Blue Like You

I didn’t even know about this until I read a letter in today’s Record (from an environmentalist). The Ontario Government has requested public input into Bill-64 - Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act .

Pesticide Reform Ontario wants this legislation changed so that municipalities are allowed to make the laws even tougher , as Dalton had mistakenly announced before his Minister corrected him. I thought the whole point was to have some kind of level playing-field.

I doubt that the lowly property-owner will win this battle, but please let your thoughts be known. And why are golf-courses exempt? Could someone please explain that to me? Are pesticides not harmful once you step onto the fairway?

This issue has been covered previously on this blog . I have written to my own MPP with no reply to date. Actually he never answers me anymore. Neither does my MP. Oh well.

Anyway, please write and tell them what you think. It’s all quite easy. Just follow the directions starting here . Click on the ’submit comment’ button on the right to access the form.

If anyone has a personal interest in this from a business standpoint, or any thoughts at all, please leave a comment. Thanks.

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Update : A special thanks to Jack’s Newswatch for featuring this post today at Daily Blogger !!!

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.

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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.

There are a plethora of topics out there today, so I think I’ll launch a series of short posts to address them and readers can weigh in as they like.

The first one is this morning’s editorial in the Record which shocked me to the core. Why? Because they said everything I was thinking about Felix’s proposed Ontario pesticide ban - and then some.

The editorial (Pesticide ban is unwarranted) explains that this isn’t about the environment. It’s about politics and pandering to very vocal special-interest groups:

…It will, come next spring, be illegal for residents of Kitchener’s Rockway neighbourhood to use pesticides in their yards. But why will Rockway Golf Course in the same neighbourhood be allowed to spray pesticides on their greens and fairways? And why will golf courses beside residential neighbourhoods from one end of the region to the other — in Elmira, Conestogo, Waterloo’s Grey Silo Golf Course, Westmount, Kitchener’s Doon, Cambridge’s Galt Country Club — all be exempt from the chemical ban McGuinty argues is so essential? Are these chemicals dangerous or not?

The answer is obvious. This ban is about politics, not science. And it is driven by political desire and public fear, not reason…

Dalton McGuinty will be introducing legislation tomorrow as the first step towards a province-wide pesticide ban.

Reader Ruth tipped me off on this, and expresses concern about people with weed allergies.

I want to know what the penalties will be and how much of a bureaucracy will need to be created to police it.

And will all pesticides be banned from store shelves?

A lawn can get wiped out by cinchbug or grubs in a matter of weeks. If we lose our lawns, then the cities will heat up even more, and we will also lose an important source of carbon dioxide absorption.

Reader Fred had a great suggestion a while ago:

Leave pesticides to the professionals (lawn care companies) and take them off the store shelves. This would reduce improper pesticide use greatly. The people who know pesticides (University of Guelph) say they are safe if used properly. Let’s trust them (we have to believe someone) and not the fanatics who use junk science in their argument against good products.

Sounds good to me, Fred.

Dalton promised a province-wide pesticide ban.

Get ready for it, and check out how Halifax is doing.

It’s on the store shelves, but people are ‘not supposed to use it’. However, they still do.

Why? It seems that Halifax doesn’t have the resources to follow up.

Get ready for a whole new regime of unionized bureaucracy, Ontario! Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll all go on strike.

Even though Waterloo Region has just finished the first year of a partial pesticide ban and even though Dalton McGuinty is pushing for a province-wide pesticide ban in his re-election platform, City of Waterloo Councillor Angela Vieth is demanding a bylaw for a year-round ban that would start as early as January of 2008.

“This community is ready for this and people will comply,” Vieth said.

“It’s time. I want it done. It’s got to be done by 2008 and, I’m sorry, we’ve been waiting too long for this.”

Never mind what lawn care companies and homeowners want.

Oh, but she has a formidable ally:

The Canadian Cancer Society is calling on the city to impose a total ban on cosmetic pesticide use, said Diane Hawrylenko, the local society’s public issues chair.

While scientists haven’t proven a conclusive link between pesticides and cancer rates, the society is concerned about the long-term health effects of pesticide exposure, especially when there is no health benefit to using pesticides, she said.

I wonder if the city’s Grey Silo Golf Course would still be exempt under Vieth’s agenda? Health benefits… Well, it is healthy to play golf, I suppose. But what about those pesticides? Aren’t they poisonous, according to Vieth? Your hand touches the golf ball that came in contact with all those horrible pesticides, right? And you inhale the air. That can’t be good.

Anyway, it seems that Councillor Vieth’s mind is made up, so lawn care companies best pack up and move elsewhere:

“The debate is over,” she said. “There are no more excuses. We are way behind on this issue. Just do it, and do it right please.

But Dalton already promised a pesticide ban if re-elected, right? And according to the polls, McGuinty is still ahead, right?

So why all this duplication of effort?

Is it possible that Councillor Vieth doesn’t believe Dalton’s promises either?

This is a topic that really hits close to home because last year our own Region put in a compromise ban on pesticides during the months of July and August only. Coupled with the lack of rain, this has had a devastating effect on people’s lawns. Only lawn companies are allowed to apply pesticides during these months and then only in situations of extreme infestation and lots of signage. Many folks have simply given up rather than incur the extra cost.

I also read a few weeks ago that next year the Region may be sending out lawn police to check soil samples in lush lawns to make sure nobody is using pesticides during banned months.

Now Premier McGuinty wants to enact a province-wide ban on pesticides. In one way, it might be good to have a uniform law, rather than this patchwork of city and regional bylaws on the issue.

However, it does mean another ban on a product that Health Canada is still allowing for sale on the store shelves; just like tobacco.

So where do we draw the line between safety and a homeowners right to protect his investment?

There are some environmentalist dingbats in Waterloo who are still not satisfied with the partial ban. They prefer to see dirt and weeds in place of lawns, I guess.

A total ban would have a devastating effect on lawn care companies and their employees. As Richard Maas of Peerless Turfcare notes:

A total ban will destroy lawns and force residents to try to use pesticides on their own because they won’t be able to hire a lawn-care company, he said.

“They’re not going to stop people from using pesticides,” he said. “They’ll just kill our industry.”

The regional ban has already cut into Maass’s business this summer because large commercial clients who usually purchase extra lawn-care services on top of pesticide spraying are cancelling their contracts.

Maass said he’s lost about 200 customers this year and as much as $40,000 in business.

“Companies are laying off people in the middle of summer when they should be busy or doing more hiring,” he said. “But nobody is crying the blues about the loss of jobs in our industry.”

Yet pesticides continue to be used on farms. According to a 2005 report by The College of Family Physicians of Ontario “many fruits, including peaches, apples, pears and grapes, were found to contain residues of pesticides”. The Globe article states however, that “the ban the Liberal Party is contemplating would not apply to farmers.”

Great. We can eat the stuff but we can’t have it on our lawns.

This subject gets my blood boiling to the extent that I’m having trouble looking at it objectively.

Let’s see, what’s left to ban in Ontario now?

How about McGuinty?

One thing for sure - I was ambivalent about this election until now.

Dalton, this is the last straw - which is what my lawn is going to be if you get re-elected.