Innovation is the fundamental driver for the advancement of societies. The advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century precipitated a dramatic increase in the rate of innovation. Societies of the time struggled in how to deal with the rapid changes that resulted from these innovations and their application. Present day society is no different.
Innovations in todays society have the ability to be widely adopted and the potential to affect far larger segments of the population that previous innovations. The rapid rise of genetic modification is one such innovation. This innovative technology has been widely adopted by the drug and agriculture industries and as a result, it has impacted all segments of Canadian society.
This thesis examines how Canadian society has dealt with the specific innovation of agricultural biotechnology, or the genetic modification of plants. The commercialization of genetically modified plants has resulted in regulatory challenges for the government, intellectual property and liability concerns for industry and consumer acceptance issues within the general public.
By researching the interaction and relationships between government regulators, private firms and consumer organizations, it is possible to identify how Canada has reacted to the challenge of regulating agricultural biotechnology. The interdisciplinary framework necessary to accomplish this requires conceptual contributions from economics, political science and sociology.
In the development of the innovation, or innovative product, the regulatory approval process requires a risk analysis for all new plant varieties. This risk analysis process is comprised of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. This thesis argues that risk and the application of risk analysis is appropriate for pre-commercialization, but once the innovative product is in the marketplace, any failure regarding this product can be viewed as a potential liability.
The management of and communication about liabilities differs from that of risk management and communication. The key theme of this research is to examine how regulators in Canada have attempted to regulate post-commercialization liabilities and to identify what governance structures or institutions are essential for the regulation of post-commercialization liabilities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-02072005-135411 |
| Date | 08 February 2005 |
| Creators | Smyth, Stuart James |
| Contributors | Michelmann, Hans J., Mehta, Michael D., Khachatourians, George G., Isaac, Grant E., Boyd, Colin, Phillips, Peter W. B. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-02072005-135411/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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