Cancer Society says NB should ban pesticides The Canadian Cancer Society thinks New Brunswick municipalities should ban the use of pesticides on residential and public property. The Cancer Society’s NB spokesperson, Lynn Ann Duffley, says evidence linking pesticides with cancer is growing, and it simply doesn't make sense to use a substance that could cause cancer to make a lawn look pretty. To date, only three small municipalities in NB have passed pesticide bylaws: Caraquet, Shediac and Sackville. The larger NB municipalities are playing “pass the buck” with the province. The municipalities say the province should pass legislation to explicitly allow them to limit pesticide use. The province says it will only do so when half the municipalities in the province ask for this right. The Supreme Court has already ruled that municipalities have the right to pass pesticide bylaws. Nova Scotian politicians are not acting much smarter. The NS Municipalities Act was amended in 1998 to allow HRM to become the first major city with a pesticide bylaw. But at the same time the Act blocked other NS municipalities from doing the same thing. This puts NS municipalities in a difficult situation. Although legal experts say the legislation is unlikely to stand up to a court challenge, no municipality has yet been willing to take this on. Across the country, eleven million Canadians ( more than one in three) are now protected from exposure to lawn and garden pesticides by provincial or municipal legislation. Ninety six municipalities have passed bylaws which limit or ban the use of cosmetic pesticides. From Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, to the tiny community of Lac-St-Joseph, population 184, municipalities are taking the right to protect their citizens seriously. The province of Quebec leads the way as the only province to ban both the sale and use of the most hazardous lawn and garden chemicals anywhere in the province. |