The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

216 the world according to monsantoThey amounted to $15,450 Canadian, or $15 per acre harvested in 1998,though only part of the harvest was contaminated. Monsanto was alsoawarded legal costs.Schmeiser appealed, but Judge McKay’s decision was upheld on September4, 2002. But Schmeiser, who had already sacrificed his pension andsome of his land to carry on his defense (which cost $200,000 Canadian),did not give up. “This is no longer the Schmeiser case,” he said, “it’s the caseof all the farmers in the world.” 30 He appealed to the Supreme Court ofCanada, which on May 21, 2004, issued a decision eagerly awaited byeveryone worried by the progression of GMOs: by a 5–4 ruling, the court upheldthe two previous decisions but, oddly, found that Schmeiser had to payneither damages nor Monsanto’s legal costs. The substantive finding wasdramatic, because it confirmed that farmers were responsible for transgeniccontamination of their fields, but the decision also suggested that the justiceswere troubled at the outcome. “With one hand they give and with theother hand they take away,” said Richard Gold, an intellectual property specialistat McGill University in Montreal. 31 But Monsanto saw it as a victorythat it would not fail to exploit in the future. “The ruling affirms the way thatwe do business,” said Jordan. 32When GMO Contamination Produces SuperweedsI have been constantly impressed by Monsanto’s capacity to say one thingand do the exact opposite. At the very time it was harassing Percy Schmeiser,its public relations department wrote in its Pledge Report: “In cases of unintendedappearance of our proprietary varieties in a farmer’s fields, we willsurely work with the farmer to resolve the matter to the satisfaction of boththe farmer and Monsanto.” 33 So much for the window dressing designed toreassure shareholders and possible customers. On the ground, the realitywas entirely different, for GMO contamination had become a major problemon the North American prairies.“GM canola has, in fact, spread much more rapidly than we thought itwould. It’s absolutely impossible to control,” said Professor Martin Entz ofthe University of Manitoba in 2001. “It’s been a great wake-up call about theside effects of these GM technologies.” 34 The same year, Professor MartinPhillipson observed: “Farmers in this province are spending tens of thou-