Safe Food Matters is a charitable organization working to ensure our food is safe. Our corporate purpose is:
“To promote the health of Canadians by upholding the administration of laws concerning the assessment of the safety of food inputs that are protective of human health”.
The focus of our work is in the legal and regulatory arena. Our president, Mary Lou McDonald, is a trained lawyer with almost 30 years’ experience, and our board has experience in academia, business and activism.
We have had success in the Courts, having won a case in the Federal Court of Appeal in February, 2022. The Court ordered PMRA, an agency of Health Canada, to revisit its review of our objections to the 2017 risk assessment of glyphosate. The Court in that case provided “Guidance” to PMRA, to improve its decision-making on pesticides. PMRA did revisit the objections, and rejected them again. So we are suing them again. See more under “Glyphosate”.
We are also in Court over PMRA’s approach to chlorpyrifos, a neuro toxic chemical. PMRA purported to cancel chlorpyrifos, but then indicated it could still be used for another 3 years in Canada. In our view, this does not align with the purposes of the PCPA, which is to protect Canadians and the environment from the risks of pesticides. We are suing together with Prevent Cancer Now, and are represented b Ecojustice. See more under “Chlorpyrifos”.
We also actively engage in Health Canada consultations regarding pesticides, gene editing and other inputs and techniques that have the potential to impact the safety of food production.
We were founded in Toronto, Canada in 2016.
