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Calls for Canada to ban bee-killing pesticides after damning CNO investigation

Federal officials helped pesticide giant Bayer Crop Science undermine water sampling work by Christy Morrissey, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, which showed dangerously high levels of neonics in Prairie wetlands. Photo by Liam Richards/National Observer

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A coalition of Canada's largest environmental and health protection groups, backed by several professors, is asking federal Minister of Health Mark Holland to temporarily ban a class of toxic insecticides until an independent expert panel has determined they are safe. 

The call follows a bombshell investigation by Canada's National Observer that revealed how federal officials colluded with the pesticide industry to keep three neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides on the market. The investigation found that pesticide giant Bayer Crop Science commissioned a report to discredit a University of Saskatchewan professor's water sampling data, which showed dangerous levels of the chemicals in Prairie wetlands. 

"Following reports in Canada's National Observer that Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) allegedly 'colluded' with Bayer Crop Science to maintain registration of the controversial neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid, we write to request that you urgently intervene to put safeguards in place to ensure that impartial PMRA scientists can do their job in service of the public interest and prevent inappropriate industry influence in pesticide regulation," the letter states. 

“It looks like Bayer pushed the federal regulator to ignore data inconvenient to its interests,” said Lisa Gue, national policy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation. “We need the health minister to send a clear signal that this is not acceptable, and order an independent review of the environmental harms from neonic insecticides.”

Neonics are a class of insecticides so deadly to bees and other insects, birds and aquatic organisms that they have been banned outdoors in the E.U. since 2018. There is also growing evidence they can harm human brain development and the reproductive system. 

Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) proposed to ban the three most common neonics in 2016 and 2017 because of their deadly impact on aquatic ecosystems. But in 2021 the agency shocked observers by backtracking on the proposal and allowing use of chemicals to continue largely unchanged. 

That decision was enabled by an effort, facilitated by federal officials, that saw Canada's major pesticide and agricultural lobbies create datasets the regulator could use to justify their continued use, Canada's National Observer found. 

"The breach of scientific and regulatory principles by PMRA is both blatant and egregious," said Mary Lou McDonald of SafeFoodMatters.org. "[The] PMRA is supposed to judge the evidence, not help create it. We call for an end to this ongoing capture of PMRA." 

Environmental groups and Christy Morrissey, the Saskatchewan professor whose research was undermined by Bayer, submitted formal scientific objections to the PMRA's approval decision in 2021 raising doubts about the decision's scientific integrity. Canada's pesticide laws require the government to respond to these objections but it has not. 

The findings from CNO’s investigation and the government's silence regarding the objections make an independent review of the government's decision "appropriate and necessary," the letter says. To be credible, the groups demand that the review panel must comprise independent experts who have no conflicts of interest with the PMRA or pesticide producers, and should provide its recommendations within three months. 

The letter calls for a temporary ban on imidacloprid, the most common neonic in Canada, until the review is complete. It also notes that "evidence of undue corporate influence suggests regulatory capture" of the PMRA, and asks the minister to launch a broader "realignment" of how the agency completes its work

“Canada’s federal government needs to stand up for independent science and shield it from corporate meddling,” said Cassie Barker, senior program manager, toxics, for Environmental Defence. “It’s a massive conflict of interest to have corporate actors, like Bayer, seemingly so embedded in the decision-making process. The feds need to tell pesticide manufacturers to buzz off before we all get stung.” 

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