Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have a chance to speak on this important motion introduced by the NDP dealing with banning pesticides when they are used for cosmetic purposes.
I too want to join with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and acknowledge the work of our leader, the member for Toronto--Danforth, in spearheading this initiative before us today and to thank him for his leadership on the matter.
While I am at it, let me recognize the work of the member for Winnipeg Centre, who just a little while ago introduced a private member's bill in this House, Bill C-225, which would do precisely what this motion before us attempts to do, and that is to place a moratorium on the use of pesticides when it comes to caring for our lawns and flowerbeds and when we are talking about cosmetic purposes.
I want to start by referencing an earlier remark made by the member for Kings--Hants, a member of this House who was once a Conservative and then a Liberal and is now an aspiring candidate for the Liberal leadership, and who cannot seem to get his facts straight and is reflecting what I think is a very inconsistent message from Liberals on this issue. That, of course, has to do with attempts by this Parliament for many years to try to get such a ban.
The issue before us is not a new one. It has been discussed in this House and at committee many times. Let me go back to when I was first elected in 1997. I can recall all kinds of correspondence and promises by the Liberal government of the time to deal with it. I know that there were previous private members' motions and bills placed before the House on this matter on a regular basis.
The most recent opportunity we had to actually deal with this issue in a decisive way was back in 2002, when the Pest Control Products Act was up for review before the health committee and this Parliament. At that time, it was recognized that the legislation, which came into effect in 1969, was out of date, old fashioned, had not kept pace with the tremendous influx of pesticides and toxic substances in our marketplace and had to be refined and reviewed.
At that time, the Liberal government of the day in fact promised a massive overhaul, promising that it would bring this legislation into the modern century and address numerous concerns that had been raised by experts in the health field and by individual citizens who had felt the most serious ramifications from pesticides in terms of their own health and well-being. At that time, the legislation that was introduced did not in fact bring forward a ban on pesticides.
This is contrary to what we have just heard from the member for Kings--Hants, who is running for the leadership of the Liberal Party and does not seem to have his facts correct once again. He seems to have gotten himself mixed up first on the income trust issue and now he is not clear about pesticides. I think it is about time that he did some homework and in fact recognized what kind of record the party of which he is now a member has on issues like pesticides. Perhaps when he made the leap from the Conservatives to the Liberals he had not really studied just how good Liberals are at pretending they are going to deal with something but never actually getting down to it.
Goodness knows how many times we have heard in this House from Liberals about how they were going to crack down on pesticides and take up the challenge of banning these substances from use on a cosmetic basis. How many times have we heard that? How many times have Canadians believed that?
Where are we today? There is no ban on pesticides for cosmetic purposes. There was nothing in Bill C-53 in the year 2002, many years after this issue had been discussed on numerous occasions in the House and many years after definitive scientific research was available for all of us to use. Not only was that piece missing from the Liberal bill, the government of the day would not entertain any motions to change the bill to that effect.
On this side of the House in the New Democratic Party, we tried very hard to get Bill C-53 amended to ban pesticides in terms of cosmetic use. No, sir, there was nothing doing by the Liberals at the time, just like so many other issues that we were dealing with at the health committee and on every other level.
So here we are today, years after this issue was raised, years after many Canadians have had to suffer through the worst effects of the toxins found in pesticides today, and we are at square one. We are trying to do something very civilized, humane, practical, commonsensical and realistic and simply ban the use of pesticides when it comes to cosmetic or decorative purposes.
We are not talking about agriculture at the moment, although of course there are a lot of things we should be doing on that front in terms of trying to give citizens the right to know what is being used, in terms of trying to apply the precautionary principle so that disastrous products are not allowed on the market and the health of human beings and animals comes first.
However, today we are talking just about lawns and flowerbeds and banning pesticides that are very toxic and harmful to human beings. Back when we debated this issue in 2002, we heard incredible testimony from individuals and organizations about the dangers that pesticide use in urban areas caused. We heard how the impact on human health is severe and profound and could lead to fetal damage and to long term physical health problems for individuals, particularly those already sensitive to chemicals and other foreign substances. The evidence was in at the time, and it is in today before us.
We are all hoping that finally we can all come together and deal with the issue once and for all, that we can make up for lost ground and years of inaction by Liberals. Perhaps members on the Conservative side, the Conservative government, who sat through those years watching the Liberals on the health committee as they refused to entertain important amendments, are now prepared to actually join forces, make up for the inadequacies of the previous government and do something substantive, concrete and real for Canadians.
I want to refer to the fact that numerous constituents have written to me on this issue, just like other members of Parliament have mentioned. On a regular basis we get e-mails such as the one I just received from Colin McInnes in my riding. He said, “I am writing to let you know that I fully support...[ the] private member's bill [introduced by the member for Winnipeg Centre] to limit the use of cosmetic pesticides...”. He urges me to take whatever action I can.
I want to refer to Barry Hammond, who over the years has written me numerous times on this issue, going back to the year 2000 when he wrote me and the Minister of Health at the time, Allan Rock. He said:
Pesticides have been known to be an environmental problem since the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, if not before. Yet we continue to dispense these poisons without full knowledge of which species are affected.
I want to refer to the work of a former member of Parliament for Halifax West, Gordon Earle, who went to great lengths to bring this matter before the House and to table documents and cite studies. I want to refer specifically to documents he circulated from a physician, a Mr. Roy Fox, who documented numerous cases of illness and serious health side effects as a result of exposure to pesticides.
I want to refer specifically to a study by Roy Fox entitled, “The Impact of Chemical Lawn Care on Human Health”. The fact is that he has pointed out that such toxins can lead to “disturbed neurological development” and “hormone mimicry”, and that we are looking at such things as “life threatening complications such as cardiac arrhythmia and anaphylaxis”. He recommends that action be taken because exposure to lawn chemicals can pose serious risks to human health.
I join with everyone who wants to support this motion and make a difference in this Parliament. I thank members for taking the time to discuss such a serious, important issue.