Overview:
This is the first article in a series examining recent government bills or laws that experts say deserved more scrutiny.
The Carney government has quietly enacted the biggest overhaul to Canada’s pesticide laws in a generation.
Bill C-30, an omnibus bill that became law in mid-June, enables cabinet to permit the use of pesticides for economic or food security reasons, even if Health Canada has determined they pose unacceptable health or environmental risks.
Scientists, physicians, environmental organizations and several opposition parties say the legislation weakens Canada’s pesticide regulatory system.
“Cabinet — who has no scientific training, no understanding of pesticide safety and who essentially are lobbied by the chemical companies over and over and over again — of course they’re going to have a different view of what is important economically,” said Christy Morrissey, an ecotoxicologist and biology professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
Key provisions
Bill C-30 is an omnibus bill that enacts key measures from Ottawa’s spring economic update.
The legislation cleared both the House of Commons and the Senate through an accelerated approval process before Parliament rose for the summer.
The bill’s pesticides provisions, which amend the Pest Control Products Act, did not receive dedicated committee scrutiny before being passed. They were also not subject to public or expert consultation.
“There was no reason to put it in an omnibus bill like this,” said Morrissey. “It was so poorly thought through.”
The legislation allows cabinet to set aside Health Canada’s pesticide decisions if it cites economic or food security concerns for doing so. These cabinet authorizations can remain in effect for up to six years.
The bill also overhauls Health Canada’s pesticide review process.
Currently, Health Canada’s Pesticides Regulatory Directorate re-evaluates each registered pesticide every 15 years to determine whether new evidence has changed a pesticide’s risk profile.
The new law replaces these mandatory reviews with targeted reviews initiated only when regulators identify a specific concern.
Big rewrite, little scrutiny
Twenty-one scientists from 13 Canadian universities have warned that Bill C-30 would weaken Canada’s pesticide regulatory system.
“The proposed PCPA amendments … fundamentally undermine science-based decision-making under the Act, which has been a cornerstone since its passage in 2002,” the scientists wrote in a May 28 submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
Morrissey, the submission’s lead signatory, says she and other scientists offered to appear as expert witnesses before House and Senate committees examining the omnibus bill. They were turned down.
She says she was told there was “tremendous pressure to move [the bill] without those levels of scrutiny.”
Several public interest organizations — including the Canadian Public Health Association, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and the National Farmers Union — have condemned the new rules.
The Bloc Québécois, NDP and Green Party have also criticized them.
“When it comes to pesticides and herbicides, the government has made it very clear that economic considerations will now be given just as much weight as health considerations,” said Bloc Québécois MP Yves Perron during a May 1 committee meeting.
Strychnine
The Carney government says the amendments are intended to help farmers respond to agricultural emergencies without compromising health and environmental protections.
The new provisions would strengthen food security, provide “greater predictability” for industry, and only be used in “exceptional circumstances,” Alexandre Bergeron, press secretary to Health Minister Marjorie Michel, said in an email.
Bergeron noted Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector generates about $150 billion annually — roughly seven per cent of Canada’s GDP — and supports 2.3 million jobs.
“Successful harvests are essential to feeding Canadian families and provide a livelihood for hundreds of thousands of families across the country,” he said.
As an example of when the new powers could be needed, Bergeron pointed to cabinet’s temporary authorization of the pesticide strychnine in March to combat widespread ground squirrel infestations on the Prairies.
Strychnine is banned in most developed countries, including the U.S., due to evidence of widespread secondary poisoning. Owls, foxes, dogs and even livestock can be poisoned after consuming contaminated animals.
In February, Health Canada had rejected emergency requests from Alberta to use strychnine on safety grounds. But cabinet overrode that decision.
Bergeron says Bill C-30 is needed to speed up emergency access to pesticides like strychnine, noting farmers in that case will not be able to legally access strychnine until July. Alberta estimates the infestations have caused $700–800 million in crop losses and damage to farm equipment.
Bergeron added that cabinet authorized strychnine until November 2027 and that any future use would require renewed justification.
In a follow-up phone conversation, Bergeron said health standards would continue to guide pesticide decisions even when cabinet exercises its new authority. He did not say whether cabinet would authorize a product Health Canada has said poses an “unacceptable risk.”
Pierre Mineau, a pesticide risk advisor and professor emeritus at Carleton University, says the strychnine authorization was already possible under existing law.
“There already are provisions for emergency use exemptions, [which] have been used and misused over the years,” he said.
Morrissey says the strychnine authorization demonstrates the government’s willingness to override scientific advice.
“[T]hey went ahead anyways and overrode what is essentially deemed too toxic, too harmful and too high risk,” she said.
Industry predictability
The other key pesticide amendment eliminates mandatory re-evaluations of registered pesticide products every 15 years.
The agrochemical industry has said these mandatory reviews are inefficient.
“The 15-year automatic re-evaluation trigger … has contributed to review backlogs and delays,” said a representative for CropLife Canada, the pesticide industry’s main lobby group.
There are more than 8,000 registered pesticides in Canada.
Morrissey notes Health Canada’s pesticide division is responsible for reviewing all of these pesticide products. Expecting full re‑evaluations every 15 years is “just insane,” she said.
“[The department] also got a huge number of [job] cuts, so their ability to act or to do their job and review the thousands of chemicals that come online is increasingly becoming limited.”
But even CropLife Canada says it did not request that cabinet be given the power to override Health Canada decisions or changes to pesticide re-evaluation rules.
“CropLife Canada did not request the emergency order provisions of the Bill,” CropLife spokesperson Liz Lumsden said in an email, referring to cabinet’s aim of helping farmers respond quickly to agricultural emergencies.
But Mineau, of Carleton University, believes the new provisions are the result of industry pressure. He believes they are aimed at providing long-term regulatory certainty for the agrochemical industry.
“What has me worried … [is] the fact that somebody bothered to pressure staff in ministerial offices to slip that in [to Bill C-30],” he said.
Morrissey says Pesticides Directorate scientists have proposed continuous oversight instead of fixed review periods, arguing the current system is too slow.
Registering fewer chemicals and deregistering more chemicals would also reduce the review backlog.
“The solution is not, let’s just drop the 15 year [re-evaluation],” she said. “The solution should be [that] we need to register fewer chemicals.”
Future risks
Sources said they worry about the long-term impacts of the new rules. It can take a decade or more for the effects of new pesticides to emerge.
“Science doesn’t sit still, and things do need to be reevaluated,” said Mineau. “Over time, we’ll get more and more information on the impacts of these compounds on non-target insects, water courses … wildlife.”
Under the new framework, he says, evaluation will only occur before products are registered.
“It’s like saying, ‘We will never look at independent science ever again. We’re totally satisfied with what the company gives us, and we don’t care what university researchers find’.”
He pointed as an example to the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to developmental harm in fetuses.
Morrissey notes that more pesticides have not translated into greater food production. “We currently use more pesticides now than we did even 20 years ago,” she said.
“We’re not growing more food now. We don’t have more food to show for it, so the system is broken.”
Cabinet changes to pesticide use not only endanger the environment but actually endanger a safe food supply….. rather than doing their due diligence the government pushed this through in response to agri business pressure ….to hastily include this in an omnibus bill is cowardly and irresponsible
Over ruling pesticide oversight and regulation is a disaster in the making. This puts human health at risk, cancers, hormone disrupters and more. “health” Canada isn’t. It’s pesticide oversight has long been execrable with the head of that department having only a BSc while dealing with PHD’s from the pesticide producers. Worse still, Carney and his predecessor refused to meet or consult with independent experts on pesticides relying solely on industry lobbiests for all of its information. The EU has banned over 300 pesticides, Canada before the unacceptable Carney announcement, had only banned 28. This new position is a danger to all Canadians and has been responsible for an 80% decline in songbirds and other vulnerable species. Canadians need to take a loud and persistent stand against this pesticide outrage.
It does appear that the Carney government is becoming overly zealous in support of anything relating to the economy. It ought to be cognizant of the fundamentals underlying a robust economy such as proven cascade effects in regional Ecosystems. In a macro sense, agriculturally speaking one size does not fit all.
For instance, the use of Strycnine may not be appropriate in all regions, especially where owls help to keep the squirrel population in balance.
It’s too easy to leave the use of highly toxic chemicals to farmers some of whom don’t understand the broader implications beyond their fences and effects in their bank accounts.
Where is food security in added pesticides? In the 60s I was employed by the Provincial Pesticide Lab, established to assay tissue samples collected from the thousands of dead birds at Bonaventure Island. This study proved highest level of pesticides is in brain tissue, yet, the official report claimed highest levels are in body fat. My protest was silenced by the explanation that the brain is fat and lipids! Dr. Edgar J. LeRoux, pioneering Canadian entomologist, and 14th director of Agriculture Canada research branch, studied long term effects of pesticides. Ignoring decades of research is an insult, and a danger to all Canadians.
This is the absolute wrong direction for a responsible governance to be going in. As a 4th generation Canadian, a retired mother of 3 with now 5 grandchildren, I feel utterly betrayed. My husband died of a cancer most likely caused by exposure to solvents and petroleum product fumes where he was employed. Canadians need a government that will protect all of us ,and our wildlife and natural environment from being poisoned. If those prairie farmers want to reduce the ground squirrel numbers they should have left some natural habitat for owls and hawks to nest nearby. But no, instead they plow every sq. metre of land and drain the wetlands.
What we need is a government that will require restorative agriculture, to reduce the costly use of toxic chemicals and increase the production of HEALTHY NUTRIENT RICH food.
I do live on the Prairies, and our farmers are known for using the best natural products they can find for their pesticides. I also hope that our bald eagles and red foxes that eat gophers do not die because of strychnine.
They will.
Any predator that consumes the ground squirrels without discarding their g.i. tract is at very high risk.