In Canada, market access is an important consideration in the development and commercialization of any new products or technologies, which may not have regulatory approvals in place for all countries, that import Canadian goods. Since the first approvals of biotech* crops in the mid 1990s, the issue of market access has emerged as a result of different levels of regulatory development and public acceptance around the world. In countries like Canada and the US biotech crops have been approved for safety and rapidly adopted by farmers. Both Canada and the US are exporters of agricultural commodities and ensuring free trade and access to markets is critically important for agriculture in North America and abroad. For biotech crops, the issue of market access has primarily revealed itself in disputes between North America and Europe, where trade of crops such as canola and corn from NA to Europe has been restricted due to a breakdown in the EU regulatory process driven by public uncertainty about the technology. Lesser manifestations of this have also occurred between NA, and other countries such as Japan and China.

• The responsible introduction of biotech crops, with growers and markets in place prior to commercialization.
• Bringing relevant components of the value chain together in order to work proactively and cooperatively to address market access for biotech crops and to avoid market disruptions.
• The development of international standards with standardized testing and thresholds, which will maintain choice in the marketplace.
• Ensuring channelling systems are in place, as needed, (e.g. development of identity preservation or segregation production systems) to ensure co-existence of different production systems (including biotech and non-biotech) in order to maximize the benefits to society for a diverse and sustainable agriculture production system in Canada and globally and maintain choice for all farmers.
• Supporting a rigorous science based regulatory framework as the key pillar to assure the safety of biotech crops.
• Defending the science based regulatory approach and not compromising our legislation and regulation by introducing non-scientific factors, such as market access. This would only foster uncertainty and potential for conflict of interest.
• Defending the agriculture industries right to buy, sell and market products, which have been approved for safety by the Government of Canada.

• The agriculture industry (farmers, grain handlers/distributors, technology developers) is fully committed of ensuring access to world markets and finding customers for new products prior to introduction. The agriculture industry has a proven track record of proactively managing the introduction of crops and technologies in the face of differing levels of international acceptance, including biotech crops (for example, biotech canola, corn, and soybeans currently endorsed by Canadian farmers and our international customers).
• Introduction of socio-economic considerations, such as market access, into the Canadian regulatory framework would undermine the scientific basis for regulation that ensures the safety of all products in Canada.
• From an international trade perspective adding market access into a science based regulatory framework would weaken our position in international markets as well as weaken the strong position brought by Canada for science based sanitary and phytosanitary rules of trade. Weakening of these positions would negatively impact innovation and investment in Canadian agriculture.
• In a competitive marketplace, it is important to ensure Canadian farmers have access to new technologies that provide value, while at the same time not jeopardizing access to markets to which they sell their products.