On August 4, 2021, Health Canada announced:
- it was pausing proposed increases to pesticide Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs), including for glyphosate
- the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) would receive $42 million over three years “to further strengthen its human and environmental health and safety oversight and protection”- the Transformation Agenda.
Three years later, and $42 million later, nothing has been transformed. The PMRA is consulting on 4 proposed regulations, that do NOT strengthen protection from pesticides. Two of them do nothing, and two actually make matters worse.
This is despite the fact that PMRA received almost 20,000 comments from members of the public on the proposal to increase MRLs of glyphosate. It dismissed 94% of the comments, and intends to carry on as usual.
Proposed MRL Regulation
PMRA says in the consultation document that:
“the current MRL setting process protects human health and does not require changes”.
However, the current process does not protect human health. It takes the high residue level allowed in another country and inflates ours to match it- even though the directions for spraying in the other country result in higher levels.
PMRA says that Canadians are OK because the spraying practices in Canada won’t change. But they have no way of checking for this, because a standard residue level that results from spraying in Canada is not established: we are given the inflated level.
If PMRA really wanted to “strengthen protection from pesticides”, it would impose the lower level resulting from Canadian spray practices onto the food coming in from the other country.
And if that won’t work because we might be turning away food from other countries, then at least have two MRLs – one for the food that is imported, and then the lower one for the food grown in Canada.
But PMRA provides excuses for not doing this, including that it would be too hard for the Canada Food Inspection Agency:
“[I]f Canada were to set “two” MRLs (i.e., domestic and import), it would make it very difficult for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to enforce both MRLs. In many cases, the CFIA is unable to differentiate what food commodities were produced domestically from those that were imported”. (Correspondence from PMRA Aug 8, 2023)
The result? Wording of a proposed regulation that considers an MRL set pursuant to subsection 10(2) of the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA) to be only an import MRL. It closes the door on a domestic MRL whenever an import MRL is established, and thereby makes matters worse.
Proposed Confidential Test Data Regulation
The proposed regulation gives discretion to PMRA to refuse to release confidential test data. However, the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA) indicates that confidential test data must be released to a member of the public who requests it except in very narrow circumstances – where the person intends to use or share the test data so as to register a pest control product in Canada or elsewhere, or to amend a registration.
The proposed regulation makes matters worse.
Proposed Regulations on Species at Risk and Cumulative Risk
These two proposed regulations do nothing. The Minister of Health already has the power under the PCPA to require information on species at risk and cumulative effects. These regulations are just making this power “explicit”, which adds nothing.
Consultation Deadline
The deadline for submitting comments on the consultation is midnight EST, August 24, 2024.
Please note that “all comments submitted to Canada Gazette, Part I, will be posted online after the comment period closes. Those who post as individuals will be identified only as individuals, those who post anonymously will be identified as anonymous and organizations will be identified with their organization name.”
Thank you for being with us on our three-year journey enduring the endless consultations on theTransformation Agenda. We have written many posts on it, included in our Blog/News tab under MRLs, or just search “Transformation”. If you’d like to support our work and receive a Canadian charity receipt, please make a donation. Thank you!
