Cosmetic Pesticide Ban Manitoba

BREAKING NEWS

March 26, 2022 – The health of Manitobans will be harmed if the provincial government proceeds with announced plans to weaken restrictions on non-essential uses of pesticides.

Bill 22 on the Government’s legislative agenda will amend Manitoba’s pesticide regulation to allow the use of currently banned pesticides on municipal and residential lawns. The planned amendments will also permit the unrestricted sale of these harmful pesticides at retail outlets.

At present, only the products on an allowable pesticides list can be used on lawns. The proposed loosening of restrictions would allow municipalities and lawn care companies to apply toxic pesticides to lawns, greatly expanding exposure of residents to these chemicals.

And individuals would be able to freely purchase currently banned pesticides for their own use, with no monitoring or control of such sales.

As noted on this web site, exposure to non-essential toxic pesticides puts human health, especially children’s health, at unnecessary risk.

Some municipalities contend that the more toxic products are needed because, they claim, the alternatives are ineffective and cost too much. But a study of Canadian cities with cosmetic pesticide bans, conducted by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment in 2018, found that satisfactory and publicly accepted levels of weed control can be successfully achieved at reasonable cost without using the riskier herbicides.

PROTECT THE HEALTH OF YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

Email or phone your provincial representative (see below) to tell them you oppose Bill 22 and its roll-back of existing environmental protections. Remind them that people want to live in healthy communities where they and their children are not exposed to avoidable pesticide health risks. Peer-reviewed studies have established that toxic pesticides put human health at risk. And experience elsewhere shows they are not needed for weed control on residential lawns and municipal green spaces.

In addition, restricting non-essential uses of pesticides also helps to protect the health of pets, reduce risks for pollinating insects, reduce pesticide contamination of waterways, and preserve biodiversity. There is simply no need to change the existing non-essential pesticide use regulation that is helping to keep children healthy and our environment safe.

How to contact your MLA
Use this link to find your elected Member of the Legislative Assembly. Or if you already know their name, you can find their contact information here.

Concerned Manitobans also have a right to speak at Legislative Committee hearings to be held after the bill passes second reading. To register to present on Bill 22, call the Office of the Clerk 204-945-3636 or email committees@leg.gov.mb.ca. Also note, the public is still not allowed to enter the Legislature, so presentations will be virtual. Presentation guidelines are at: https://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/committees/presentation_how_to.html

LET OTHERS KNOW

Three simple ways to spread the word about the Province’s plans to weaken Manitoba’s non-essential pesticide laws:
(1) Share the link to this web site – https://cosmeticpesticidebanmb.com/ – or to the backgrounder noted below.
(2) Download and share this (PDF) summary and backgrounder that describes what’s at stake with the proposed changes.

(3) Write a Letter to the Editor saying why you feel that the current restrictions on cosmetic pesticides should remain in place.

Bill 22 is now scheduled to come to a vote during the fall session of the Manitoba Legislature. Voice your concerns to help ensure that cosmetic pesticide restrictions are retained, so that families and communities are protected from unnecessary pesticide health risks.

Regulation of pesticides in Canada lags far behind other countries

(Following are excerpts from a column by Dr. Trevor Hancock, a co-founder of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). Dr. Hancock reflects on the problems and consequences of Canada’s flawed system of pesticide regulation. Reprinted by permission of the author. Credit: Victoria Times-Colonist. The full text is on CAPE’s web site. A worthwhile read.)

March 11, 2019 – I cut my environmental-health teeth fighting the pesticide industry and Health Canada in the early 1980s, when I was an associate medical officer of health in the City of Toronto. We were recommending a ban on 2,4-D in the city, on the grounds that controlling dandelions in parks and gardens — known as cosmetic pesticide use — was not worth the potential health effects. I came to an early recognition that the Health Protection Branch of Health Canada functioned more like the industry-protection branch.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

I went on to co-found the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. For years, CAPE has fought to reduce or eliminate both cosmetic and in some cases agricultural pesticide use. It has done so based on evidence, the application of the precautionary principle, and its professional and public-interest concern in protecting health and the environment.

In its work, CAPE and its many community and environmentalist partners have tangled constantly with the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, established within Health Canada in 1995. On its website, CAPE notes “gaps and flaws in this review process leave Canadians inadequately protected from health and environmental risks associated with the use of toxic pesticides.”

But CAPE is not alone in its criticism. The federal commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, part of the office of the auditor general, has undertaken three reviews of the agency since 2003, and they disclose some serious flaws. In 2003, the commissioner reported: “Overall, we conclude that the federal government is not managing pesticides effectively. We found weaknesses in many areas … [which] raises serious questions about the overall management of the health and environmental risks associated with pesticides.” But note, this comes after decades of criticism from health and environmental organizations acting in the public interest — and still the PMRA could not get it right.

In fact, for three of the most widely used pesticides in Canada — atrazine, glyphosate and neonicotinoids as a class — we have lower standards and are years, if not decades, behind Europe in protecting the health of Canadians.

Atrazine, a herbicide that is still registered and used in Canada, although declining, was banned in Europe in 2003. Glyphosate is a widely used herbicide that is a probable human carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization — but not according to the PMRA, which seems to think it knows better. And neonicotinoids are widely used insecticides that are linked to harm to bees and other beneficial insects. The EU banned them for all outdoor agricultural use from the end of 2018, but the PMRA has taken only small steps to reduce their use.

In their blind pursuit of economic growth and their misplaced confidence in dodgy corporate science, governments turned a blind eye to all the warnings, while we all suffer the consequences.

(Read the complete column on the CAPE web site.)

Honouring a committed advocate and researcher who campaigned on behalf of the most vulnerable

SEPTEMBER 2018 – In this heartfelt and personal reflection, Anne Lindsey, a member of Cosmetic Pesticide Ban Manitoba, remembers Sandra Madray as a dedicated activist who was resolutely committed to the protection of human health from pesticides and other toxic chemicals in our environment.

Sandra Madray (family photo)

I went to visit a friend and colleague recently — someone I hadn’t seen for a while. Sandra Madray was in the final stages of cancer. She was dying. I was shocked and deeply saddened to see the physical changes the disease had wrought on my beautiful friend. She was so thin, and in so much pain.

Cancer is horrific in every circumstance, but the cruel irony in Sandra’s situation is that she worked much of her adult life in a volunteer capacity to prevent cancer and other illnesses — in particular, those caused by, and associated with, environmental and industrial chemicals.

As a co-founder (with Margaret Friesen) of the local group Chemical Sensitivities Manitoba and an adviser to the national organization Prevent Cancer Now, she participated as a citizen/environmental representative in countless government consultations on laws and regulations regarding chemicals.She sat on the National Stakeholder Advisory Council for the Chemicals Management Plan, and on the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council. She served on the board of the Manitoba Eco-Network for several years, and was active in the Children’s Health and Environment Partnership.

Sandra’s back garden (family photo)

Sandra educated herself (and others) on the science and public policy of chemical exposure and what it means for human health. Studying reams of documents, she did the arduous and often thankless work for which many of us have neither the patience nor the appetite, as we trust hopefully that our governments will make the right decisions in the public interest.

Sandra’s garden (family photo)

Because she did that work, she knew that our hopeful trust is misplaced and that most regulatory decisions about chemicals are not taken with the utmost care to protect health or the environment, but rather lean heavily toward maximizing commercial profits and expedience. She knew that as a result, we inhabit a chemical soup of hazardous exposures to pesticides, cosmetics, plastics, vehicle and power plant emissions and other byproducts of the hydrocarbon society.

Sandra’s cancer may or may not have been attributable to environmental or workplace exposures, but many cancers are, and in all those cases, the pain and suffering, the unmitigated sadness and loss for family and friends are probably preventable.

Always kind, generous and with good humour and deep conviction, Sandra used her knowledge to advocate tirelessly for better solutions to society’s problems. She campaigned especially for the most vulnerable — for children, the elderly, the chemically sensitive (of which she was one) and the immune-compromised. A quiet warrior, she never sought special recognition for her work.

Sandra’s garden (family photo)

Some of the efforts she engaged in were successful — one recent example being the Manitoba law to prohibit many chemical pesticides in lawn care. With her own urban yard — an oasis of gorgeous native plants, buzzing and bright with butterflies and pollinators — as an example of better, healthful solutions for green space management, she worked with a coalition of groups to end unnecessary exposures to so-called “cosmetic” pesticides, some of which are linked in epidemiological studies to a variety of diseases, including cancer, respiratory and neurological/developmental problems.

When Manitoba joined numerous other provinces in legislating against lawn chemicals, it was a small but significant step forward in preventive medicine.

It is beyond sad that in Manitoba, it now seems destined to be reversed. Even though recent polling shows most Manitobans consider pesticide-free to be the best approach, powerful forces support chemical solutions for weed control, and they appear to have the ear of the current government behind the scenes. Possibly acting on inside knowledge, one lawn company owner was quoted in Home Décor and Renovations magazine as saying that the regulation would be amended for 2019, and that he was optimistic that it would allow “licensed lawn care professionals to resume the use of more effective weed control products.” We can only surmise that he was referring to substances such as 2,4-D, dicamba and mecoprop.

Sandra’s front garden (family photo)

As citizens, not only must we make every effort to avoid unnecessary products like cosmetic pesticides and scents, we must also continue to encourage our government not to take this terribly backward step. In fact, it would actually be more appropriate to strengthen the law by adding glyphosate-based compounds, such as Roundup, a weed-control product with links to cancer, to the list of prohibited substances. Roundup’s sordid history of coverups by its manufacturer, including the fact that its carcinogenic properties were long known about and hidden, is steadily being revealed in court challenges brought by cancer victims.

Sandra’s garden (family photo)

Sandra will not be with us to see a possible reversal of the policy that she contributed to, and once again, have to endure the impacts of lawn pesticides on her chemically sensitive body. But if this change of policy comes to pass, so many will be affected, including the children and all the other vulnerable people she worked so hard to protect.How many of them will have to get sick and perhaps die before a clean, common-sense and precautionary approach to green spaces is adopted once and for all in Manitoba? For Sandra Madray’s sake, let this number be zero.

Sandra passed away on August 17 at 68 with her husband, Winston, and family members at her side.

Anne Lindsey is a former executive director of the Manitoba Eco-Network, a long-time activist on health and environmental issues, and a research associate with the Manitoba office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.