This piece is part of a series on views surrounding Canada’s novel food regulations, currently under review and the subject of a two-month public consultation. This week we talk to Krista Thomas, vice-president trade policy — seed innovation with the Canada Grains Council.
Health Canada has announced a 60-day public consultation in regard to Canada’s novel food regulations, which couldn’t determine how Canadian plant breeders are able to use gene editing to create new products for decades to come.
Krista Thomas is vice-president trade policy — seed innovation with the Canada Grains Council. She says Canada has been falling further and further behind our trading partners and like-minded countries in terms of regulatory clarity. She notes that the pre-market regulatory requirements for novel plant products have posed a challenge for Canadian plant breeders.
She says these regulations can often double the cost of producing a new variety and add an extra two years on to development before that variety even hits the market, which has reverberations throughout the entire industry.
Germination spoke with Krista Thomas about the public consultations and what they mean for seed innovation in Canada.
Why are these consultations significant for your organization?
The Canada Grains Council membership spans the entire value chain, including seed companies, seed associations, grower organizations, all of the major grain commodity associations and grain companies and exporters. For all of our members, plant breeding innovation has been one of our top priorities. For a long time, we’ve been asking the Government of Canada to clarify the regulatory environment for gene editing to make sure that Canada can stay on a level playing field with our trading partners and that our farmers can have access to innovation.
A recent survey of plant breeders in Canada done by Stuart Smyth at the University of Saskatchewan found about half of respondents have chosen not to pursue a research project in the past, if they thought it might result in a novel trait. You must have been hearing similar concerns from your stakeholders. How do you feel now that these consultations are happening?
We started raising concerns with the government back in 2017/2018, about the need for having this clarity in place so that the latest cutting-edge breeding techniques could be introduced successfully in Canada. We saw various government initiatives like the Economic Strategy Table, which led into some other government reports that reflected an acknowledgment that we needed some improvements in this area. We all hoped it that that would happen as quickly as possible. We’re really glad to see that things are moving in a good direction now.
Health Canada says its intent is to ensure that its guidance provides greater clarity, predictability, and transparency regarding the regulation of novel foods derived from plants, including those developed using gene editing technologies. It also wants to ensure that it provides an efficient and predictable pathway to commercialization for new products. What are your thoughts after reading the consultation documents?
There are a lot of positives that we’re seeing in the Health Canada consultations. We’re very glad to see Health Canada maintaining a science-based approach and speaking confidently about the science and the safety of gene editing. We’re also pleased to see Health Canada moving into closer alignment with the rest of the world. For innovation to be launched successfully in Canada, we need to have market access as well, because so much of our grain crops are exported. International alignment is critically important for that market access, and it can be difficult to ask for market access when you’re representing the one country that does things differently in the world.
Now, even if these public consultations do result in a clearer regulatory environment in Canada, there’s still the issue of consumer acceptance. How do you think that might play out?
I think there’s still a lot of room for optimism that consumers will look at gene editing in a more positive light than they looked at GMOs or biotechnology. What we have to do as a value chain in Canada is be sure that we have the tools and mechanisms in place to provide information to consumers or other end users about gene editing. That’s been a focus of the Canada Grains Council, to make sure we have good information sharing along the value chain.
