A federal government spokesperson last week continued to defend the record of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in the face of growing complaints from Liberal and opposition MPs.
Critics should read the PMRA’s defence of itself, Toronto-area MP Joseph Volpe told fellow Ontario Liberal Rose-Marie Ur March 5. “I think they will find it to their satisfaction.”
He said the PMRA has committed itself to working with farmers to make pesticide review procedures as efficient and low-cost as possible.
“Based on these improvements, the PMRA has projected a 40 percent reduction in costs for reviewing new product submissions over the next six years and has already built this into its proposed fee schedule,” said Volpe, the parliamentary secretary to the health minister, who is responsible to Parliament for the PMRA.
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In fact, Ur already knew all that, since Volpe was quoting from a week-old letter health minister David Dingwall had sent to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Concerns linger
She said farmers still have concerns. The $12.3 million in projected cost recovery fees will hurt farmers and could lead to some minor-use chemicals being withdrawn from the market.
“Unless there are changes to the PMRA’s proposal, the Canadian farming community will suffer enormous consequences in the global marketplace,” she told the Commons.
New Democrat MP Len Taylor offered a more general condemnation of the government’s cost-recovery policy.
He said delegates to the late February CFA conference in Victoria sent a strong message that it wants government to back down on increasing user fees.
“From potato growers in Prince Edward Island through wheat growers on the Prairies to apple growers in British Columbia, the message was the same,” said the Saskatchewan MP and NDP agriculture spokesperson.
