With the province backing away from implementing a ban on the use of cosmetic pesticides, the City of Prince George is looking at its own bylaw.
At Monday night's council meeting, Coun. Murry Krause moved that city staff look at the policy and regulatory options available for a municipal ban.
"I see it as an environmental health issue," Krause said, but he added the city needed to balance doing right by residents with understanding how enforceable it would be and who it would affect.
Last spring, council heard a presentation from the Canadian Cancer Society proposing a bylaw regulating pesticide use. The city began looking into the matter, but put any further work on hold after the province struck a special committee in June 2011 to research the matter.
In May, the Special Committee on Cosmetic Pesticides came back with a report that recommended further restrictions on the use and sale of pesticides, but did not support an outright ban.
"From our perspective, the scientific evidence does not, at this time, warrant preventing British Columbians from buying and using approved domestic-class pesticides for law and garden care," said the committee's report.
Kerensa Medhurst, the northern region's health promotion co-ordinator, said the Canadian Cancer Society was very pleased the city was re-igniting their discussions after the disappointment that came from the provincial committee's recommendations.
She said the committee's suggestion was very weak and that the society didn't support non-essential pesticide regulations that included integrated pest management and multiple exceptions.
Seven Canadian provinces and 40 B.C. municipalities have bans on the weed and pest management chemicals, the most recent of which came into effect in Terrace this past April.
Medhurst said the bans the Canadian Cancer Society is most supportive of are those found in Ontario and Quebec. In Ontario, domestic-class pesticide products cannot be sold or used on outdoor residential and landscape areas including patios, vegetable and ornamental gardens, parks and school yards. Mixed use products that contain banned active ingredients are sold behind the counter for permitted purposes, like agriculture.
Quebec, the first to enact a provincial ban in 2003, restricts pesticide use in places frequented by children.
"It's relatively easy if there is political will to pass a cosmetic ban," said UNBC environmental studies professor Annie Booth. The difficulty comes with enforcing it.
The problems other municipalities with pesticide-restricting bylaws have run into include people stockpiling non-approved products before the ban of sale takes effect, businesses continuing to sell banned products or people simply ordering their favourite herbicide online.
"You can pass a ban and say 'please don't do it,' like speeding laws. People will simply ignore you," Booth said.
The key to making any legislation effective will be a significant education campaign on the health risks associated with long-term pesticide use.
The committee heard a variety of submissions and presentations demonstrating associations between pesticide exposure and an increased risk of a number of cancers as well as brain- and nerve-related problems.
Booth also cited the environmental component of anything that gets put on lawns eventually ending up in waterways.
"You can work the health issue, you can work the environment issue, but unless people can be convinced there are good reasons for it, they will simply go out to spray," she added. "And, to be honest, I do believe there would be people who would sacrifice the health of their first born for the sake of having a dandelion-free lawn."
During their review process, the province's committee also heard from business interests such as golf courses, the landscape and nursery association and invasive plant specialists who were critical of flat-out bans and called for a more measured approach.
"For treatment purposes, for the right plant in the wrong place, where you want to treat it, pesticide is a tool to be used," Gail Wallin, executive director of the Invasive Plant Council of B.C. told the committee last October. She also supported the idea of making the same kind of information available about pesticides as other pest controls at the point of sale.
"So if you're buying a rat poison, there are restrictions on how you can buy and store rat poison. As a homeowner, I should know that," Wallin said.
