Original: english, spanish and french

BRAZIL

[17 August 2006]

[SUBMISSION:ENGLISH]

CANADA

[14 August 2006]

[SUBMISSION:ENGLISH]

1. 
   Does your country have any plantations, either commercial or experimental, of genetically modified trees?
   

There are no commercial plantations of genetically modified trees in Canada. Currently, the only experimental trials of genetically modified forest trees carried out in Canada are conducted by Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service under strict terms and conditions imposed by the Plant Biosafety Office of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). These terms and conditions are enforced by CFIA inspectors. These experimental trials are of poplar and spruce; they are designed to collect information on the performance of the trees, and to develop protocols for tracking the fate of the inserted DNA in forest soil and litter. None of the experimental materials are targeted for deployment or commercial release.

2. 
   Has your country developed any platform/discussion forum/national committee etc. dealing with genetically modified trees?
   

Provincial governments own 77% of the forest and set the rules for forest management on Crown land. The Forest Genetic Resources Council of Alberta issued a Position Paper in 2001 recognizing the potential of genetically modified trees in reforestation but not recommending their use for reforestation at this time due to a poor understanding of their performance and impact on forest ecosystems. The British Columbia Chief Forester’s Standards for Seed Use does not permit the use of genetically modified trees when reforesting public land. The government of Quebec has created the Interdepartmental working group on biosafety to discuss genetically modified organisms, including genetically modified trees.

A formal federal/provincial committee was formed in 1998 to discuss regulatory issues related to genetically modified trees. Ad-hoc expert committee meetings were held in 1999 and 2002.
Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service has developed a public discussion document to advance the debate on genetically modified trees; this document entitled Genetic Engineering for Forestry in Canada has been on line at http://nrcan.gc.ca./biotech/english/discuss.html since 2002 to invite opinions on social and economic considerations, and benefits versus risks of using genetically modified trees.
A side event dealing with regulatory challenges related to plants with novel traits that are forest trees was organized by Canada at the World Forestry Congress in Québec City in September 2003.
A Canada - US Public Opinion Research Study on Emerging Technologies, including GM trees, was conducted in 2005. Results can be seen at: http://www.biostrategy.gc.ca/english/view.asp?x=721&all=true#470
A science/policy dialogue session was organized by the Canadian Forest Service in March 2006 to explore risks and benefits related to environmental, ethical, socio/economic, and regulatory issues and Canada’s capacity to assess them.

3. 
   Does your country have any guidelines or regulations for minimizing the impacts of genetically modified trees for scientific and/or commercial purposes?
   

Environmental impacts of genetically modified trees

Yes. The Plant Biosafety Office (PBO) of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulates the environmental release of plants with novel traits (PNTs), including genetically modified trees, under the Seeds Act and Regulations Part V and, their importation into contained facilities under the Plant Protection Act.

The PBO grants approvals for two levels of environmental release of PNTs: confined research field trials and unconfined environmental release. Approvals for confined research field trials are granted where there is insufficient data or scientific rationale to support an assessment and authorization for unconfined release of the PNT in question. The PBO may approve the trial if potential environmental impacts can be mitigated, and imposes terms and conditions on the trial, enforced by CFIA inspectors, to ensure this mitigation. These terms and conditions provide for reproductive isolation of the plants within the trial from plants outside it, provide for physical separation of plant material from the trial from food and feed supply chains, and mitigate persistence of the PNT in the environment post-harvest. To minimize environmental interactions, the size and number of trials are restricted.
An approval for the unconfined environmental release of a genetically modified tree would require a thorough environmental safety assessment. Environmental safety assessments are carried out according to rigorous, internationally-accepted procedures using the most current scientific knowledge. The applicant is required to provide the PBO with extensive high-quality, statistically-sound data and/or valid scientific rationale to demonstrate the environmental safety of the plant with novel trait (PNT) with respect to:

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  The potential of the PNT to become a weed or be invasive of natural habitats;
  
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  The likelihood and consequences of gene flow from the PNT to wild relatives;
  
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  The potential impact of the PNT on the health of other plants;
  
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  The potential impact of the PNT or its gene products on non-target organisms, including humans; and
  
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  Other potential impacts of the PNT on biodiversity.
  

The PBO then undertakes a comparative environmental safety assessment of the plant based on the submitted data and rationale, relative to its unmodified counterpart. Evaluations also consider the unique combinations of species and traits, using companion biology documents as a baseline for comparison and for identifying species-specific considerations in relation to the novel trait. If the PBO concludes that there is minimal potential for significant negative environmental impact of the PNT relative to its unmodified counterpart, an unconfined environmental release may be authorized. In some cases, the PBO may authorize an unconfined release with conditions, such as a requirement that the applicant ensures that users of an insect-resistant PNT deploy methods to delay development of resistance among insect populations.

These federal regulations are the primary filter; provincial regulations then apply should a proponent wish to plant the forest tree PNT on public land.
Social and cultural impacts of genetically modified trees

Canada has not developed specific guidelines or regulations to assess cultural and socio-economic impacts of genetically modified trees. Instead, the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee (CBAC) was established in1999 to advise government on policy issues associated with the ethical, social, regulatory, economic, scientific, environmental and health aspects of biotechnology. Its mandate includes prioritizing and conducting research in support of its advisory role. CBAC was also tasked with making it easier for Canadians to obtain balanced information on issues related to biotechnology, engaging the public in discussions, and providing an on-going forum for Canadian views. CBAC has not researched the issue of genetically modified trees yet. Since some applications of genomics research might include the development of genetically modified trees, the initiative led by Genome Canada (www.genomecanada.ca) is also relevant. Genome Canada supports research projects aimed at studying and analyzing the ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social issues related to genomics research (GE³LS). One of the goals under this initiative is to support dialogue among scientists, policy makers and the public so that public concerns are truly reflected in policies related to genomics.