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Ontario Enviro Minister
Warned About Pesticide Spin

CAPS BULLETIN
Thursday, MARCH 15, 2001
By JOHN SANKEY

15 March 2001

The Honourable Elizabeth Witmer,
Minister of the Environment
12th Floor 135 St. Clair Ave. W
Toronto, Ontario.
MW IP5

Dear Minister Witmer,

I understand that you will have started to receive a heap of letters orchestrated by Landscape Ontario, claiming economic devastation if the use of pesticides in urban areas is reduced.

No one is going to want to stop landscaping services just because pesticides are restricted! In fact, the opposite is true - IPM is more complex than 'spray and forget', so there will be more demand for expert services, not less. Their protest is not based upon fact.

"I ask you to reject the advice of people who wish to make a living on the backs of my family's health."


As a parent, recently a grandparent, I ask you to reject the advice of people who wish to make a living on the backs of my family's health. I know that, as Minister of Health, you were all too aware of the problems funding the explosion of health problems that we are seeing in Canada's urban areas - asthma and non-IgE allergies in particular. I ask you to consult with your colleague, the Minister of Education, concerning the greatly increased numbers of children who have learning disabilities, and the resulting saturation of diagnostic services and special facilities for them. Both these effects have now been linked to the use of pesticides in general around children.

"We need to reduce the use of toxic substances of all sorts where our children grow up."

We need to reduce the use of toxic substances of all sorts where our children grow up. I submit that the best place to do this is at the municipal level where the usage actually occurs, not by blanket measures that hit our agriculture and forest productivity as well, but on the basis of human health.

I ask you to take the lead on this issue, by removing the untenable provisions of The Pesticides Act that grant immunity to anyone who follows the label on a pesticide even when the label provisions are inappropriate. I also ask you to remove the provision of that Act that is held to prohibit more stringent standards being applied in urban areas than for the province as a whole. I ask you to encourage your colleague, the new Minister of Health, to strengthen the provisions of The Health Protection and Promotion Act that give Medical Officers of Health authority over public health issues, and to encourage your colleague, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, to strengthen the portion of The Municipal Act that gives Ontario municipalities the general power to protect the health of their residents.

The health and education of my family is the most important things in the world to me. Please help me to help them.

Yours truly,

John Sankey
Ottawa ON