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The Current Transcript for August 14, 2017

Host: Megan Williams

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sites, on many sites.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: For the second time, in a week, President Trump has come under fire for his choice of words or in this case, what he didn't say. Because that egregious display he was referring to, which left one woman dead and dozens injured in Charlottesville Virginia on Saturday, well, it didn't just happen anywhere but at a rally attended by extremist and white supremacist groups, including neo-Nazis and the KKK. Critics are asking why the president hasn't denounced those groups specifically. We'll hear from someone tracking just how much support there is for extremist groups in America today, from white nationalists to white supremacists. And a professor who argues President Trump has helped create an environment in which these groups feel emboldened. And then, Canada is now the first country where you can buy genetically modified fish to eat.

SOUNDCLIP

Man has been altering the nature of animals since man walked upright and began domesticating animals. These are very healthy, beautiful Atlantic salmon.

MW: That's Ron Stottish CEO of Aquabounty the U.S. based company producing the world's first GM salmon. It's now being sold in Canada, only you won't find any labels on it, so you might not know you're buying or ordering it. We'll hear from a Canadian who helped invent it and a critic calling for better labeling, in about a half an hour from now. I'm Megan Williams and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Trump has emboldened white nationalists with racist policies, says author

Guests: Marilyn Mayo, Carol Anderson

SOUNDCLIP

There is no place for you in Charlotte. There is no place for you in Virginia and there is no place for in the United States of America [Applause]. We deplore your hatred, your bigotry and shame on you.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe speaking yesterday morning, a day after violence broke out on the southern college town of Charlottesville. On Saturday, hundreds of white nationalists and white supremacists held a so-called unite the right rally against plans to remove a confederate statue. Neo-Nazi groups and members of the Ku Klux Klan were also present. They were met by anti-racists counter-protesters. And then, a car plowed into the crowd of people gathered to oppose the rally killing a 32 year old woman and injuring 19 other people. An Ohio man, James Alex Fields Jr., faces several charges in the attack that some are calling an act of terror. And in a separate incident, two police officers died when their helicopter which was monitoring the far right Rally crashed. This morning tensions in Charlottesville remain high. And across America, questions are being raised about who and what gave rise to these events. To help us unpack that I'm joined by Marilyn Mayo. She's a senior research fellow in the Anti-Defamation League center on extremism. Good morning.

MARILYN MAYO: Good morning.

MW: How strong is white nationalism or white supremacy across the U.S. today?

MARILYN MAYO: We're seeing white nationalism growing in the United States particularly, in a movement called Alt Right which was behind the rally in Charlottesville. In the last two years, it's been growing and we're seeing like an open embrace of, not just white nationalism online, but actually people going into the streets. There have been a number of rallies in Charlottesville was certainly representative of that glowing embrace of white nationalism.

MW: Do you see this in the south particularly strongly?

MARILYN MAYO: I think it's we're seeing it all across the country actually. There's a feeling among white nationalists and white supremacists that this is a moment that's ripe for them to express their views. They feel that now they have a political climate where they feel their views might be more accepted by the mainstream. So they're trying to get their views out there in the open.

MW: Now there seemed to be a lot of different groups with different names, white supremacy, Alt Right. Who are these people and what do these terms mean?

MARILYN MAYO: Sure. Well we think, first of all, that white nationalism is really a euphemism for white supremacy. It's a term that the white supremacist created themselves to kind of downplay the supremacist part. And white supremacy, it doesn't just mean something about people being superior to another person but it coppices a number of different tenets. For example, that White should have dominance over people of other backgrounds or lives separately from non-whites. So white supremacy comes as a lot of different ideas and Alt Right is simply a repackaging of white supremacy. It's a term that's come onto the national scene in the last two years, although it stands for alternative right which has been around for some time.

MW: I mean so are you saying that there's essentially no difference from white supremacy or white nationalism and the alt right?

MARILYN MAYO: I am saying that, there really isn't much of a difference. It's just a term white nationalist is a term that white supremacists like to call themselves, to kind of downplay the supremacy part.

MW: Okay.

MARILYN MAYO: So it is simply a repackaging of that.

MW: So it makes it more palatable for a more mainstream audience, or something?

MARILYN MAYO: It does make them more palatable. You know, alt-right, it sounds like a pretty innocuous term but it really involves the same people that have been promoting hate and bigotry for years.

MW: Okay. Can you tell us about some of the biggest white nationalists or white supremacist groups and their leaders operating in the U.S. today?

MARILYN MAYO: Yes. In terms of leaders, you have Richard Spencer who was one of the people who organized the rally in Charlottesville. He runs a group called National Policy Institute. It's more like a small white supremacist organization thinktank and they have conferences every year. You have another group that was very prominent at the march in Charlottesville, was Vanguard America which is a group that's kind of embrace neo-Nazi ideology and has been trying to recruit on campuses with lots of different posters. They've been growing. Nathan Damigo was one of the speakers who was scheduled to speak at Charlottesville. He has a group called Identity of Ropa, which again tries to recruit college students and sees itself kind of like a fraternity trying to attract young middle class whites to the white supremacist ideology. And then you had another speaker at the event, Matthew Heimbach, who's a young white supremacist leader who runs a group called the Traditionalists Worker Party which modeled itself after European white nationalist groups. It is small but he's been trying to organize a group that is an umbrella group, called the Nationalist Front that involves neo-Nazi groups and other white supremacist groups. So there's been a lot of activity on the white supremacist front, certainly in the last two years.

MW: And what do you think their effect is on Americans who maybe don't espouse these sorts of ideas? I mean are they affecting the opinions of a lot of Americans?

MARILYN MAYO: I think that what they would like is to bring more people into their ideology but I don't think it's working. I think most people in America will reject the hatred and bigotry of these groups. Unfortunately though, they are attracting a certain demographic of young men. If you saw the rally in Charlottesville, it was mostly young men.

MW: That is right.

MARILYN MAYO: And these are people who feel that whites are oppressed in today's society in America, that there's a white genocide going on, that whites are being replaced, all sorts of issues like that. So they do attract a certain kind of angry person and they like to reach disaffected whites. But I don't think most people will listen to this kind of rhetoric.

MW: Okay. Just one last quick question, we don't have much time left but what do you think needs to happen to counter the efforts that they're making to convert people to their cause?

MARILYN MAYO: I think people of goodwill need to stand up and condemn white supremacy and bigotry as many did this past week. We saw many people come out and say that there's no place for this kind of hatred and bigotry in our society. We have to double up our efforts at organizations like the Anti-Defamation League to expose these hate groups and their agenda and to make sure that we continue to counter them and in every way.

MW: Okay, thanks very much. Lots to think about there. I've been speaking with Marilyn Mayo who is a senior research fellow in the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. She spoke to us by phone. Carol Anderson has been watching the events in Charlottesville closely, too. She's the author of White Rage, the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. And she's a professor of African-American studies at Emory University in Atlanta. That's where we've reached her by phone. Good morning.

CAROL ANDERSON: Good morning.

MW: How surprised were you by what happened in Charlottesville over the weekend?

CAROL ANDERSON: Not surprised at all. Donald Trump I've got to take this straight to Trump, which then takes us straight to the Republican Party. They've been trolling in this white racist ground, white supremacist ground, for a long time. And Trump just erupted it at a level that- the Republicans had always been flying under the radar with their dog whistles, welfare queens, law and order, got to keep us safe. But Trump just said it out loud and he embraced this virulent white supremacist wing in the American body politic. And we saw that starting off his campaign with Mexicans are rapists and criminals, to blacks live in hell holes. We've got to have law and order, to Mexican judges can't be impartial, because they're Mexicans, to his Muslim band. I mean he's been trolling in this white supremacist ground and he's brought white supremacist into the White House. Steve Bannon, Seb Gorka, Steven Miller these are readily identifiable white supremacist that he has put into the halls of power. I'm not surprised at all.

MW: I want to ask you about his comments over the weekend which have been roundly criticized. He condemned quote in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. And has been pointed out he did not specifically condemn white supremacy, neo-Nazis or the KKK. What do you make of that?

CAROL ANDERSON: I make of that as a 6 year old having to go up there and say something. He doesn't want to say what needs to be said, as a grown man, as president of the United States. And so what he did was he made his perfunctory statement and then that violence on many sides was to do that false equivalency. And in fact, after he made that statement, you saw that the white supremacist organizations were applauding, saying: “Ah, he didn't condemn us. He's on our side. This is great. You saw when they asked him about, you know, are you going to say anything against white supremacist. He just walked away. “

MW: There was a statement though a lot of the White House, on Sunday a spokesperson responded saying that of course the president does condemn neo-Nazis and the KKK. I mean to what extent does that address concerns that he himself did not say anything directly. He used, as you say, a false equivalency of lots of people are to blame.

CAROL ANDERSON: It doesn't address it at all, not at all. So a spokesperson says “Well of course he does”. But when he was asked directly he walked away. That is what we know. That is Donald Trump. You know this is the same Donald Trump that won at the Central Park Five executed for a rape they didn't commit, which were four African-American and one Latino who were accused of a horrible rape. This is the same Donald Trump who launched his campaign, his political sphere, with the [unintelligible] movement against President Barack Obama, demanding to see a black man's paper. This is why he is so attractive to white supremacist.

MW: I mean would you go so far as to say that racism is really the core tenant of his presidency.

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes. I really would. I mean when you think about it, he hasn't been able to do anything as president, except when it comes to implementing really racist policies. There, he has demonstrated a level of effectiveness and what I talk about white rage, it's not what we saw in Charlottesville, but it is in fact the policies that emanate out of that racism that serve to undercut and undermine black advancement and access to civil rights.

MW: Well to this point, critics say President Trump has helped create an environment in which white nationalists and other extremist groups feel emboldened. Here's Charlottesville Mayor, Michael seignior, speaking yesterday with CNN's Jack Tapper about the president's statement on the violence.

SOUNDCLIP

Well look at the campaign he ran. I mean look at the intentional courting both on the one hand of all these white supremacist, white nationalist group like that anti-Semitic groups. And then look on the other hand, the repeated failure to step up, condemn, denounce, silence, you know put to bed, all those different efforts just like we saw yesterday. This is not hard. There's you know there's two words that need to be said over and over again domestic terrorism and white supremacy. That is exactly what we saw on display this weekend. And we just aren't seeing leadership from the White House.

MW: Now we've talked about the words that the president Trump has, or has not, used to condemn a white supremacist, but what about his actions as president around the issue of race? I mean what have those told us?

CAROL ANDERSON: They have told us that he is doing white supremacy business. He is about the business of white supremacy, specifically. His election integrity commission that is sensibly is going after voter fraud, although there was no widespread voter fraud in the United States. They found 31 cases out of one billion votes. But what this will do is to in fact shut down access to the ballot box, particularly for minority communities. That's what this is about; it is shutting out millions of American citizens from having access to the vote. We see this in terms of his immigration policies. We see this in terms of the Muslim travel ban. When you're looking at where he's “effective”, in the most dastardly ways, it is in those policies that are about subjugating, repressing minority communities in the United States.

MW: Now I have another clip here this time from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who was speaking at the protest in Charlottesville.

SOUNDCLIP

We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. Tha tis what we believed in, that is why voted for Donald Trump, because he said he's going to take our country back. That is what we got to do.

MW: What do you think David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, means by fulfilling the promises of Donald Trump?

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes. I mean it's just the perfect example of what we're talking about here. When you think about any the backup, Dylann Roof, the young terrorist who gunned down nine black church goers in Charleston, he said we're going to take our country back. Three weeks later Donald Trump is at a campaign rally, in Arizona, and he say: “I promise you we're going to take our country back.” And now we have David Duke saying we're going to take our country back. So all of the kind of fog around this isn't about white supremacy, this is just about making America safer or whatever they're talking about, is a lie. It is just a lie. This is about the range of policies designed to create a nation where the resources flow into a handful of whites and that the rest of the population becomes a whiteless labor force.

MW: Now there's a theory out there about Donald Trump that he's actually he has no ideology at all. He's just kind of a raging narcissist who wants to be in power and the people who are really influencing him are his chief strategist Stephen Bannon and his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. Those are the people that are driving what you might call this white supremacist agenda. How do you see their influence playing into Trump and what we're seeing today?

CAROL ANDERSON: What I see is Trump is a racist. I mean we've got evidence of that, early on when he was a landlord. And what Stephen and Bannon and Steven Miller do are to give the policy ideas behind that racism. And so it's not like he's just this drifting along, empty vessel [Unintelligible]. But in fact, they are tapping into who he is.

MW: Okay. Carol Anderson, I'm going to have to stop you there. Thank you very much.

CAROL ANDERSON: Thank you so much.

MW: Giving us a lot to think about. Carol Anderson is the author of White Rage, the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and a professor of African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

[Music]

MW: The CBC News is next. Then, you might not be able to see or taste the difference but a new kind of salmon is now being offered in Canadian fish counters. It's been genetically modified to grow faster than regular salmon and deemed by regulators to be safe to eat. But you might not know you're consuming it because there's no labeling requirement. We'll hear from some of the inventors of this new GM salmon, as well as its critics. When we're when we return. Meghan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music]

Would you eat genetically modified fish? Chances are you already have

Guests: Garth Fletcher, Eric Hallerman

MW: Hello I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MW: Up next, would you eat genetically modified fish? Well if you've had any salmon steaks on the grill this summer, or any salmon at all, this past year, there's a chance that the fish you were eating was genetically modified. Earlier this month, an American company called Aquabounty revealed that it sold more than five tons of GM salmon in Canada, this year. That since it was approved for sale here in May 2016. And that's put Canada in a unique, and some might say fishy, place in the world because it represents the first time genetically modified animal products have been sold to the public anywhere. GM food doesn't require special labeling in Canada and the company hasn't said where in the country it's fish is sold, but it's an Atlantic salmon that's been adopted with the genes of two other fish to make it grow twice as fast as conventional salmon. Garth Fletcher is a professor emeritus and head of the department of ocean sciences at Memorial University. He's also the co-inventor of the genetically modified salmon. He's in our St. John's studio. Hello.

GARTH FLETCHER: Good morning, Megan.

MW: Good morning. So what's it like to see this genetically modified salmon that you helped invent being sold for the first time?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well, it's exciting, after nearly 30 years of going from the idea to the marketplace is really rather marvelous, as far as this inventor is concerned.

MW: Now can you take us back to when you were researching the salmon when the invention finally came about. Well what happened? How do you go about to genetically modify a salmon?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well you have to have a gene, isolated genes and all we had to do was have these genes and micro eject them into salmon eggs at the point of fertilization. And then carry on and to grow the eggs up through the system. But of course then you have to get into having them reproduce, so you have to show, first of all, that they had the gene, do they grow rapidly, you know and then can they pass on this trait to future generations.

MW: So how long did it take you to get to the point when you realized you'd made a breakthrough, that you'd actually managed to alter the genes of the salmon.

GARTH FLETCHER: Well certainly by 1994. By then, we were filing- the universities were filing preliminary patents on them. So, we knew we had rapidly growing sound at that point in time.

MW: And did you think anything would come of it?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well. Well, yes and no. I guess you could say that the answer. Natural Science and Engineering Research Council in Canada had funded the research at the university and they had encouraged us to find a way of transferring the technology to the private sector. So, that's near the beginning of when that was all starting. When we find some a company [unintelligible], at that time, which became Aquabounty, was interested in licensing the technology from the universities.

MW: Now what problem were you trying to solve when you invented the salmon?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well we started back in the 80s, when salmon farming was becoming of great interest to the region to [unintelligible] provinces, in general, and we live in Newfoundland and we have very icy water. And at that time myself and my colleagues were working on antifreeze proteins that could protect us phrasing. So we said well, maybe if you could expand aquaculture into Newfoundland, into the icy waters, by transferring any of these poaching genes and protecting them from freezing during the winter. That's how we started. We worked out that we could get the genes transferred and have them inherited from generation to generation. But it wasn't successful in making them freeze for a variety of reasons. So we thought well, let's make them grow faster. By that time we knew how to do the gene transfer. We had put together a gene construct, and we said let's have a go at that. So again we were funded by NSERC, Canadian granting agency.

MW: Hmm. So, the discovery or the purpose that ultimately this is being used for, this genetically modified salmon, it was sort of accidental. Is that correct, that you were looking for something else and then you discovered that it grew twice as fast?

GARTH FLETCHER: Oh no. The [unintelligible] do not do anything to the meat to grow faster, but just that we - what we were trying to do is see if you could do something to enhance, help and enhance agriculture in the Newfoundland region. So [unintelligible]is first place to start, we had a [unintelligible] genes. At that time and in the nature of science very few were very little was known about fish genes. And so we were kind of in the lead because we were working with some very unique genes. And we then said well let's make them grow faster, that might help the industry even more.

MW: I see. Okay. So, you were once an employee as you say of the company that became Aqua Bounty years ago. What kind of investment went into getting this genetically modified salmon to market?

GARTH FLETCHER: Oh, my goodness. I mean all I know is I have not been with the company for years but for all I know they spent at least 70 million dollars…

MW: Wow!

GARTH FLETCHER: On taking this technology through.

MW: And it took years as we know it took decades.

GARTH FLETCHER: Yes.

MW: Yes. Well, and we know that there's a lot of resistance to genetically modified food, as I mentioned in the introduction some people question whether this kind of salmon is safe to eat. What do you say to those concerns?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well, I certainly know it is safe to eat. First of all I have eaten them myself.

MW: Does your family eat it too?

GARTH FLETCHER: Well, my wife, yes. My children have all left home. So…

MW: Okay. [Laughs]

GARTH FLETCHER: [Laughs]

MW: But you would serve it to them, I assume.

GARTH FLETCHER: Yes of course.

MW: Right.

GARTH FLETCHER: Of course. I invented it. But the main thing is it's not up to me to say it's safe. It's a regulatory body. Right. So, Health Canada has approved it as being safe to eat. And so of course the United States FDA Food and Drug Administration. So you know what more can I ask?

MW: So what do you say to people, though? I mean despite the fact that it has it's been approved people still have concerns.

GARTH FLETCHER: Well, they're entitled to their concerns, everybody has an opinion. And it's really for the company's future which really depend upon consumer acceptance, will the fish sell? I was surprised as anybody to hear that they’d sold fish in Canada. But you know, to me it's a good surprise because don't forget I am a scientist. And you start off with this little sort of maybe idea, and it goes all the way through to commercialization, which was not something we did at university, all the way through, to commercial success, at least to limited commercial access, at this point in time.

MW: Do you think we're going to see more genetically modified animals on our plates in the near future?

GARTH FLETCHER: Oh I certainly do. Not necessarily the near future. It takes time, twenty something years, for some ideas to get the FDA and Health Canada. So everybody else is going to have to go through a similar rigorous screening investigations.

MW: Okay. Thank you very much, Garth Fletcher, an interesting subject matter and food for thought, shall I say?

GARTH FLETCHER: [Laughs] Thank you, Megan.

MW: Garth Fletcher is a professor emeritus and head of the department of ocean sciences at Memorial University and the co-inventor of the genetically modified salmon. He was in St. John's. We did reach out to Aquabounty to try to find out more about where their salmon has been sold. They declined to answer our questions and instead sent us this statement: “We were pleased with the outcome and the customers who purchased our salmon were very pleased, saying that our salmon was very high quality in terms of appearance, texture and taste unquote.” Despite it now being available in stores, a recent poll suggests Canadians aren't necessarily sold on genetically modified food. According to an Angus Reid poll released last week, fewer than two in five Canadians say GMO is safe to eat. And 83 percent think there should be some kind of mandatory label for genetically modified food at the grocery store. But the survey also found most Canadians aren't that knowledgeable about GMO food, in the first place. 60% said they know only a little about them. Like it or not, GMOs are probably here to stay, though. For more on the future possibilities of genetically modified animal products, I'm joined by Eric Hallerman. He's a professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech University and he was the principal investigator for research funded by the American government into the environmental risks posed by the Aquabounty salmon. He's in Blacksburg, Virginia. Good morning.

ERIC HALLERMAN: Good morning, Megan.

MW: So, how big of a deal is it that consumers in Canada are now able to buy, and presumably have already eaten, genetically modified salmon?

ERIC HALLERMAN: Well this is a big deal. This is the first genetically modified animal that's been introduced into the human food supply. It's significance goes beyond the salmon itself.

MW: Hmm. And you lead an American environmental assessment on Aquabounty genetically modified salmon. What did you find?

ERIC HALLERMAN: Well, basically we were interested in assessing whether these animals, if they were fertile and escaped into the environment, would persist and become some sort of an environmental [unintelligible] or perhaps impose some sort of ecological impact. What we found is they survived about as well as wild type salmon. In terms of reproduction, we found that their reproductive fitness was not zero. Hence, when we sat down with Aquabounty and told them “Look there is some issue here.” There was an uncomfortable perhaps 30 seconds, and the CEO of the company who looks at me and said “Okay, Dr. Hallerman, we will raise these things in strict confinement.” And so it went forward.

MW: Now when you say reproductive fitness, what are you alluding to exactly?

ERIC HALLERMAN: Their ability to get matings, the likelihood of fertilized eggs to develop, the likelihood of the young animals to develop properly and survive.

MW: And so what do you want? Do you want want that? Do you want them to reproduce, or not reproduce?

MW: Well, actually what we would really want is for these animals to not enter the environment at all. It's a remote possibility, but if they were to survive- Now remember that salmon have a complex life cycle. They spot in freshwater, stay there for perhaps a year, migrate out to the ocean for a couple of years and then migrate back to the same river, reefs or pool. Natural selection has imposed a lot of pressure on that population to be locally adapted. And here you have a cultured salmon and it's been selected to grow rapidly. Now, we've added a gene for it to grow ever more fast that would tend to make for salmon that would not persist as well in the wild.

MW: Right.

ERIC HALLERMAN: And so we would be just as happy if the animals are sterile and produced in recirculating aquaculture systems, to never escape.

MW: And that means…

ERIC HALLERMAN: And that is what Aquabounty has agreed to do.

MW: Okay. And that means not farmed in ocean pens, away from the ocean.

ERIC HALLERMAN: No, these are produced in recirculating aqua-cultural systems, in Panama.

MW: Right. Okay. And presumably, if they come to Canada, I know there's talk about their coming to PEI, they would also be kept from the ocean?

ERIC HALLERMAN: That's correct. And Environment Canada would be looking into it and have to certify that before they could produce [unintelligible].

MW: Okay. Now, some consumer advocates have raised concerns that shoppers in Canada, who bought the GM Salmon, don't know it, because there's no labeling requirement here and Aquabounty has not revealed where the product is being sold. What are your thoughts on that?

ERIC HALLERMAN: Well, if I was to give you a hundred salmon filets and tell you that some of them were Aquabounty salmon, you would never be able to tell that, regardless of the equipment you had to do it. That's one aspect of it, but that only addresses part of it. Many members of the public want to have what they call informed consent. That they're buying something and they know what it is. So I would advocate some sort of a label, not saying genetically modified, because that scares people away. But perhaps something more on the order of what they have in Brazil, where they have a T and an inverted triangle that meets transgenic. And it's on the label, along with many other small things, that might be a V for vegan for other products. It might be a K or a U in a circle, if it's Kosher. It might be an H or a crescent moon in a circle, if it is Halal. One of those sorts of labels, that's not scary but the people that care can look at and see, and know what it is that they're buying.

MW: Right. I'm curious how close do you think we are to seeing genetically modified advances with other animal products? I mean is salmon is the first, or are other animals going to be soon arriving on our plates?

ERIC HALLERMAN: Well, there's a number of interesting products in the R&D pipeline and I'll mention just a few of them. In China, there are cattle that have been genetically modified, so that they have omega 3 fatty acids in their milk and meat. In America, they're developing cattle that are polled that don't have horns. There's chicken under-development, such that only females are produced. Think about it when you have egg laying chickens. The males are destroyed at one day of age. Chickens, pigs, cattle, shrimp, silkworms that are disease resistant. All of these things are exciting developments and will be a shame if these things did not come to realization, because people had unrealistic fear of them.

MW: I was going to ask how likely do you think they will get to market. There's been salmon took two decades.

ERIC HALLERMAN: I think the salmon took so long because it was the first.

MW: Right.

ERIC HALLERMAN: And because the public policies that were needed to oversee this were being developed in real time, as this company waited in the wings. Now these policies have been developed. I'm hoping that the regulatory wheels will turn more quickly.

MW: Okay, thank you very much. Lots to think about, there. Thank you Eric Hallerman.

ERIC HALLERMAN: Thank you.

MW:Eric Hallerman is a professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Management at the Virginia Tech University. He was in Blacksburg, Virginia. As we mentioned earlier, Aquabounty has not said where in Canada it's genetically modified salmon is being sold and there is no requirement for labeling, here in Canada. However, several major grocery chains confirm that they do not carry the product, including Loblaws, Metro, Soby's, Costco, IGA and Walmart. And critics are calling for more information. For more on that I'm joined by Lucy Sharratt. She's the coordinator of the Canadian biotechnology Action Network and she's in our Ottawa studio. Good morning.

LUCY SHARRATT: Good morning.

MW: You've been listening to our conversations with Eric Hallerman and Garth Fletcher, both proponents of GM salmon. What's your perspective on that?

LUCY SHARRATT: Let me start by saying that this is the world's first genetically modified food animal. And it is significant that Canadians are the first in the world to eat it, without knowing. And this is the distinction here is that Canadians have already been eating this genetically modified salmon, because the company revealed that information in August, that they had been selling the salmon sometime between April and July. The company told its investors, there was no public notice. So this is a fundamental issue right away is transparency. So we are troubled that this precedent setting technology and product has entered the market, at this time and in this way, where the realities Canadians who've walked into their grocery store or restaurant and bought Atlantic salmon, will have eaten it unknowingly and some Canadians may want the choice not to.

MW: Do you have a sense of how much Canadians care about this?

LUCY SHARRATT: We know, from 20 years of polling, including the poll that you just cited, that over 80% of Canadians want mandatory labeling.

MW: Okay.

LUCY SHARRATT: And we know this is the basis, that there's a large majority of Canadians that actually just want to know what they're eating.

MW: And they may or may not choose to eat it. But you're saying it's primarily an issue of labeling, at this point.

LUCY SHARRATT: This is the most urgent and immediate question when we're looking now at what's unfolding in reality. But there are many reasons why Canadians are asking for labeling or have concerns, including ethical and religious concerns, concerns over the environmental risks and corporate control. We know this from the polling that we've done that there's so many concerns out there.

MW: Okay. I want to talk about environmental risk. Eric Hallerman just said that as long as the GM salmon are produced in land, which they are right now, they don't pose an environmental risk. What do you think of that?

LUCY SHARRATT: This is a high stakes calculation that relies on total containment. It may be possible to contain the salmon, at some sites under some circumstances, but we also know that the best containment plans can fail. And so when we look at the company's plans in P.E.I., where they want to produce 250 tons per year of this genetically modified salmon at Rollo Bay, we really need to ask the federal government to do a scientific assessment on what the impact is of producing that salmon. We do know, as was said, that an escape poses a huge risk to wild Atlantic salmon. So the question really is, is that risk offset by any benefits? Do we want to see that happen?

MW: Okay. The concern is also not just environmental but also about the people who are eating it. In 2016, Health Canada determined that Aquabounty salmon was “As safe and nutritious for humans and livestocks as conventional salmon”. Are you unsure about this statement or unsure about the health impacts on those who consume it?

LUCY SHARRATT: We don't know that there's a health concern from eating genetically modified salmon. We know that Health Canada does not do its own testing. Listeners may not know that our government doesn't test these genetically modified foods. Instead, the government relies on data, information that's provided by the company and all of that information is kept confidential. So, even that it's not just in the grocery store that there's no transparency around genetically modified foods, at almost every step in the regulation of these products, there is not transparency. The information is kept confidential. And so we really do have many questions about what kind of information companies are producing to demonstrate safety.

MW: Right. Okay. Now right now Aquabounty produces its salmon in Panama. But as we've heard it's applied for to open a facility in PEI. Now, Environment Canada says it will have to undergo an environmental assessment before production can begin. What will you be watching for, if they come to be and begin setting up operations there?

LUCY SHARRATT: Well already there's been a lot of local opposition to the particular plan of this GM fish factory, in Prince Edward Island. And we know that there's also a lot of local resistance even happening on the streets. Tomorrow there will be people sharing information to let people know that this genetically modified food is on the market, because this is a fundamental issue, is we can't really debate genetically modified foods properly. Canadians actually don't know what's on the market and where it is. And here we're talking about the world's first genetically modified food, this GM fish. So there's actually a real opportunity here to examine the important controversy over genetic modification and take that time. Certainly, there needs to be mandatory labeling right away. The government needs to start tracking genetically modified foods on the market. If Canadians today called their member of parliament and asked them which genetically modified foods are on the market, those members of parliament would not have an answer. Our government doesn't actually know which GM foods are on the market. They know what they've approved, but they don't know what's on the market.

MW: So you're calling for more transparency, essentially.

LUCY SHARRATT: At every level we need more transparency, in the marketplace and throughout regulation. And with this genetically modified food animal, we have an opportunity to discuss the vision for the use of this technology, in Canada, in our food system, rather than letting companies own vision for their products. Be, what the reality is the Canadians are confronted with. The issue here, is that this product was released onto the market when Canadians have no choice whether to accept or reject. So, ideally, Canadians are the best market for a company to introduce such a controversial product.

MW: Okay, thank you very much. Fascinating.

LUCY SHARRATT: Thank you.

MW: I've been speaking with Lucy Sharratt who's the coordinator of the Canadian biotechnology Action Network. She was in our Ottawa studio. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for a new episode of Love Me. This week, an introvert gets trapped in a room with 11 strangers and an E.R. nurse works a night shift that changes her life forever. And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. After that discussion about the events in Charlottesville, Virginia and the violence that occurred after white supremacists, and other far right groups, gathered to rally against the state's plans to remove a confederate statue. Here is another elected official speaking about why Confederate monuments must go. This is New Orleans Mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in May after the city took down four Confederate monuments. I'm Megan Williams. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors but in this cause they were not patriots. These statutes are not just stone and metal, they are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments celebrate a fictional [unintelligible] Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for. And after the Civil War, these monuments were part of that terrorism, as much as burning across on someone's lawn. They were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in the shadows about who was still in charge, in this city. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African-American mother or father, trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter why Robert E Lee sat on top of our city? Can you do it? Can you do it? We all know the answers to these very simple questions. When you look into this child's eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus. This is the moment when we know what we must do, when we know what is right.

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The Current Transcript for August 14, 2017

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