From the Canadian Press:

Environment Minister John Gerretsen says Ontario’s proposed pesticide ban seeks to look at the “cumulative effects” of chemicals like 2,4-D. He says the federal government looks at such chemicals on a “product-by-product” basis.

The provincial government has put forward a list of 80 chemicals and 300 products that will be part of a regulatory system to be invoked if the bill passes.

The exact products and ingredients to be banned in Ontario will be laid out in the regulations.

The full text of the bill is here: Bill 64, Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act, 2008.

The lists of 80 chemicals and 300 products are available at the following links, in PDF format.

• List of Active Ingredients (PDF)
• List of Pesticide Products (PDF)

From Reuters:

Ontario said on Tuesday that it will ban the sale and general use of pesticides in what the province said would be among the toughest such environmental laws in North America.

Canada’s most populous province said the new legislation — expected to take effect next spring — would outlaw homeowners’ use of lawn and garden pesticides for such things as killing dandelions. Exceptions would be made for golf courses, farms and forests.

In Canada, only the province of Quebec has a similar ban, and according to the pesticide industry no U.S. state has a ban in place…

For more information, click on the above link.

Might we see Prop 65 style legislation in the province of Ontario? A Toronto Star article suggests it could happen:

Ontarians need to know what toxins are in the products they buy and what toxins neighbourhood businesses are using, NDP Leader Howard Hampton says.

If elected, the NDP would introduce a right-to-know law to make sure families know exactly what toxins and other environmental hazards are in their food, products and neighbourhoods, he announced this morning…

The legislation would require manufactures to disclose to consumers the known, or suspected, toxins in products on information labels.

If manufactures refused to label their products, they wouldn’t be sold in Ontario, Hampton said. Similar legislation in the United States has led to companies removing toxins from products rather than have to label them, he said.

A press release from Crop Life Canada: Leaked Liberal pesticide plan - bad public policy, says CropLife Canada:

The Ontario Liberals’ leaked election promise to ban the use of lawn and garden pest control products on a province-wide basis would be both unnecessary and costly if it were to become law, says CropLife Canada.

“Banning lawn and garden products, which are already thoroughly scrutinized and regulated at the federal and provincial levels, would be an extremely expensive and an wholly unnecessary exercise,” said Peter MacLeod, Managing Director CropLife Canada.

“This is purely about politics, not sound public policy.” MacLeod noted that all pest control products are stringently regulated by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which carefully reviews the health and environmental safety of all products before they can be sold or used in
Canada.

The full release available here: Leaked Liberal pesticide plan - bad public policy, says CropLife Canada

The Dundas Star News provides a good primer on pesticide law in Canada:

Known by its acronym WHMIS, the program also sets rules for warning labels of chemicals and establishes a worker’s right to know details of the chemicals they use.

But the federal government, through a division of Health Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of Labour both leave Ontario pesticide manufacturers out of the Workplace Hazardous Material Information System, because the province has its own pesticide legislation.

But Ontario’s Pesticide Act only deals with the sale and application of pesticides, and specifically exempts manufacturers of the substances from its requirements, according to the Ministry of the Environment.

The full article available from the Dundas Star News.

Here’s a snippet from NDP seeking new law for toxic chemical labels on household products from today’s London Free Press (in London, Ontario, Canada where Nexreg is headquartered):

Toxic chemicals are in many everyday products, from household cleaners and laundry detergents to hair dyes and cosmetics, said NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns, who is pushing for a new law that would compel manufacturers to disclose dangerous ingredients in their products.

Consumers would demand changes if labels told them exactly what a product contains, Tabuns said.

“Right now, most people don’t know whether or not products that they buy have cancer-causing agents in them.”

Tabuns hopes to convince Ontario to follow the example of California, where community right-to-know legislation has helped get arsenic out of bottled water and lead removed from some candies. Manufacturers there opted to find alternatives rather than list carcinogens on their labels, he said.

“They are not going to want to have that label on their products. They know that consumers, especially parents, don’t want to subject themselves to exposure.”

We suspect this proposal is not going anywhere - the Liberal Party holds a majority in the Ontario legislature with 69 of 103 seats. The NDP, who are proposing this bill, are the third place party with only 10 seats (the Progressive Conservative Party holds the remaining 24). However, we will be following this proposal very closely since most consumer chemical companies operating in North America sell in the Ontario market of nearly 13 million people.