The Plant Biosafety Office of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
is the Canadian regulatory authority responsible for environmental
safety assessments of plants with novel traits (PNTs), including
living modified organisms (LMOs) as defined by the Cartagena
Protocol on Biosafety, intended for release into the environment,
such as food crops, trees, and horticultural plants.
A plant is considered to be a PNT if:
it exhibits characteristics that were not previously observed in
it;
it no longer exhibits characteristics that were previously observed
in it; or
one or more characteristics of the plant no longer fall within the
anticipated range for the plant.
All animate products of biotechnology, including LMOs, must be
notified to the appropriate Canadian regulatory authority and
assessed for their potential to harm the environment prior to their
import, manufacture or sale in Canada. For more information on the
Canadian regulatory framework for new substances, of which LMOs are
a subset, please follow the link below to the Government of Canada
fact sheet entitled Regulatory Roadmap for New Substances in
Canada.
https://www.ec.gc.ca/subsnouvelles-newsubs/25166DE1-D27B-45AA-8B88-C2B8DF97B1C9/Factsheet%20-%20EN.pdf
