The House of Commons environment committee has released a report on pesticides that recommends drastic reductions in pesticide use and proposes changes to how the Pest Management Regulatory Agency operates.
The committee recommended:
- Elimination over five years of use of chemicals for “cosmetic purposes” such as lawns and golf courses.
- An increase in the standard by which chemical safety is judged, using as a benchmark the impact on infants and other more vulnerable members of society.
- Adding the “precautionary principle” to the mandate of PMRA. In effect, it would mean that unless there is unchallenged scientific proof that a chemical has no health side-effects, it should be deemed harmful and banned or sharply restricted.
- Encouraging farmers to move to organic production. Government should fund research, market development, tax breaks and possibly transitional subsidies to promote organic farming.
- End PMRA’s “conflicting mandate” of being required to both help the industry get access to chemicals while protecting human health. The committee said the primary mandate should be health protection and other departments could worry about industry access to product.
- Take older, more toxic chemicals off the market as soon as a less toxic substitute is available.
- Increase PMRA’s government funding, reducing its dependence on user fees from the industry it is supposed to be policing.
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Canadian Federation of Agriculture pesticides specialist Kim Meegan said farmers would be worried if the health minister accepted the “precautionary principle” proposal.
“That would be a very open ended, ill-defined restriction with no reference to economic or social effects.”
He said it would also be dangerous to automatically take older chemicals off the market when new less toxic substitutes are available.
“We get the sense the committee doesn’t understand that often growers need more than one chemical to control pests.”
