Governing Food: Science, Safety, and Trade
Food safety is the latest flash point on the multilateral agenda. It complicates
transatlantic relations (e.g. beef hormones and antibiotics), Britain's relations
with its EU partners (BSE), and Canada's relations with the United Sates (food
inspection systems for meat and wheat). People in a great many countries are
worried about transgenic foods, or "genetically modified organisMs" They
worry about food additives that may be carcinogenic and about pesticide
residues on fruit. New foods, such as new varieties of rice, are thought to
decrease biodiversity in developing countries, yet might also be essential for
enhancing food security. Related issues affecting wood products, asbestos, and
gasoline additives also complicate Canada's relations with its trading partners.
This colloquium will be an opportunity for political leaders, senior officials,
business people, academics, journalists and representatives of civil society
organizations to consider the policy implications of this complex issue. The
topic seems especially appropriate for the Canada-UK Colloquium. It is a do-mestic
and an international issue in which the two countries with their similar
institutions and common memberships in major international organizations
face comparable probleMs It is also one in which they face distinct difficulties
because of their memberships in different regional organizations, the EU and
NAFTA.
Food safety is a dramatic example of the regulatory difficulties states face in
reconciling science, health, culture, and trade in the era of globalization. Tech-nological
change creates new products faster than our collective ability to as-sess
their implications; new forms of transportation and expanding markets
allow these products, and new pathogens, to move rapidly around the world
because of the ever increasing exchanges of goods and services in the global
economy. Information can be disseminated rapidly, but consensual knowledge
does not keep up. Some regulatory decisions are effectively taken within gi-gantic
multinational firms, or within such diverse international organizations
as the FAO, the WHO, the ISO or the WTO, and other decisions are effectively
preempted by civil society organizations, some of which are big multinationals
in their own right.
International cooperation is affected by questions of whether UNCED or the
WTO should take precedence—is trade more important than the environment,
or health? Other linked issues include intellectual property rights in seeds, and
the approvals process for new pharmaceuticals. Labelling requirements for
food have implications for eco-labelling schemes (e.g. certifying that wood
came from sustainably managed forests) while agreements on food inspection
may set precedents for general principles under the Technical Barriers to Trade
agreement (e.g. mutual recognition of testing for conformity to product stand-ards).
The politics of governing food at first glance may seem to be driven either by
protectionism, or by mistrust of modern science, lack of respect for experts,
inability to understand and manage risk, dislike of big business, over-confi-dent
NGOs, and a lack of confidence in government, as well as by garden vari-ety
globaphobia. But the politics are also driven by the reality that tens of mil-lions
of people in the United States alone suffer food-related illnesses every
year, according to the Centres for Disease Control, and thousands die of them.
Some of the pathogens are not new, but change in food-borne illness, or new
allergic reactions, is related to changes in where food comes from, how it is
grown, the way it is processed and packaged, and the means of transporting it
to the table. The challenge of using science for regulation is as difficult with
respect to food as in any domain, especially when scientists disagree over even
what a "science-based approach" might require.
Countries have very different traditions and infrastructure for application of
food regulatory regimes. Some countries used a market-based approach while
others have had an interventionist approach to food inspection and consumer
protection generally. Now increased trade flows are exposing the problems
with purely national approaches to regulation. By the time of the Colloquium,
we will know the results of the Okinawa G-8 Summit consideration of the OECD
report prepared in response to the Köln Summit discussion of the need for a
global food agency. The issues have been discussed in APEC, in the WTO and
were at the heart of the difficulties in negotiating the Cartagena Protocol on
biosafety and diversity in Montreal in January 2000.
Chairman:
Allan E. Blakeney, P.C., O.C., Q.C.
Scholar-in-Residence, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
(former Premier of the Province of Saskatchewan)
Thursday November 2:
6:30pm Welcoming reception in the William Pascoe
Room
7:00pm Dinner
Friday November 3:
7:45am Breakfast in the Terrace Lounge
Colloquium begins in the Battleford Room
8:45am Opening Remarks
Dr Keith Banting, Director, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University
9:00-10:30am Session 1: Introduction: Overview of
the Main Issues
British Speaker: Charles Cockbill, Chairman of the European Food
Law Association of the United Kingdom and Vice-President of the Executive
Committee of the European Food Law Association
Canadian Speaker:
Dr Lorne Hepworth, President, Crop Protection
Institute
10:30-10:45am Break
10:45am-12:15pm Session 2: Science and Policy
British Speaker: Dr Spencer Henson, Reader in Food Economics and
Marketing, and Director, Centre of Food Economics Research, Reading
University.
Canadian Speaker:
Dr George Khachatourians, Professor, Applied
Microbiology and Food Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
12:15-1:30pm Lunch in the Terrace Lounge
1:30-3:00pm Session 3: Food and Commerce
British Speaker: Dr Catherine Humphries, Director of Scientific
Services, Co-operative Wholesale Society
Canadian Speaker:
Rob McNabb, Assistant Manager, Canadian Cattlemen's
Association
3:00-3:15pm Break
3:15-4:45pm Session 4: Public Perceptions/Attitudes:
Social Movements, Consumer Associations and Civil Society; Risk Management/Communications
British Speaker: Patricia Mann OBE, former Vice-President International
of J Walter Thompson.
Canadian Speaker:
Dr Douglas Powell, Department of Plant Agriculture,
University of Guelph
6:30pm Reception in the Adams Ballroom
7:30pm Banquet
Hosts:
Dr Keith Banting, Director, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University
Dr Peter MacKinnon, President, University of Saskatchewan
Speakers:
Peta Bonham-Smith, Director, Virtual College of Biotechnology, University
of Saskatchewan
Sir Nicholas Bayne, Honorary President of the British Committee for
the Canada-UK Colloquia
Saturday November 4:
8:00am Breakfast in the Terrace Lounge
Colloquium resumes in the Battleford Room
9:00-10:30am Session 5: Regulatory Frameworks
British Speaker: J. M. Scudamore, Chief Veterinary Officer, Ministry
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Canadian Speaker:
Dr Anne A. MacKenzie, Associate Vice-President
of Science Evaluation, Canadian Food Inspection Agency; Chair of the
Codex Alimentarius Commission's Committee on Food Labelling
10:30-10:45am Break
10:45am-12:15pm Session 6: Trade Policy and International
Organizations
British Speaker: Neville Craddock, Group Regulatory Affairs Manager,
Nestlé UK
Canadian Speaker:
Dr Peter Phillips, Professor, NSERC/SSHRC
Chair in Managing Knowledge-based Agri-food Development, University
of Saskatchewan
12:15-1:30pm Lunch in the Terrace Lounge
1:30-3:00pm Session 7: Biodiversity and the Environment
British Speaker: Dr Robert Falkner, Lecturer at the University
of Kent's London Centre of International Relations
Canadian Speaker:
Beatrice Olivastri, Chief Executive Officer,
Friends of the Earth
3:00-3:15pm Break
3:15-4:00pm Concluding Session: Rapporteur's Remarks
William Leiss, FRSC President, The Royal Society of Canada Professor,
School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, and NSERC/SSHRC Research
Chair in Risk Communication and Public Policy, University of Calgary.
Closing Remarks:
Baroness Fookes, Chairperson of the British Committee of the Canada-UK
Colloquia
4:00pm Organizers: Planning Meeting for 2001 in
the Kelsey Room
7:00pm Reception in the William Pascoe Room
7:30pm Dinner
Sunday November 5:
9:00-11:00am Tour of commercial, governmental and
academic research facilities at the University of Saskatchewan
