Glyphosate Product: Safe Food Matters back in court
On January 22, 2025, Safe Food Matters will be in court again, fighting over glyphosate. Our original – still ongoing -lawsuit was about Health Canada’s decision to register glyphosate (“Registration Decision”), and this one is about the 5 year renewal of a product that contains the pesticide. Details on how to attend in person or watch are at the end of this piece.
This fight is about the product “Mad Dog Plus”, and the fact that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) routinely renews products, on a 5 year basis, without looking into new science on risks arising after major registration decisions.
In 2022 a coalition of groups, us included, provided the PMRA with a list of studies on glyphosate showing new risks, and it appears PMRA did not look into them – at least they couldn’t provide any evidence to show they did.
Mad Dog Plus is used on crops, forests, and …Read More
The Morrissey Report: Health Canada worked with Bayer to discredit valid science
Professor Christy Morrisey published several papers showing high levels of neonicotinoids in Canadian wetlands, including imidacloprid. She also provided unpublished data to Health Canada.
A ban was proposed in 2016 by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) of Health Canada, partly based on her data. It found “the continued high volume use of imidacloprid in agricultural areas is not sustainable”. (PRVD 2016-20)
But then the PMRA turned around and gave the unpublished data to Bayer, without the consent or knowledge of Morrissey. Bayer commissioned a report that called Morrissey’s studies and data “irrelevant” (because GPS coordinates for testing had not been provided).
Bayer also redid her testing, but under different conditions, and provided new water monitoring data that inflated the sample size to lower the concentrations.
Then, in 2021, the PMRA reversed its proposed ban, citing in part the Bayer provided data (Re-evaluation Decision RVD 2021-05 May 19, 2021).
Breach of Principles
This behaviour by PMRA …Read More
Forest Spraying 1: Based on Faulty Approval
Pesticides are being sprayed on Canadian forests, killing the diversity of forest life. The resulting harms are plant and animal death, destruction of forest foods, and accelerating forest fires.
How is this allowed?
The registration approval for this use of pesticides comes from the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) of Health Canada, the agency responsible for “managing pests”. The licenses to spray are then granted by the provinces. (Quebec has banned forestry spraying since 2001.)
PMRA says that unwanted trees and brush are “pests”. Pests are defined in the “Pest Control” law to include “a plant… that is injurious, noxious or troublesome”.
So trees are a troublesome pest? The forest industry and PMRA think they are. The aim of industry is to “harvest” one type of tree “crop”, usually evergreens (conifers), and get rid of the leafy trees (broadleaf) that get in the way – the pests.
The PMRA Glyphosate Approval
Glyphosate …Read More
“Highly Uncertain” Science Used for Pesticide Limits
Pesticide limits for sugar beet roots – the first up for MRL increases after the “pause” – are based on uncertain science
Confidential test data reveals there is “High uncertainty of [the] MRL estimate” for two increases of pesticide maximum residue limits (MRLs) on sugar beet roots (used for sugar products), which were requested by Syngenta and proposed by Health Canada. The proposed MRLs, which are 200 times and 10 times higher than current levels, were calculated using the OECD Calculator. The output page of the calculator flags in red that there is high uncertainty because small data sets were used.
Health Canada does not mention these uncertainties in its proposals for the two pesticides, PMRL 2023-34 for Fludioxonil (FL) and PMRL 2023-38 for Azoxystrobin (AZ). The proposed increases are from 0.02 to 4.0 ppm for FL, and from 0.5 to 5.0 ppm for AZ.
Notably these are two of the very first …Read More
Preliminary Hearing on Oct 24 2023 over Glyphosate Product Renewal
On October 24, 2023, Safe Food Matters is n Federal Court with other groups in the first step of its “product renewal case” over a glyphosate product. We are seeking documents to show what science, if any, PMRA looked at in its renewal.
Safe Food Matters Goes Back to Court June 13 with Health Canada on Glyphosate
On June 13, 2023, Safe Food Matters returns to federal court in its ongoing battle with Health Canada over glyphosate, Canada’s most widely used herbicide.
This is the first step in our second lawsuit against Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for re-registering this harmful pesticide. We are seeking documents to show what’s really going on behind closed doors at the PMRA.
Why? Because something’s not right. In February, 2022, the Federal Court of Appeal ordered the PMRA to review our “Notice of Objection” for a second time – and the Court even provided “Guidance” to PMRA on how to address the issues. But PMRA did not follow the Guidance.
More than that, PMRA bent over backward to not address the concerns we raised. PMRA rewrote history. PMRA made up totally new legal tests. PMRA defied the rules of procedural fairness. It is clear PMRA does not want a review panel, even though the law allows for it.
So what’s going on?
