The Biopolitics of Genetically Modified Organisms in Canada

Abstract

In recent years we have witnessed the rise of considerable resistance to genetically modified (GM) food and crops around the world. This has led to a moratorium on the planting of new GM crops in Europe, and regimes for the mandatory labelling of GM foods in more than 30 countries, including Japan and Australia. By contrast, the Canadian regulatory system has approved 51 “plants with novel traits” and “novel foods” since 1995, almost all of which are GM, and any demands to require labelling of these products have been resisted by the federal government. Working with theoretical concepts developed by Michel Foucault, this essay examines this situation in Canada. The author traces the way in which facts and values have together given shape to a biopolitical struggle between those scientists who would frame genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a manageable risk and those who have adopted a more precautionary framing. Three specific terms used in Canadian “science-based” regulation - “novelty,” “familiarity” and “substantial equivalence” - can be seen to represent ambiguous compromises in these ongoing struggles at the international level. In Canada these concepts have been mobilized to narrow the horizon of what can be expected to be risky about genetic engineering, allowing swift approval of many GM crops. High-level scientific critiques of this system, however, buoyed by public concern, point towards the need for a more open-ended regulatory process in Canada, one that would acknowledge that decision making in this field is inevitably both technical and political.