Re: SOC/BIO: Survey on Canadian attitudes to genengineering

From: E. Shaun Russell (e_shaun@extropy.org)
Date: Sat Jan 06 2001 - 11:45:40 MST


Greg Burch wrote:

>From The Ottawa Citizen,
>http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/010102/5028739.html

>Canadians are overwhelmingly against cloning animals, and are also deeply
>suspicious of genetically modified food and the use of pesticides made from
>genetically modified bacteria.
>[...]

I think that it is very important to note that there are two very different
sides to Canada, with varying views on governments and science. The East
(particularly Ontario and Quebec) is predominantly left-liberal, and due to
the Canadian electoral system, those two provinces alone can win an
election. The West, however (with the semi-exception of British Columbia),
is generally more business oriented and progressive. Canada's last
election at the end of November painted the difference quite starkly, with
the Liberal party winning Ontario, Quebec and other Eastern provinces, and
the more progressive right- wing Alliance party cleanly winning in the four
Western provinces. Incidentally, the province with the best economy
(Alberta) is in the West.

In any event, I am suspicious of articles such as the one shown above due
to the apparent myopia of the East. Given that the article is from the
Ottawa Citizen, I would be willing to bet that all the "Canadians" polled
are from the East, as my experience with living in the West has shown more
toleration for GM foods and less toleration for Big Government than the
article suggests.

_____________________________________________________________
E. Shaun Russell Operations Officer, Extropy Institute
e_shaun@extropy.org http://www.extropy.org
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     ~K i n e t i c i z e Y o u r P o t e n t i a l~



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