Comments made by MPs in the House of Commons on April 8th & 9th relating to the full implementation of the
precautionary principle
Click Here to Add CommentSubject: Are you listening Fairfax?
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 14:37:44 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
The following are comments made by MPs in the House of Commons on April 8th & 9th relating to the full implementation of the precautionary principle, the short comings of Bill C-53 as drafted, the need for public education and immediate need to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides in urban areas.
For the complete version of Hansard (pdf copy - French & English) go to: http://www.parl.gc.ca/
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Hon. Anne McLellan (Minister of Health, Lib.)
**** Municipalities may place whatever restrictions they wish on the use of pesticides on lands which they own. In addition, where duly authorized by provincial legislation, a municipality may establish bylaws to restrict or ban the use of pesticides on private land within its jurisdiction. Indeed some municipalities have banned the use of chemical pesticides on public lands and in some cases on private lawns. Public interest groups have called on the federal government to do the same thing under this proposed new pesticide legislation.
One does however have to remember that the federal authority for the pest control products act relies primarily upon the use of the criminal law power which is intended to address serious threats to the public interest. To include in this legislation a ban of the use of pesticides for what people refer to as cosmetic use could be exposing individuals to criminal prosecution for engaging in an activity which has not been proven to constitute an unacceptable risk. Such a measure I would submit would be beyond the proper scope of the criminal law power.
At the same time, citizens of a particular municipality may decide they do not want to have the pesticide used in their community no matter how small the risks. They may convince the municipal authorities to establish a bylaw banning all pesticides for a specific use.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian
I would like to note that we were pleased to see that the bill did not impose a ban on the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. We believe the government is correct in allowing municipalities to maintain control over such decisions.
While the official opposition is supportive of developing and using proven alternatives in urban environments, we do not believe that the moratorium on pest control products should be in place before there is a substantial body of conclusive scientific evidence that unequivocally links such products to human disease or ill health.
The official opposition believes that proven, sound science, domestically and internationally, should continue to be the cornerstone of debate.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Hon. Charles Caccia (
It should also be noted that in its attempt to dominate the market, industry avoids the word pesticides and instead uses intriguing, scientific sounding formulas like 2,4-D or other fancy abbreviations intended to reassure the potential consumer of chemicals about using pesticides on his or her front yard lawn. Fortunately, municipalities have not been bamboozled by the pesticide industry's public relations campaign. Today over 30 municipalities have banned the cosmetic use of pesticides on private property and in some cases on public property.
All this is after prolonged and extensive legal battles which peaked last June when the Supreme Court of Canada hit the pesticide industry on the head and gave it a lesson in constitutional law. The court declared that yes, municipalities do have the power to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides and that yes, the public interest can and should be served by municipal governments.
Before leaving the subject, I would like to pay a warm
tribute to the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--
There is no statutory mandate and responsibility given to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which makes it a rather unique feature in the government structure.
There is no inclusion of the substitution principle, therefore no requirement to deregister older pesticides once newer, safer products are registered and brought to market.
There is a very narrow application of the precautionary principle. Why is it applied only at the consultation or amendment stage of the registration of a pesticide and not right at the beginning of the process, namely when deciding whether to register it or not? That is the question. It would make enormous sense to apply the precautionary principle all the way through as it was already advocated yesterday, if I remember correctly, by the member for Rosemont--Petite--Patrie.
There is no definition of acceptable or unacceptable risk and that is also a very serious matter which needs to be brought to the attention of members.
There is no requirement to take into account aggregate and
cumulative exposure when registering a product. Time and again witnesses at
committee hearings brought this to our attention, particularly the Canadian
There is no room for independent scientific findings which could be followed by mandatory feedback. Let us be realistic. Only so much can be achieved through public consultations and comments on decisions. More needs to be done in the public interest.
There is the matter of what constitutes confidential business information and that matter remains the same in this bill as in the 1969 legislation. It seems to me that surely there are situations when the public good can be of greater importance than confidential business information, or am I living on another planet?
Another shortcoming is the fact that the bill focuses only on the active ingredients of a pesticide but not on ingredients that can pose a threat to human health and the environment and are not necessarily active.
Finally, and this may be a budgetary requirement and not
necessarily a legislative one, there is a need also identified by the Standing
Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development for better statistics
on pesticides, be it their sales or other related data. There is indeed an
important challenge here for Statistics
As others have already outlined, Bill C-53 is definitely an improvement over the 1969 legislation. It should however be stronger in ensuring a healthy and safe environment for Canadians. The bill relies too heavily on product, product management and product regulation, and too little on the reduction in the use of, the reliance on and the risks posed by pesticides. That in a nutshell would be my way of assessing the bill.
It is my sincere hope that colleagues on the health committee will be able to address these shortcomings and amend the bill, which is quite possible at the committee stage, as members present have experienced.
To conclude, it seems to me that the Canadian population can expect a law which will give full and unconditional precedence to human health and the environment over pesticides and the very powerful industrial interests behind them.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Peter Adams (
On the other hand, because there are thousands of municipal
jurisdictions, it may well take a very long time before they take up the cause
as some jurisdictions, such as
In legislation of this type, how could we introduce something that would move along the aspect of what he was discussing? I suppose it might range from advertising and education to a federal government department that might do that. Has he given any thought to a practical way of bringing that aspect into this new legislation?
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Hon. Charles Caccia: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite
right in pointing at the government of
However, the main point is this. We did recommend in
committee that the federal government could phase-out pesticides that were put
on the market for cosmetic purposes alone. We set a time limit of five years. I
believe the hon. member from
As to the final suggestion that a public education program could achieve that purpose, that is a very good idea. However let me draw to the attention of the member the fact that the producers of cosmetic pesticides are very engaged in advertising campaigns themselves which show beautifully uniform green-bladed lawns, happily frolicking pets and the like. Therefore the competition for public attention would be very intense.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.):
Let us look at the Pest Management Regulatory Agency which licenses and re-evaluates pesticides so they can be sold to the public. No statutory mandate in the legislation is given to the PMRA. All responsibilities and obligations fall on the Minister of Health.
In 1995 the PMRA was established as an administrative
branch within Health
The committee also recommended a very clear mission for the
PMRA. It recommended that it give absolute priority to the protection of human
health and the environment when considering whether to approve a pesticide for
use in
My colleague from
Critical to this issue is the fact that for the majority of
priority chemicals or for important new innovations, there exists very little,
or no, human health safety data. Many decisions on chemical safety have been
taken on very limited toxicological data re their safety to developing organ
systems, i.e. children. It takes many years to obtain these data. Under current
law and policy in
This is why we need the precautionary principle which
Appropriate preventive measures are to be taken where there is reason to believe that a pesticide is likely to cause harm, even when there is no conclusive evidence to prove a causal relation between the pesticide and its effects.
There is no definition of acceptable or unacceptable risk in the bill. In fact the whole purpose of the bill is to avoid an unacceptable risk. The implementation of the bill would depend on the subjective interpretation of this concept, which is not defined. The precautionary principle is only applied in the proposed legislation in re-evaluation or special reviews. At an operation level the precautionary principle must be used in all decisions respecting pest control products.
There is no requirement to consider aggregate and cumulative exposure. The committee addressed at length that the minister shall consider available information on aggregate and cumulative exposure when determining maximum residue only. That is not sufficient.
There is no science based inherent toxicity criteria, that is, there is no threshold for endocrine destruction, neurotoxicity or carcinogenic content of a pesticide specified for testing of the products. There is no requirement to re-register or evaluate pesticide for use on GMOs.
Another issue that the committee dealt with was an
educational mandate. I remember legislation I passed in
The committee recommended that PMRA be expressly mandated under the new legislation to inform and educate the public about the risks associated with the use of pesticides and the availability of less harmful alternatives. Attitudes about pesticide use must be changed through aggressive public education programs. PMRA should not be given the exclusive responsibility to carry this out given that many federal departments make vital contributions to public awareness raising. It should be spread throughout the system. Public education should be a key mandate of the legislation.
We need a commitment in the bill to the pollution prevention principle. There is no substitution principle included in the bill, that is, a requirement to deregister older pesticides once newer and safer ones are registered.
There is a lack of consideration given in the bill to alternatives, to the essential need to use alternatives when they are available and use them on a fast-track basis. Track 1 toxic substances of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are not explicitly disallowed, again a breach of committee recommendations.
There is no requirement to obtain information or to
evaluate registered formulants and contaminants. There are no requirements
either for the establishment of a government-use database or to develop
reduction plans. There is no phase-out of cosmetic pesticides as referred to by
my colleague from
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Mr. Speaker, I think the precautionary principle has to be the guiding light in all aspects of decision making, including that of the PMRA. If there is any uncertainty it should not be licensed and used. If we are sure, after using the best assessment methods using the benchmark of children, pregnant women and seniors and the safety margin of 10 times, if we are 100% sure that a pesticide is reasonably safe for use in regard to human health and the environment, then it can be licensed, but only after it has been made 100% certain.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, BQ):
Another aspect concerns municipalities. In recent years,
the responsibilities of municipalities for pesticide management and control have
increased. Why? Because following a ruling by various tribunals in
In recent years, the authority municipalities have to establish regulatory codes has increased. Under the Cities and Towns Act, municipalities may regulate and prohibit the use of pesticides. As a result, we have seen, and will continue to see municipalities pass regulations prohibiting the use of pesticides in the coming months and years.
In response to these court decisions and to
The problem lies with the committee's second
recommendation, the most important one, which would have made it possible to
ensure that, by a specific deadline, the use of pesticides could be phased out
in
We can clearly see, and the government must also admit this, that there is nothing in the bill, which we are studying today and which we are going to study in committee, that sets any kind of deadline with respect to the non-use and elimination of pesticides.
We on this side of the House are very disappointed. Not
only was this the position of the Standing Committee on the Environment and
Sustainable Development, but it was also one of the recommendations in the May
27 report by
When we look at this bill and see that there is no indication of any intention to phase out the use of pesticides at all, let alone over five years, we are rather disappointed. The House can rest assured that we will fight hard in committee to keep this bill. The government's tendency is to renew the legislation approximately every 33 years. We must be more vigilant than ever and ensure that this five-year phase out becomes law.
The task force addressed this issue, and set out its objective as follows:
The objective is to identify avenues for solution which will enable Quebecers to reduce their dependency on, and the risk of exposure to, these products which are in common use in lawn care, ornamental horticulture and extermination.
The task force has indeed managed to come up with
alternative solutions and an approach to true pest control in
This report, on which the committee held hearings in January, contained a certain number of recommendations. There were 15 recommendations. The task force's first recommendation serves as a main underlying theme. We must quickly reduce the use of pesticides in urban areas. This is the main them underlying the task force's recommendations.
The task force made 15 recommendations. First, it proposed banning the use of pesticides in public and municipal green spaces and in schools and daycare centres in three years' time. Therefore, the recommendations involve prohibiting the use of pesticides on lawns in three years, and on shrubs in five years. So, the shorter deadline is three years, and the longer deadline for public green spaces, whether they be parks, daycare centres, schools and all public green spaces, is five years.
We are disappointed because we believe that the principle of precaution ought to take precedence over any other as far as examination of this bill is concerned, not solely commercial and economic ones. The government must not be influenced by major pesticide producers but must instead put the health of Quebecers and Canadians first.
We are disappointed because we had thought there would be elimination over five years in response to the committee's demands. Disappointed as well, because we see there is no measure whatsoever that will speed up the certification process for less harmful pesticides. Nor is there any deadline for the accreditation of biopesticides.
I will conclude by saying that Canadians, but also Canadian
businesses, those who use pesticides every day, are prepared to go along with
the committee's recommendation, which is a five-year phase out. By way of
example, I will simply mention the Fédération de l'horticulture ornementale du
Quebec, which said it would agree to use pesticides as little as possible,
provided that alternative products were available. Civil society in
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia--Matane, BQ):
the bill does not suggest any alternatives to current pesticides. As I indicated, we should have alternatives. Of course, the government can ask people to stop using specific pesticides, but it must at least provide alternatives. Alternatives are necessary, not only in terms of biopesticides, but also when it comes to agriculture; reference is made to organic agriculture. Since I represent a rural riding, I know full well that, in the industry, farmers are still using products that may be considered as highly toxic and that it is necessary to have some control on the way these products are used.
For example, as my colleague from Rosemont--Petite-Patrie pointed out yesterday, certain European countries offer financial incentives to encourage growers to eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, that is chemical fertilizers. Bill C-53 seems to have been completely stripped of any recognition of the importance of research and development of biopesticides.
We can hope that chemical pesticides, pesticides potentially hazardous to human health, will disappear, but there must be alternatives available, and research must be developed and encouraged if the process is to be speeded up.
Another thing that was recommended by the standing committee is for there to be a re-evaluation by the year 2006 of all pesticides that were registered prior to 1995. Once again, the bill seems not to have set a time limit for the re-evaluation of old pesticides. This is an important point.
Earlier,
I discussed the position defined by
A sense of responsibility is very important, and one of the aspects I wish to mention is developing people's sense of responsibility. This is an aspect which is very difficult to control, however. Developing people's sense of responsibility has to do with methods of pesticide use, with people using pesticides in their immediate environment, either on their lawn or on their fruit trees. People often have very little information about how these pesticides should be used. They use them any old way. Sometimes they may very well misuse products and not be aware of their possible hazards. Even if each of these products is very clearly labelled and the recommended use very clearly indicated, not everyone is an expert on pesticides and sometimes amounts can be considerably increased and pose a threat to human health.
Some fifty or so organizations and individuals presented briefs to the group formed by Minister Boisclair. Over half of these organizations, representing municipal government, the research, health and business sectors, and ecological groups, expressed their views during the four days of consultations held in January 2002.
The focus group and the people who presented briefs at the hearings made 15 major recommendations designed to considerably reduce the use of pesticides in urban areas.
But I would like to see this go a bit further than the urban setting. I would like to see rural areas included, because we are well aware that pesticides are also used in farming. They are not restricted to urban areas. They are also used in our towns, our villages and our countryside. I would like to see a broader approach taken and all of society made aware of the problem of using pesticides, which can be potentially dangerous to human health.
The first recommendation of the focus group is to ban pesticides, unless action levels have been reached or the survival of plants is being threatened, as one of my colleagues mentioned earlier.
The group asked that this be done within a quite short deadline. This provision seems to be lacking in the bill. In the bill before us, it seems that the government does not wish to ban the use of pesticides in the more or less long term, among other places in urban centres, as other members have mentioned. These are pesticides that are used only for lawn and park improvement in cities.
We will have to raise people's awareness. We will have the raise the awareness of businesses that are using such pesticides. We will have to allow them to have access to organic pesticides and make them aware that the use of specific chemical non biodegradable pesticides may be harmful to human health, even to those who spray them, that is workers in these businesses. Consequently, it seems important to me that the government should try, through an amendment to the bill that will be sent to the Standing Committee on Health, to set a deadline to ensure that the use of potentially harmful chemical pesticides be banned in green spaces and on our lawns.
Other recommendations were made by Minister Boisclair's focus group on the use of pesticides, including environmental management training for those working around the public, such as lawn care businesses, those who sell pesticides, professionals who provide services or those who work in public areas, so they can give advice and set an example. Those who work in public areas include municipal employees.
Public information and education with regard to the risks associated with the use of pesticides, with regard to environmental management and with regard to alternative methods and products must be an important part of the bill. The public must be informed and educated on this issue as quickly as possible so that people become aware that the use of these products can be extremely harmful to their health and, in the long term, to human health and to the environment.
One wish expressed by the focus group, and it is something that I mentioned myself, is that alternative methods using less harmful products be made available. We cannot ask people to stop using pesticides if they do not have access to much less dangerous products that would therefore be less harmful to their health.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor--St. Clair, NDP):
The greatest failure of the bill is the lack of the ban on
the cosmetic use of pesticides. I believe the minister mentioned it again today
as she certainly has in the past. She said not to worry about it, that the
municipalities would take care of that. Approximately 37 municipalities have
banned or severely restricted the use of pesticides for cosmetic reasons. The
most recent one is
We have to set it in this context. Somewhere approaching 75% of lawn owners still use pesticides. Lawns and gardens in municipalities, in urban areas, are sprayed more heavily than farms. People still seem to consider that the use of pesticides is essential for lawn care in spite of the fact that a four to sixfold increase in incidents of child leukemia occurs when pesticides are used on lawns in urban areas.
A ban is necessary. We do not have the time in terms of protecting the health and well-being of Canadians to wait for every municipality to ban or at least severely restrict the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
Mr. John Herron (Fundy--Royal, PC/DR):
I would also like to touch on a few aspects that need some
improvement. Some of those issues refer to the aspect that the law in its
current form does not emphasize that it is necessary for us to reduce the
reliance of the risk of pesticides. It is incumbent on the Government of
If that is true, then why does the federal government not initiate a public awareness campaign about the harmful and cumulative effects of pesticides, particularly in our urban areas, in the same stead that it does with anti-tobacco campaigns. In my view this is something that would at least ensure that Canadians think twice. That is one aspect for which we should find an innovative way of encompassing it in this legislation, perhaps in the preamble.
When it comes to public awareness the leadership on reducing the reliance on the cosmetic use of pesticides has not come from the federal government. I believe we should follow a public awareness campaign as we do for the use of tobacco by encouraging individuals to reduce their reliance on the cosmetic use of pesticides.
We have seen leadership from the provinces on some
occasions but for the most part we have seen leadership at the municipal level.
Cities, such as Halifax, and communities such as
We have public awareness advocates from coast to coast.
Patty Donovan from Quispamsis in my riding of Fundy--Royal has been an ardent
advocate for the reduction of pesticide use in
This is a clear indication that we need to manage pesticides in a responsible way and take into consideration where individuals could be at risk.
We see pesticide campaigns in the west as well. Jennifer
Wright from
Canadians and
municipalities are way ahead of this and the Government of
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
Ms. Wendy Lill (
I happen to be one of the lucky people who lives in one of
the municipalities that has a progressive pesticide bylaw in place, and that is
the
The member has made the comment that we need to see more public awareness campaigns regarding cosmetic pesticides. Can we not take a further step and ask the federal government to set up national standards which would include a ban on cosmetic pesticides?
We have heard from the
Would the member from the Conservative Party support national standards, those national standards being much higher, including a ban on cosmetic pesticides?
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Mr. John Herron: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question because it really follows a fundamental plank of the pesticide management regime that we presented in the election campaign of November 2000. I was the author of that section of our national platform. The approach I took, and I will cite the language if I may, is that a Progressive Conservative government would initiate educational initiatives to inform Canadians of the risk of pesticide use with a goal to reduce usage particularly for cosmetic purposes.
Why would we take that approach versus an all out ban? It is possible, and I cannot think of an instance at the moment, where one may want to consider utilizing pesticides for a quasi-cosmetic purpose if the intent were to prevent something worse from happening. However, the real reason we did not use the word ban is it was far too provocative.
We still need to move the Canadian population a long way on
this issue that empowering the municipalities to ban, like the Government of
There should be a massive public awareness campaign of the same ilk as that regarding the detrimental effects smoking and tobacco use has on our environment. We have learned a lot over the 25 years since biologist Rachel Carson wrote the book Silent Spring which really sparked the debate on how we use pesticides and how they actually harm the environment. We have learned a lot on this issue but Canadians need to be engaged far more.
We could hit the ground earlier and harder in that even
without the bill the Government of Canada could have a pesticides campaign. I
say to my friend and colleague from the
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): First,
in 1951 studies indicated issues with regard to human health. If I may share a
personal anecdote with the House with regard to DDT, in 1951 my mother was
carrying me. I was born in 1952. All members can do the math. I am getting very
old now. In 1951, a year before I was born, studies showed that DDT was
affecting human health in a negative way. DDT was not banned in
How does this relate to the Pest Control Products Act, an act that is 30 years out of date? When we talk about the kinds of pesticides and chemicals being used to control pests, yes, as the speaker from the Canadian Alliance said, there has been a new generation of pesticides, but there also is a huge proliferation of pesticides of which we have no understanding and no real knowledge in regard to some of the human health and ecological problems. As well, we have information on pesticides which we are not acting on.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (
However, I believe the bill still falls short, which raises some very important questions that we have to raise now and at committee and need to have addressed before we bring back the bill for final reading. Those questions are the following. Does the bill encourage pollution prevention and reduce the use of pesticides? Does it actually keep pesticides off the market until they are proven safe? Does it ban pesticides for cosmetic purposes? Does it require clear labelling of all toxic elements of pesticides? Does it provide a clear mandate for the pesticide management review agency? Does it put in place resources and a mechanism for independent, science based research about the long term impact of pesticides on human health?
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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Mr. Roy Bailey (
I think the government is correct in allowing the municipalities to maintain the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. I also believe that it will require a great deal of public relations. I believe that one of the things that has to be done with the passage of the bill is that various departments need to co-operate, such as the Department of the Environment and the Department of Health, in putting out a campaign across the country showing the health dangers and also co-operating at the local level with the municipalities and the provinces.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session Edited Hansard *
Number 164
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Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk--Interlake, Canadian
With regard to industry's reaction, the Sierra Club is not
too happy with it and would like to see more of a complete ban on pesticides. I
had the pleasure of hearing Sharon Labchuk from Earth Action speak in
The Canadian Alliance certainly wants to examine the bill and in particular the minister's speech in which she talked about using the precautionary principle. She talked about the potential impact of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
She then used a term that will take a lot of examination. She tried to define some kind of value. That will no doubt be the value of the bureaucrats and the value of the ministers and those elected officials at the given time in the future. Who knows whether the values they have could be to the extreme of saying that there should be no chemicals in use whatsoever.
The concern with this is that it seems like the government is moving away from science based decision making and moving into this quasi-philosophical method of assessing our chemicals and their impact on the environment and people. I think that is a dangerous thing on first blush.
The second question I posed to the minister, as she and her government move into this area of fuzziness, as it would appear to be, concerned the trade implications if the government were to use this as a non-tariff trade barrier to harass importers of foodstuffs into our country.
Source: 37th Parliament, 1st Session
Edited Hansard * Number 163
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