Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-53, An Act to protect human health and safety and the environment by regulating products used for the control of pests.
It was time for the legislation regulating the use of pesticides to be modernized. It has been talked about for years. For years, there have been proposals on the table.
For years, many scientists have been warning the public that using pesticides is not a trivial matter and that pesticides are products which carry a health risk.
More and more studies are showing the long term impact of pesticides on human health. There is particular emphasis on the effects of pesticide induced illnesses among young children, who have more contact with pesticides because they tumble around on the lawn and often play outside, in close contact with the elements of nature, which may contain vapour from pesticides, insecticides or herbicides.
More and more epidemiological studies are showing beyond any doubt that, in the medium and long term, pesticides can definitely have an impact on human health, not just in a sporadic way, such as dizziness or vomiting, but that they can even actually cause cancer.
The use of pesticides has become routine and their danger played down to the public over the years, often by the companies which sell these products. The practice of using pesticides is not a trivial matter. In Quebec alone, 8,200 tonnes of pesticides were spread in 1997. Even in the ornamental horticulture sector, there has been a 60% increase since 1992 in the use of pesticides by ordinary citizens, who often lack information about the dangers of using these products.
As I mentioned earlier, there has been a greater attempt at raising awareness in the past few years coming not from governments but from scientists—particularly in American publications—who are warning the public about the dangers of using pesticides, particularly for improving the appearance of lawns, a popular practice since the mid-1970's.
As the old saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We always want to have the greenest lawn in the neighbourhood. It is a matter of pride in our modern life. We want to be able to say our lawn is greener than the Jones' and that it is free of weeds and dandelions.
Attitudes are changing, though, and so much so that the federal government wants to modernize the Pest Control Act by implementing several recommendations of the committee, and that the Quebec government has also introduced a bill and done some promotion and education to help the public understand the risks of using pesticides.
In the last several years, municipalities have regulated the use of pesticides within their jurisdictions. But that kind of regulation is a brutal attack against the markets of big corporations that not only produce pesticides but also spread them on the lawns for consumers.
ChemLawn and Spray Tech have challenged before the supreme court the right of the municipalities to make regulations on the use of pesticides, and they lost. It is a huge victory because these companies which are backed by the manufacturers of pesticides like Monsanto and CIL all too often control the information and the market. This is happening not just here, but also internationally.
The situation is so serious that a major debate has been going on for some 15 years regarding the fact that these companies control not only the pesticides, insecticides or herbicides that are used for agriculture, which accounts for 80% of their use, or for cosmetic purposes, but also control related seeds. Through cross-breeding and genetic manipulations of the seeds, they have managed to ensure that these seeds cannot reproduce themselves. Therefore, it is not possible to keep some of the seeds harvested at the end of the crop year to start the following crop year. These seeds and the plants they produce are also subject to very strict requirements regarding the use of pesticides and pest control in general. The result is that, first, farmers no longer have control over their production and their future. This is happening here.
Second, they are forced to buy from these companies, which have an upstream and downstream monopoly on agricultural production and sales.
Third, these companies are often transnationals, such as CIL and Monsanto, and they take advantage of their presence all over the world to organize the market, depending on local regulations.
This has happened in the past. It happened with DDT, a pesticide that was used massively by farmers in Quebec and in Canada. The product was banned here after being banned in the United States, because it was proven to be a strong cancer causing agent. Several years after it had been banned in the United States and Canada, this product was still being used in South America. South American farmers were once again being exploited by the large companies that were producing DDT. They were not warned of the dangers related to DDT, a product that had been banned for a number of years already in Canada and in the United States.
It is high time that these corporations, which not only control pesticides, but the very future of agriculture in Quebec and in Canada, and even throughout the world, were brought into line. It is time to break their monopoly on the future of humanity. When one has such perfect control over food production, one also indirectly has perfect control over the survival of the human race.
This being said, we deplore the fact that, with the two amendments that were presented, the government only did 80% of the work. It could have improved its legislation and made us 100% happy.
First, when we talk about the legislation review process by the Senate, there is something wrong there. The Senate is asked to continue legislative measures or to stop them, while it is for the House of Commons, comprised of elected members who vote, to do its job as lawmaker. It is not legitimate to ask a non elected chamber to decide on the continuing or not of a public policy bill like this one, when it was passed by elected members.
Second, we would have liked that one of the main recommendations of the committee be included in the bill, that is promoting alternative products to chemical pesticides. There are organic pesticides everywhere. We can blame Canada, as was the case in the 1980s when I was an economist at the Union des producteurs agricoles, for its slow approach in registering pesticides, compared to what is happening in the United States. It is totally different there. The process is very slow here, while American producers now have access to alternative pesticides that are not harmful to the environment. They have a competitive edge over our producers. We should model the registration process and the related resources on the United States. This is what needs to be done here.
Third, we deplore the second amendment proposed by the government on the confidentiality of business data. The government could have ignored this type of consideration, especially since there is a problem with public information about the danger of pesticides when the companies are asked to conduct analyses on the possible effects of their products on health, and these analyses are kept confidential and the public cannot have access to them.
We will nevertheless vote in favour of the bill, but we would have liked the government to do 100% and not 80% of its job.