Poison Politics

One of the things that I have great difficulty tolerating, is when a person or group deliberately tries to muddy the water on an important issue for money or personal gain. Climate change detractors have been working at this for years, many of them on the payroll of “big oil”. Recently in the Sun Times there have been “letters” printed ranging from McDonalds teaching us about healthy eating, to the Fraser Institute defending the poor little pharmaceutical companies. It makes me wonder just how gullible they think we are.

Well, someone’s at it again, and this time it’s the pesticide industry telling us how to write a pesticide bylaw.
It’s called IPM or Integrated Pest Management, and don’t believe a word of it. As you probably know the City of Owen Sound has been looking at creating a bylaw to control or ban the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. Understandably the pesticide companies are feeling the crunch as 35% of Canadians (including all of Quebec) are now protected by a pesticide bylaw. The response, in order to save what “market” they have left, has been to lobby governments to write IPM into their bylaws. This essentially allows them to continue business as usual under the guise of better pesticide management.

The waters were further muddied at the City’s own public pesticide meeting on February 3rd. At this meeting citizens were inundated with stats about “allowable concentrations”, “acceptable risks”, tests on rats, and the fact that we can drink 2-4-D without harm. The worst part is that the city paid $500.00 for Dr. Stephenson to feed us a load of something that can be safely spread on your lawn. As the old saying goes, “I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night”.

One of the problems with the current approach to the issue, is that the burden is being put on the community to prove that the pesticides pose health risks, rather than the burden being put on the industry to prove that they their products are safe. In Canada, these chemicals are regulated by the Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency under appallingly insufficient testing. Here’s how it works. The industry tests chemicals on genetically pure lab rats to establish what concentrations are an “acceptable level” for human health. The problems with this approach are threefold. First, few, if any humans are perfectly healthy; second, these chemicals are never tested in combination as they exist in the “real world”; and third, the combination effect of other human factors (pharmaceutical prescriptions or stress) are never taken into account.

Here’s the test I’d like to see done. Take an immune compromised lab rat, perhaps with allergic chemical sensitivities, or a genetic predisposition toward cancer. Then give the rat a dose of 100 or so common chemicals that we are regularly exposed to at “acceptable safety levels”, then throw in some pharmaceuticals for a real world effect. Simultaneously take the rat and stress it psychologically for a few weeks and check the result. My bet is that the rat would be dead on its back or have developed some form of cancer.

Asking the community to provide the burden of proof that pesticides cause harm is like forcing you to jump off a cliff because you can’t prove the landing will kill you. Furthermore the safety regulations around the application of pesticides don’t take into account the dog or the child walking by on the sidewalk.
The pesticide industry also argues that bylaws banning pesticides do not work because the bylaw does not ban their sale. Statistics from municipalities where bylaws are in place, such as Hudson Quebec and Halifax Nova Scotia, show this to be untrue. Also, the act of a retailer continuing to sell pesticides that have been banned by the community, within that community, should call into question that retailers commitment to the community’s wellbeing. If a bylaw is passed we should ask for the retailers support in not providing these chemicals for illegal use.

So enough about what we don’t know and can’t prove. Here’s what we do know:

1. We know that an average of 2944 Canadians are diagnosed with cancer every week (www.cancer.ca). Trying to pin this on one single factor is a fool’s game. We need a multi-pronged approach including a cosmetic pesticide ban.
2. We know that pesticides are not necessary to maintain a healthy lawn. For alternatives look under “health and environment” programs at http://www.sierraclub.ca. Owen Sound’s own operations department has not used pesticides for cosmetic purposes for a number of years now, and the parks look great.
3. We know that out “perfect lawn” culture is a product of a time when status and appearance trumped ecological concerns. As this is no longer sustainable, perhaps its time to re-think our priorities.

If you want to learn more about this issue and voice you questions, opinions, and concerns, Green Owen Sound is hosting a Pesticide Awareness meeting at the Owen Sound library on Wednesday March 7, at 7pm.

On a number of occasions Owen Sound councilors have stated that we should be leaders in sustainability. Here’s an opportunity to step up to the plate.