The beleaguered Pest Management Regulatory Agency has promised skeptical MPs that it will report annually to Parliament on progress in meeting its goal of re-evaluating all older pesticides by 2007.
In a recent scathing report about the PMRA, federal environment commissioner Johanne Gélinas chastised the agency for slowness in re-evaluating what may be dangerous chemicals still on the market.
“We reached the troubling conclusion that some pesticides available on the market likely do not meet current standards for protecting human health and the environment,” she repeated Oct. 23 during an appearance before the Commons environment committee.
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Progressive Conservative environment critic John Herron picked up on the point.
He asked deputy health minister Ian Green, appearing to defend the agency as one of his responsibilities, whether PMRA would commit to formally advising the environment committee each year on its progress.
“I think for sound reason we’re very apprehensive about whether you’re going to hit your target because the history on this subject doesn’t say anything different.”
Green promised the accountability: “The short answer is yes, I would be quite prepared to report on an annual basis.”
The deputy minister said PMRA gets new legislation in spring 2004, has more budget and personnel and a leadership committed to the goal.
“One of the reasons I’m here … is to underline the seriousness with which we need to address some of these issues and to underline that I personally as deputy minister feel this is an important priority for the department so it’s not the PMRA’s alone,” said Green.
The agency has vowed that by spring 2004 it will have re-evaluated 40 percent of the 405 pesticides registered before 1995 that are to be retested by 2006-07.
Still, despite Health Canada and PMRA assurances to the committee that the agency has made progress, many MPs remain skeptical.
Ontario Liberal Paul Szabo wondered if the PMRA had the resources and the will to improve performance: “I consider this to be substantially a vote of non-confidence in the PMRA.”
Wendy Sexsmith, acting director of the agency, said she was certain.
“I’ll answer yes,” she said. “I’ll caveat that with (the fact that) resources are always a challenge, but we have the mandate now and we will have an enhanced ability to do our job under the new Pest Control Products Act.”
In a later interview, environment committee chair and former environment minister Charles Caccia said he too has some doubts.
“They have a clear obligation to make progress and to prove to us that they are making progress,” said the longtime Toronto MP.
“The entire credibility of the PMRA is at stake. At this stage the jury is still out, but I can say that Canada’s performance on pesticides is not something we can be proud of.”
In her report to Parliament, the environment commissioner said that while PMRA had assured her the problems she identified either had been fixed or are being fixed, she judged that the government and the agency “gave little indication that they intend to act decisively.”
Gélinas told the MPs on the environment committee that they have a role to play in monitoring and holding the agency to account.
Green and Sexsmith spent most of their time before the committee insisting that the agency is doing far better in evaluating pesticide products, protecting public health and making new products available to farmers than critics will admit.
One of the criticisms from the environment commissioner was that many products are registered on a temporary basis and are brought to the market with less documentation than permanent registration requires. She illustrated one approval for an imported product that took just 17 days while normal assessments require more than 500 days.
Green said all those temporary registrations are thoroughly assessed and often temporaries are granted before all the documentation is in because the product is lower risk than those now on the market.
Sexsmith said that was the case with the 17-day evaluation. It was for a lower-risk wood preservative than that being introduced in the United States after thorough testing.
