McGuinty’s Pesticide Ban needs some debugging
Dalton McGuinty seems to have a disconnect problem - between himself and his Environment Minister, and between his pesticide policy and that of scientific reality.
This morning we learn that Dalton may have ‘misspoken’ when he stood alongside Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen and bragged that, "nobody will be able to have standards lower than ours."… "If you’re asking if municipalities can exceed the provincial standard we put in place, yes they can when it comes to use."
Except that’s not true. It seems that the fine print of the legislation says otherwise. MPP Tim Hudak (why isn’t he the P.C. leader?) wants some answers:
"The premier either lied to the media or was mistaken and then the minister, who was standing beside him, didn’t correct the record, so he’s guilty of covering up that lie. Then they let it string out there for (more than a week) before correcting the record ," he said.
Hudak said when the House resumes this morning, McGuinty or Gerretsen should explain to MPPs why Ontarians have been misled on an important piece of legislation.
Personally, I don’t want the legislation any stricter than it already is, because it is based on political pandering - not science. In this morning’s Record , Richard Aucoin of Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency writes:
…Only those products that meet Canada’s strict health and safety standards are registered for sale and use.
Furthermore, additional margins of safety are applied to ensure that all Canadians, including infants, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and workers are protected. For example, when evaluating common lawn and garden pesticides, Health Canada’s evaluations include real world scenarios such as children entering treated areas on the day of treatment. The unique physiology, behaviours and play habits of children, such as their body weight and hand-to-mouth contact while playing on treated grass were also considered. We are therefore confident that the pesticides approved for use in Canada, including lawn and garden products, can be used safely when label directions are followed …
But as this excellent editorial in Chatham This Week notes, McGuinty obviously thinks he knows way more than than the scientists:
…Yet McGuinty must know better than Health Canada , which also regulates the pharmaceutical products that are allowed to be sold in Canada, and which just launched a review process that will probably lead to a ban on the chemical bisphenol A, which is used in some plastic bottles and as food liners…
Yeah, the feds just can’t win - either doing too much or too little.
In any case, the overall effect of a cosmetic pesticide ban will have minimal impact on human health, and major impact on the value of a homeowner’s property and the individual’s freedom to maintain their property responsibly. Randall Denley highlights the hypocrisy:
…According to a 2000 federal standing committee report, agricultural use accounts for 91 per cent of all pesticides . Banning only home use will have a limited effect on overall pesticide use, but the premier was quick to inform farmers that the ban won’t apply to them. Actually, it will apply to their farmhouse lawns and their home vegetable gardens, but out in the fields, they can let her rip …
But why should Dalton worry about facts anyway? Ontario voters obviously don’t care.
* * * *
Update : Thanks to Anna K. in comments for a series of links between autism and pesticide use - especially for this one:
…Children who are exposed to agricultural pesticides while developing in the womb are six times more likely to develop autism .
The first eight weeks after conception seem to be the most vulnerable time, and the risk increases dramatically if, during that time, their mothers were living close to farms that had used pesticides, and especially dicifol and endosulfan …
So why not ban pesticides on farms too, Dalton? And golf courses. Water run-off and air don’t stay in one place, you know. Let’s have some consistency.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I applaud McGuinty’s call for the banning of pesticide use, but unfortunately it doesn’t kick in til 2009. Scientific studies are exploring the possible link between pesticide use and autism. I disagree that McGuinty’s gov’t isn’t adhering to some of the facts here. I think there’s a corelation between the exponential/alarming rise in autism rates and the lawn care industry and products heavy usage over the quarter century. I’ve been alerted to this by scientists and I might add in the nick of time as my infant granddaughters have arrived. My choice is a no-brainer — choose manicured lawns or healty children? Which one? Hmmmm.
Appreciate your decision to allow my comments.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Oops, forgot to add a link with some sources:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-47,GGLG:en&q=pesticides+autism+triggers
May 5th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Anna, I wonder how Health Canada missed all this information? And why doesn’t McGuinty have it banned for farm use as well? Doesn’t it get into the food chain?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:16 am
What we need in Ontario is a good industrial strength “LIB-ticide” applied liberally throughout Queens Park.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am
It’s the McGuinty Liberal Legacy in Ontario
“Promise it at Election Time,
Figure it out Later,
Pay For it for an Eternity”
It’s the same deal as the issue of full-time JK. Makes a nice photo-op and is making unions happy because now certified teachers NOT ECE in the classroom…but what’s it going to cost in $$$ and in space?
May 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I hear ya, Sol.
Personally, I could live with the pesticide ban if it included golf courses and farms.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Are lemmings considered pests?
May 5th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I have lived in Huron County, farmland, all my life and I know of no causes of autism amoung any of our neighbours or friends children.
I bet the chemicals used nowdays and approved by Health Canada are far safer than those used on the farms 50 years ago.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Actually, there is an undisputed link between pesticides and death. Eventually we all will die. See how bad they are?
Sorry, Anna. Couldn’t resist. Please come back.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
They used to say the big hydro lines caused all sorts of problems too, but I’ve lived along side them, as do many other people. I think anything in excess probably is bad for you, even food.
I know that farmers would not get a crop without grass and weed control. Just look at a strip that the sprayer missed in a field and check the combine during harvest to see no yield where the weeds are. You just can’t grow corn with weeds. Stop along the road and talk to a farmer.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I feel sorry for the folks in Durham(Oshawa, Ajax,Whitby,Uxbridge). I have heard that they have more golf courses than anywhere else in Ontario.
Like Ruth I’m surrounded not only by farmland but a golf course. Poor me.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Well, I respect Anna’s concerns about the health of her grandchildren, but I wonder how she can avoid having the effects of agricultural pesticides not affect them unless she grows her own food? And even then, the run-off from the farms gets into the water system - especially if it’s true that agricultural accounts for 91% of pesticide use.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
As with many other issues, there are always two sides to a given story. Unfortunately, we human beings don’t have ALL the answers to everything.
It’s true, there are some studies that indicate a cause/effect relationship between autism and pesticides, but there are also studies that show that relationship is inconclusive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism
“Autism and autism spectrum disorders are complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Many causes of autism have been proposed, but its theory of causation is still incomplete. Heritability contributes about 90% of the risk of a child developing autism, but the genetics of autism are complex and typically it is unclear which genes are responsible. In rare cases, autism is strongly associated with agents that cause birth defects. Many other causes have been proposed, such as exposure of children to vaccines; these proposals are controversial and the vaccine hypotheses have no convincing scientific evidence.”
And then there are other studies, such as:
http://oss.mcgill.ca/zsearch/zsearch.php?zoom_query=autism&zoom_per_page=10&zoom_and=0&zoom_sort=0
OR
http://tinyurl.com/3vohjz
“In recent years, autism and other autism spectrum disorders have been on the rise. But while there are numerous hypotheses used to explain such a phenomenon, it is only now, due to recent findings based on research conducted at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and medical records collected in Israel, that researchers have actually been able to come up with some type of reasoning. And the results are somewhat surprising.
It is now widely known that women in today’s society tend to delay having children; however, what is less known is that men are also waiting later in life to start a family. Well, this study shows just that. Apparently, men, along with their women counterparts, have also decided to put having children on hold until they are older. …
The study found that children who are born to fathers who are in their thirties have a one and a half greater risk of developing autism than those born to fathers who are in their twenties. In fact, the risk actually increases as with the father’s age. Children who are born to fathers in their forties have a five times greater chance of developing the disease while those who have fathers in their fifties have more than nine
times the risk.”
Remember DDT & malaria?
May 5th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
If this noise about the human impact of pesticides were anywhere near being true then Farms and rural communities would be populated by NOTHING but wheezing autistics with corrupted immune systems and cancer!
Pure hysterical fear mongering form people with other agendas.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
OMMAG - right on. You said it so well.
I saw a middle aged lady yesterday trying to pull dandelions and sneezing all the time she was doing it. I told her it would be better to do a quick spray than put up with that. She just said she guessed she would have to spend most of her time indoors with the air conditioner going. What a life!
May 5th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I think they should stop funding the niversity of Guelph now. Close the damn place. If all those world renowned scientists and their studies can’t compete with the genius of one McGuinty, why waste all that money?
May 5th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Good point, Greg. In fact, let’s close all the Universities and have Dalton give sermons from Queen’s Park. He doesn’t even need the Lord’s prayer anymore.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Thanks for all that, Gabby. Your comment was late getting published because it was caught in the spam filter. Any time you post something with more than one link it could go there, in which case just post another comment asking me to check the filter. Thanks.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Re; getting caught in spam filter.
Note to self: curb your tendency to provide links, regardless of how many times some commenters ask for them.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:06 am
No, Gabby. Please provide as many as you like. It’s just that your comment will be waiting for my approval; that’s all. Or try one per post, but that’s a nuisance. Thanks.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:21 am
[...] wants this legislation changed so that municipalities are allowed to make the laws even tougher, as Dalton originally mistakenly said before his Minister corrected him. I thought the whole point was to have some kind of level [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
[...] poor Environment Minister John Gerretsen when he had to sweat through a photo op where he heard his boss say something totally not in the plan , and yet he got blasted anyway for not calling him out in [...]