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Subject:         Letter to Canada's Minister of Industry
   Date:         Mon, 22 Jun 1998 16:39:23 -0700


Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 11:40:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Letter to Canada's Minister of Industry

***URGENT ACTION REQUIRED***

On June 29, 1998, Industry Canada along with Monsanto (the world's
biggest biotechnology corporation) and the Royal Bank is organzing a
"workshop" on biotechnology, women's indigenous knowledge and food
security. Corporations involved in genetic engineering who are trying to
secure their control over
seeds, plants, human genes etc. by enshrining them as their Intellectual
Property Rights (through the WTO, for instance) have managed to get some
big guns involved in their push for ever greater privatization and
corporate control over life. U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton along with
U.S. Secretary of State, Madelaine Albright, will be co-chairing this
event that is to be
held in Washington, D.C. (that's right, not even in Ottawa!).

World renowned ecofeminist and author, Vandana Shiva, calls this process
biopiracy for it colonizes the inner spaces of life itself. Currently,
much of the patenting of life is being done through the US patent
office. Many, many patents have already been granted (on Basmati rice,
on the Neem tree which grows in South Asia and many other life forms).
For these patents to
be successful, each individual country needs to recognize them. Some
countries have already done so. Others, like India, have refused to. We
need to make sure that the Canadian government refuses to recognize
biopirated patents on life.

***Please put your name on this letter to John Manley, Canada's Minister
of Industry and e-mail, fax or snail-mail it to him. Also, send a copy
to Dr. Elizabeth McGregor, who is coordinating this infamous event. See
below for appropriate umbers/addresses. Also, circulate this letter as
widely as possible - both before and after the June 29, 1998 meeting.***

Hon. John Manley, Minister of Industry
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, ON
Canada A1A 0H5
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
fax: (613) 992-0302

Dr. Elizabeth McGregor,
Coordinator, Minister's National Biotechnology Advisory Committee:
Industry Canada
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, ON
Canada A1A 0H5
fax: (613) 992-0302

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Rt. Hon. John Manley,
Minister of Industry
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, ON
Canada A1A 0H5

June 19, 1998

Dear Mr. Manley,

We have been informed about the workshop on "biotechnology, women's
indigenous knowledge and food security" at the Second International
Conference on Women in Agriculture that you are organising on behalf of
Industry Canada, with the sponsorship of Monsanto and the Royal Bank of
Canada. We feel that the language of "partnership" being used hides two
levels of exploitation of Third World women.

First, we see the workshop as an attempt to introduce structive
technologies based on genetic engineering in Third World agriculture,
destroying women's knowledge, their biodiversity and their food
security. There can be no partnership between the Terminator technology
patented by United States Department of Agriculture and Delta Pine Land
which is now owned by Monsanto, since women farmers have a right to save
seeds and the Terminator is a termination of this invaluable right.
Secondly, there can be no partnership between Third World women farmers
and corporations which pirate and patent their knowledge and
biodiversity as in the case of neem, turmeric, pepper and
basmati. We feel that the use of rural women's knowledge by agricultural
research centres, agrifood companies and trade organisations is
basically biopiracy and should not be described as "partnership".

Industry Canada should be appointing a human rights tribunal to look
into this epidemic of piracy instead of using our tax dollars to
subsidise Monsanto and promote its monopolistic agenda by trying to
co-opt the rhetoric about women and partnership. As Canadian feminists
and citizens, we object to this "partnership" between one government and
the world's largest biotechnology corporation. We would like the
Industry Ministry to join us in inviting Third World women to directly
address Canadian citizens and the Canadian government about their own
priorities and perspective on knowledge and food security.

We feel that an issue that ultimately affects the future of food
security and millions of people both as food growers and consumers,
deserves to be opened to public debate and not be monopolised and left
to the discretion of a selective group of "specialists" and interested
corporations. We object to
the Canadian Government taking the position of multinational
corporations without a mandate from Canadians. We are particularly
concerned that such a formidable event, which is sponsored in part by
the Canadian public purse, is being
convened in Washington, D.C., a location and context which subordinates
not only the role of women but that of all Canadians.

We will not allow the co-optation of feminism by global corporations for
their agenda of total control over agriculture, in the North and in the
South. With our sisters in the Third World, we will build strategies for
genuine partnership to protect the earth, biodiversity and the expertise
of women farmers.

Sincerely,

cc. Dr. Elizabeth McGregor, Coordinator, Minister's National
Biotechnology Advisory Committee: Industry Canada

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