FEDERAL environment commissioner Johanne Gélinas thought she had her sights set on the failings of the federal agency that regulates pesticide use in Canada.
When it comes to overseer reports and political hearings that point out flaws in government bodies that never seem to get fixed, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency is a major recidivist.
Four times in 15 years there have been critical reports and every time the regulatory authorities dispute it, claiming great progress in fixing the flaws.
Consumers complain about it. Chemical companies complain about it. Farmers complain about it.
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“Everybody in the country complains about it,” Gélinas said last week. “The agency is not fulfilling its mandate.”
In her report to Parliament, she included a section that acknowledged the important role responsible and safe pesticide use plays in keeping the farm sector viable.
She said she found the PMRA lacking in its testing, its speed, its control, its knowledge base. Because of its failing, there is no guarantee that all pesticides being used in Canada are safe.
Reaction to the latest environment commissioners’ report was sharp and angry. How dare she suggest the PMRA can’t guarantee that all farm chemicals on the market are not safe? Why, she’s challenging the image of the industry!
Ontario’s farm environmental group Agcare (which promotes safe chemical and genetically modified variety use) said her comments were “unjustifiably negative.”
The pesticide manufacturers were much more blunt.
“Environment commissioner’s comments irresponsible, border on fearmongering,” said a statement from the industry lobby group CropLife Canada.
President Lorne Hepworth, a former Progressive Conservative agriculture minister in Saskatchewan, said any suggestion that farm chemicals “put Canadians at risk is, quite frankly, irresponsible.”
It is a conflict of mandates.
The environment commissioner is paid by taxpayers to investigate environmental issues. Her investigation found, for example, that a re-evaluation of a pesticide that includes the active ingredient phorate concludes it is highly toxic and environmentally dangerous to animals and presumably humans. It is on the market for another 15 months. Other older chemicals have not yet been re-assessed.
It surely was not surprising that a public official paid to warn about environmental and health problems would flag these issue and warn Canadians that there are serious gaps in the controls that the PMRA have on assessing chemical safety and its understanding of how chemical consumers use the products.
The industry found that analysis threatening, despite growing citizen worry about the impact of pesticides in their environment, on lawns, on their food.
It seems like a classic case of shooting the messenger rather than looking at the flaws in the pesticide control system that allow such issues to be raised.
Non-organic farmers need chemicals as a crucial tool of their trade. To suggest that criticism of permission to use an unsafe product for 15 more months is poisoning the well of public opinion seems extreme.
The critics condemned the environment commissioner’s broad brush with their broad brush.
