Working hand-in-hand with federal officials, the agrochemical lobby CropLife, which represents companies like Bayer, co-steered regulatory changes, according to documents obtained by Radio-Canada. Their club even had a name: “Tiger Team”.
In addition to developing reforms behind closed doors, they jointly defined concepts and developed communication strategies. All of this happened months before a public consultation on the issue took place. The outcome of this consultation was exactly what the industry wanted.
We would like to thank CropLife Canada for its active engagement in this matter. The open and constructive engagement between the sector and the Government of Canada is a good model for collaboration.
We showed these documents to two NGOs that participated in the public consultations. They denounce an injustice. Influence specialists see very effective lobbying, but “unacceptable” proximity to officials.
Before we go behind the scenes of the Tiger team thanks to the emails we obtained through the Access to Information Act, we need to understand the context of this connection between industry interests and the public service.
At the heart of this reform is a scientific advance: genome editing. Using so-called CRISPR scissors, we can now change a gene very precisely. For example, we can create an apple that does not turn brown, a wheat that is rich in fiber, a cow without horns so that it does not hurt itself; a chicken that is resistant to bird flu.
The Canadian government has decided to remove the industry’s obligation to declare certain genetically modified crops in this way and replace it with “voluntary transparency.” These new GMOs also escape certain controls.
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Ottawa believes that plants created through genome editing (obtained using CRISPR scissors) are not GMOs.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Green Week
Like some environmental groups, the Quebec government opposed this reform, as did the Union of Agricultural Producers, the Food Transformation Council of Quebec and the Biological Filière, which feared for product traceability.
But the public consultation carried out in spring 2021 did not prove them right. Ottawa confirmed in May 2023 that industry transparency would be voluntary and not mandatory.
Based on options developed and proposed by the Tiger team consisting of industry and government representatives […]Health Canada released its updated regulatory guidance on May 18, 2022.
Behind the scenes of Tiger Team
On August 13, 2021, the Director of Regulatory Policy Coordination at Agriculture Canada wrote to nine industry representatives and approximately fifteen officials from his department and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
He mentions a meeting the day before about testing regulations. We can read that new, simpler approaches have been proposed, including co-development.
It defines what the Tiger Team model is: government and trusted stakeholders working together. But many stakeholders are missing from the table. In fact, only industry has an interest in reforms.
According to the emails, the Tiger team assembled two lobbies (CropLife and the Canada Grains Council), as well as four officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), three from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and one from Health Canada.
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CropLife represents manufacturers, developers and marketers of plant science innovations, including pesticides, GMOs and biotechnology. The lobby has around fifty members, including Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Corteva, Cargill and Sollio Agriculture (formerly Coop fédérée).
Photo: CropLife Canada
Throughout the email exchange, we see CropLife bombarding officials with studies, surveys, research reports, analyzes and conference invitations. The lobby constantly defends the risk-free nature of innovations in the field of genome editing.
The Tiger team rejected a proposal from Health Canada to force transparency
In a working document dated April 26, 2019, we read that Health Canada originally proposed a mandatory reporting policy for genome editing products, but the proposal is not supported, writes CropLife.
On May 21, 2019, the lobby exchanged a working document on reform with 18 officials. We can read CropLife’s comments and see that the lobby is proposing several retractions and changes.
These new elements shed a little more light on Radio-Canada’s revelations last year that a CFIA Word file presenting the reform was originally created by a CropLife director.
A common communication strategy
The Tiger team met several times in hotels for “pros and cons” scenarios where both sides were able to discuss a range of industry proposals.
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The Tiger team gathered in this penthouse on the 17th floor of the Sheraton Hotel in Ottawa.
Photo: Sheraton
In a 2019 email, the head of CropLife on the Tiger team sent a message to two senior officials with the subject line: Communication strategies for genome editing.
Attached and below are some new resources that the industry is currently looking to use in Canada to increase public awareness of genome editing, writes the lobbyist. He suggests sending it to the various communications teams.
The senior CFIA official immediately replied that she would distribute it internally and suggested taking time to talk about it at the next meeting: We could think about how to address the problem of communication.
CropLife tried to guide definitions of concepts
On May 15, 2020, CropLife wrote to two officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, including the regulator: As we discussed, I am pleased to share with you some of the definitions we have developed.
The lobbyist then asks them not to mention that these genome editing definitions come from CropLife. “Feel free to incorporate them into your own definitions and share them as such,” he writes.
Lobbying experts impressed
What particularly worries me is the drafting of documents by four hands, reacts Marc-André Gagnon, professor of public policy at Carleton University.
This is ethically unacceptable.
The researcher is interested in the shadow strategies of companies in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. It is amazing that government definitions could be developed with industry. “We have independent scientists working on these questions,” he recalls.
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Marc-André Gagnon, professor of public policy at Carleton University in Ottawa
Photo: Radio-Canada
“When reading the documents, we have the impression that the industry is almost pushing government positions,” says Stéphanie Yates, a professor in the Department of Social and Public Communication at UQAM, whose research focuses particularly on lobbying and influence.
The expert points out that there is nothing illegal about this; it is simply evidence of very effective lobbying.
What may surprise you is the close proximity. This could call into question the critical distance that government members should have from industry representatives.
According to the professor, this is a case of cultural appropriation, meaning that private interests are hijacking the functioning of government for their own benefit. It’s about the idea of building such closeness to members of the government that they adopt the industry’s way of thinking in a certain way.
A “power imbalance,” according to NGOs
After reading the documents, Thibault Rehn, Vigilance’s OGM coordinator, feels that groups like his are only included to look good in a public consultation, but that the dice appear to be loaded.
There are two classes of partners. […] We have few votes.
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Thibault Rehn, coordinator of GMO Vigilance
Photo: MAPAQ
According to Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, this shows a power imbalance. [CropLife] has enough money for these types of interactions with the government. She has the people and the time to access the information.
Lucy Sharratt recalls that detailed comments were submitted to the government as part of the public consultation. We spent a lot of time there. She fears that such revelations will deter the public from taking part in future consultations.
Was the public consultation genuine or a PR exercise?
We sent an interview request to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Thursday. They referred us to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, but the Department of Agriculture did not respond to our questions about the Tiger team.
In an email, AAC explains that in 2023 it took into account the opinions of various groups with different backgrounds on the issue of transparency that were published.
A report contained recommendations [qui] This included expanding the Canadian Variety Transparency Database and creating a Government-Industry Innovation Transparency in Plant Breeding Steering Committee to steer and guide the database.
When asked to answer questions about the Tiger team, AAC referred us to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which we had already contacted on Thursday. Responses could not be obtained Monday.
The lobby explains its role
One of the Tiger Team members replied: CropLife. Its president, Pierre Petelle, explains via email that the special team (Tiger Team) was formed to develop and examine options and innovative thinking for decision-making based on a risk assessment, which promotes innovation and competitiveness for all applicants for admission and at the same time health and safety guaranteed.
CropLife Canada, along with several other groups representing the entire agricultural value chain, participated in this “Task Force” to provide the Government of Canada with technical advice to consider when developing options for updating policy guidance for public consultation .
CropLife Canada supports science-based approaches to regulating innovation in plant breeding so that farmers have the tools they need to sustainably produce safe, high-quality and affordable food.
In an August 13, 2021 email, a Department of Agriculture director suggested that the Tiger team apply the collaborative model established for genome editing to another regulatory modernization effort.
The senior official then designates the person who will be entrusted with this assignment: a director of…CropLife.