below is only about a third of the article. The full version can be found at <http://www.healthcoalition.ca/goodprisgrowing.html> =================================================== Good PR is Growing By LYLE STEWART July 15, 2002 If you've watched television or read a newspaper at all in the past couple years, you're likely familiar with the biotechnology industry's "Good Ideas Are Growing" television advertising series, broadcast repeatedly whenever the controversy over genetically engineered foods flares up. Sponsored by the Council for Biotechnology Information, the spots rely on soothing, dreamlike imagery: sun-drenched green crops surrounding an old-fashioned barn on the prairie; a healthy, tanned farm family rocking gently on a rope swing; a sturdy Third World peasant at work in fields of bounty. It's a relatively straightforward, almost facile attempt to project images of health, prosperity and good corporate citizenship. But few Canadian consumers are aware that the Good Ideas Are Growing campaign is only one part of a multi-pronged public-relations campaign to sell genetically engineered foods in Canada and abroad, one largely funded by taxpayers themselves over the past two years. They include other bromides such as "A Growing Appetite For Information," a pamphlet produced by the Guelph-based Food Biotechnology Communications Network as a insert in Canadian Living Magazine. The pro-GE brochure "Food Safety and You" was mailed to every household in Canada by the biotech industry's ostensible regulator, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, last year. Meanwhile, seemingly independent non-governmental organizations, such as the Consumers' Association of Canada and the National Institute for Nutrition, have conveniently backed the hands-off federal policy on labelling. At the same time, Ottawa has stonewalled the growing demands for mandatory labelling of genetically engineered foods with a Canadian General Standards Board committee whose carefully chosen membership and terms of reference forestall any possibility that we may soon be able to choose whether or not to consume GE foods. The Liberal government also ignored the Royal Society of Canada report it requested on how to deal with food biotechnology. And they buried senior Liberal MP Charles Caccia's private member's Bill C-287 on labelling biotech foods. These episodes may appear to be unconnected battles in the propaganda war over biotechnology. But thanks to the dogged investigation of Canadian Health Coalition researcher Bradford Duplisea, it's now becoming clear that they have been coordinated as part of a multimillion dollar strategy industry to engineer consent in Canada and abroad on biotechnology. Working almost single-handedly from his "war room," a file-filled office in his Hull apartment, Duplisea has unearthed a remarkable series of documents under Access To Information requests that have exposed a spider's web of influence; web that brings together the biotech and agri-food industries, large grocery distributors, a prominent public-relations firm, several federal government departments, and a handful of third-party NGOs funded in equal measure by taxpayers and industry to push the pro-GE message on Canadians. "There's no clear line between government and industry," says Duplisea. "As far as biotechnology is concerned, the government should be implementing and enforcing regulations, period. The industry should be left to promote itself. You must keep promotion and regulation of industry under different roofs or you get disasters like bad blood and mad cow disease. If the Krever Commission taught us anything, it's that we have to regulate in the interests of the public, not in the interests of the regulated." But Ottawa now spends over $400 million each year in research, development and public relations as part of a decade-long effort to turn Canada into a biotechnology powerhouse. It is a partner with Monsanto Canada in the development of GE wheat. Outside the university campuses in Guelph and Saskatoon - the two largest centres of biotech research in Canada - it's an investment that's little known and less understood, however. Indeed, some Ottawa insiders say the federal government is the ag-biotech industry. For the businessmen and bureaucrats, all was sailing along fine until the late 1990s. But the spring of 1999 was a worrying time. Groups such as Greenpeace Canada and the Council of Canadians had launched campaigns against GE foods that were raising public awareness. Consumers and advocacy groups were waking up to the fact that the sudden appearance of genetically modified foods on their grocery shelves had taken place with little notice, debate, or independent and verifiable long-term testing. And for Ottawa, which had hopes of exploiting vast new export markets, the prospect of a European-style revolt over GE was a nightmare scenario. That's why federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief convened an extraordinary - and secret - roundtable meeting for April 12, 1999. Invited were many of the stakeholders: representatives from the PMO; the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; and big players from the biotechnology industry, including Novartis head Byron Beeler and then-Monsanto Canada president Ray Mowling. Also invited were the communications specialists - Joyce Groote of the industry lobby group BIOTECanada and Diane Weatherall of the Food Biotechnology Communications Network. Many of the propositions that came out of the meeting were realized over the following two years, largely thanks to hidden taxpayer dollars. According to Groote's notes, the meeting "helped to highlight the need for immediate coordinated action to deal with this crisis at hand.... I would like to suggest that a Task Force with a short reporting timeframe be established to develop the framework of a National Communications Strategy. We have moved from issues to crisis mode. This likely translates into a 2 year window to deal with the communications issue." <snip> The rest of this article appears on: <http://www.healthcoalition.ca/goodprisgrowing.html> =========================== Bradford Duplisea Canadian Health Coalition 613-521-3400 Ext. 219# brad@healthcoalition.ca www.healthcoalition.ca -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- SUST-MAR is provided FREE by the Chebucto Community Net and YOU! For more info, please send "info sust-mar" to majordomo@chebucto.ca CBC enviro news-briefs follow: -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- GROUP WANTS BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER Some Residents in Windsor are criticizing the provincial government's plan to increase the size of the Avon River causeway. FULL STORY http://novascotia.cbc.ca/template/servlet/View?filename=ns_avon020820 CAPE BRETON SWIMMERS WARNED 'BEWARE BACTERIA' Swimmers in Cape Breton are being warned to make sure the water is safe before getting in. Officials with the Department of Health say hot weather often increases bacteria in the water. FULL STORY http://novascotia.cbc.ca/template/servlet/View?filename=ns_beach020820 PARENT WANTS SIR JOHN A 'DUMP' CLEANED UP A woman who lives next to Sir John A. MacDonald High School in Hubley, Nova Scotia, says the province should do a complete clean-up of the pollution in the area. Sandy Reinders says it makes no sense to allow students to return to the school if there are still environmental problems. FULL STORY http://novascotia.cbc.ca/template/servlet/View?filename=ns_dump020819 © Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
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