Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
Brief on Bill C-53: The proposed new Pest Control Products Act
For the Standing Committee on Health
April 25, 2001
Children's Health
The proposed act will not guarantee adequate protection of children.
As with the US Food Quality Protection Act, the bill proposes an extra
margin of safety that is discretionary [s.7(7)(b)(11) and s.19(2)(b)(ii)].
In the US, this has meant a safety factor that is rarely used; of 120
evaluations between 1996 and 1999, the safety factor was applied only
15 times. Studies on young lab animals however, cannot prove that the
risks to human children and adults are the same. The bill also restricts
the use of the safety margin to pesticides used around homes or schools.
The proposed act should include a mandatory 10-fold safety factor
to protect children and other vulnerable populations and this safety
factor should apply to all pesticides.
Precautionary Principle
The absence of a reference to the precautionary principle in the preamble
and mandate sections is of great concern. Safety evaluations of pesticides
are fundamentally estimates due to our inability to know the real differences
between animals and humans, to quantify the interactions between exposures
to different chemicals and to adequately predict long term effects.
Canadians need an act and an agency committed to erring on the side
of health and environmental protection in the face of these uncertainties.
The precautionary principle needs to be included in the preamble,
mandate and registration sections.
Pollution Prevention
Though the proposed act's objective is to reduce "unacceptable
risks," it does not take a preventative or pollution prevention
approach to pesticides. Given the scientific uncertainties related to
the safety of pesticides, the goal should be an overall reduction in
pesticide use. In addition, the bill does not specifically target substances
of great concern like persistent organic pollutants and hormone disruptors.
A new PCPA should commit the government to pesticide reduction and
the elimination of pesticides that are persistent pollutants or hormone
disruptors.
Non-essential or Cosmetic Use
The proposed act makes no commitment to reducing, phasing out or banning
cosmetic uses of pesticides in homes and gardens. Section 8(1)(a) states
that on registering a product, the Minister can specify the use of the
pesticide. Though cosmetic pesticide use is a small percentage of overall
pesticide application it, it causes greater human exposure. It is possible
to deny the registration of cosmetic pesticides under Section 7 due
to a lack of "value" but there is no guarantee that this aspect
will be adequately weighed. The proposed act should therefore include
a commitment to restrict the use of each pesticide's home and garden
use to public health needs.
Alternatives
Section 7(9) allows the Minister to take into account the risks and
benefits of other pesticides registered for the same use when deciding
whether to register a new product. Making such comparisons is optional
however, and agency staff at the Minister's briefing on the bill stated
that the tool would be used "judiciously." Though there is
a commitment to facilitating access to lower risk pesticides in the
preamble and mandate sections of the bill, there is no mechanism for
this in the act. The proposed act should work toward the replacement
of higher risk pesticides with safer ones by making risk comparison
a mandatory part of evaluations and by facilitating the registration
of lower risk products.
Mandatory Re-evaluation
The proposed act mandates re-evaluations of registered pesticides every
15 years to reflect changes in scientific information, rather than the
10-year period recommended by health and environmental groups [s.16(2)].
There is however no timeframe for completion of these re-evaluations.
Present experience shows that re-evaluations without completions deadlines
can be meaningless; some re-evaluations already in progress are uncompleted
after more than 10 years. Mandatory re-evaluations of pesticides
should be done every 10 years and must have completion deadlines.
Mandatory Reporting
Although section 13 does call for mandatory reporting of health and
environmental information, what constitutes reportable information is
left vague and at the discretion of the Minister. In addition, although
the Minister must determine whether a special review of a product is
necessary, the reported information will only be made public if the
Minister has decided there is a health or environmental risk. This precludes
public oversight of these decisions. The mandatory reporting section
must specify what kinds of information need to be reported and the Minister
should make public all instances where the environmental or health risks
reported have been considered insignificant.
Access to Information
The creation of a public registry where pesticide information will be
posted is a very positive step. Of concern is the fact that a pesticide's
ingredients and contaminants are considered confidential business information
unless the Minister considers them to be a health or environmental risk
[s.43(5)(b)]. This does imply however, that substances designated toxic
under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act will need to be listed.
Knowledge of the formulants and contaminants of a pesticide are important
for public oversight of pesticide evaluation. Access to information
in the proposed act should not exclude formulants and contaminants.
Public Participation
Specific requirements for public consultation and the public right to
ask for special reviews are important improvements in this proposed
act [s.28 and s.17(4)]. The agency must still demonstrate however that
public participation will be meaningful and that public input will have
an effect on decisions. Though the public advisory council has been
mentioned, it is neither mandatory, nor are there terms of reference,
while the Economic Management Advisory Committee, on the other hand,
is not in the bill [s.5]. The public advisory council must be mandatory
and the majority of the membership should be citizens and public interest
representatives. The Economic Management Advisory Committee must also
be open to public participation.
