Support strong Canadian climate journalism for 2025
Canada's pesticide regulator is delaying the release of health and safety data, internal emails, briefing notes and other documents that justify its decision to approve several harmful pesticides, Canada's information commissioner has found. The government withholds all that background information unless forced to reveal it through freedom of information requests.
In 11 rulings on information requests, Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard found that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) stalled release of some information for more than four years, calling delays of up to 1,500 days unreasonable. The information requests were made by the environmental group Ecojustice between 2021 and 2023 about pesticides approved for use in Canada, despite being linked to serious health concerns.
They include: atrazine, which is used on corn and linked to cancer and endocrine issues; dicamba, a broad-action weedkiller that can cause liver and bile duct cancers; and tiafenacil, a pesticide used on corn and wheat that breaks down into a compound thought to impair fertility and child development.
"This is stuff that we're all involuntarily exposed to," said Laura Bowman, a lawyer with Ecojustice. "We should have a right to know what the scientists are really saying, not just the polished final decision."
A trove of internal documents shared with Canada's National Observer about the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which causes neurodevelopmental issues, revealed that scientists working for the agency had for years raised red flags about the pesticide's health impacts. The documents showed their concerns were repeatedly ignored, and Canada only decided to "phase out" the chemical after it was banned by the U.S. and European Union.
The agency's claim that the lengthy delays were needed to find and process the requests were not "justified" and a "clear contravention of Health Canada's obligations" to provide Canadians with information about pesticides used in the country, Maynard found.
The chlorpyrifos files revealed why obtaining these internal documents is so important, Bowman said. In that case, the conversations between government scientists, regulators and risk assessors revealed a level of internal debate over the pesticide's safety that raised questions about the government's decision to allow its use.
They revealed the government ignored its own models which showed that rules for the pesticide's use would leach dangerous amounts into the environment, and the agency's minimal water monitoring efforts raised questions about the models' accuracy.
In a statement, Health Canada said that since April 2022, the PMRA has received 88 "complex" access to information requests, which have led to 18 investigations by the information commissioner. The commissioner determined that half of them were "not founded," while seven were well-founded and required the agency to release the information on tighter deadlines, which the agency met.
"The PMRA is committed to improving transparency of its decision-making process on pesticides. We recognize the importance of providing the public and interested stakeholders with easy and timely access to information that forms the basis of our decisions. Since 2021, the PMRA has launched and implemented several initiatives...to make this information more accessible. We believe that these efforts will ultimately contribute to reducing the need for stakeholders to rely on the ATIP process and improve timeliness of response," it said.
The delays come as no surprise to Christy Morrissey, a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the ecological impacts of pesticides.
In 2021, she tried to file a so-called "notice of objection" – a scientific document refuting the decisions – to the government's 2021 decision to allow the use of the neonicotinoid pesticide imidacloprid. Neonicotinoids kill insects and are linked to massive declines in bee and other pollinator populations.
The agency refused to give her the data – most of it created by pesticide manufacturers – in a timely fashion and dragged out the request for almost a year. When she received it, the information was on an encrypted thumb drive that only gave her access to documents in a read-only format that was nearly impossible to analyze.
By the time she obtained the data, which she still could only take notes on in longform, and filed her objection, years had passed since the pesticide was approved for use, harming key ecosystems across the country, she said. Not only that: despite being legally required to assess and answer her objection, Morrissey said she is still waiting to hear back from them.
In June, the agency proposed updates to Canada's pesticide rules, but critics say the changes will further restrict access to the data it uses to approve pesticides for use. The proposed changes will only allow people to see the data for research purposes, prevent the data from being used to make public comments or objections to pesticide approvals, and would make it easier for the PMRA to prevent people from accessing the information.
Nearly a dozen health and environmental advocacy groups, including Ecojustice, have slammed the proposal, arguing it will make the agency's decision-making process even less transparent.
In a statement, Health Canada said that "the PMRA makes confidential test data through the Reading Room process, where members of the public may inspect confidential test data either in-person in the Reading Room, located at the PMRA's National Head Office in Ottawa, Ontario, or remotely, as part of an ongoing project. Such inspection does not constitute public disclosure as the public is not allowed to make a copy of the test data, but it gives Canadians an opportunity to look at the data used by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in support of its regulatory decisions."
The information commissioner's rulings reveal the latest in a string of transparency problems with the agency. Critics remain dubious the agency is adequately protecting Canadians from harmful pesticides and herbicides.
Last year, prominent health researcher Bruce Lanphear resigned from a scientific advisory position with the PMRA due to transparency issues. In his letter of resignation, he lambasted the organization's "obsolete" approach to pesticide regulation.
In 2021, public outrage over a proposal to increase how much residue of the herbicide glyphosate could be on food crops forced the government to give the pest management agency $42 million to lead a so-called transformation agenda meant "to further strengthen its human and environmental health and safety oversight and protection." That process ended in August, but critics say little has changed.
However, in a statement Health Canada noted that under agenda, it has expanded its water testing program, is developing a new "framework" for a pesticide database and is creating a continuous oversight process to better review pesticides in light of new science.
For Morrissey, it’s unacceptable that the agency is allowing delays and slow responses to requests for health and safety information about pesticides used across the country and why government decided to approve them.
"Canadians have the right to have a system where they can question whether the PMRA is correct or not in their decision making. They can ask why [the PMRA] made decisions and what data supported it, and they should be able to question if a decision is supported by the data," she said. "Unfortunately, they're not following that."
Update: This story was updated to include comment from Health Canada.
Comments
When I worked for the federal government some 20 years ago now, the scientists were ferocious about safety and obligations to Canadians. It felt so good knowing them.
What happened?
Well I m guessing 2005-2015...
And since? same folks in place? top direction stayed? what?
More digging please. Talk to some retirees from my day, they ll know stuff and will speak.
Thank you for your insight.
Agreed, more digging please.
The PMRA has always been controlled by the pesticide industry. Perhaps it's time to start naming all those in the PMRA who've come from the pesticide industry or CNTC or pesticide friendly universities.
Speaking particularly about imidacloprid, I would suggest you look at the Bayer's submissions when they were in the approval process. Compare those claims to what we know about the chemical now.
Wouldn't it be a novel thing if the PMRA just used up-to-date information, mostly not provided by the industry seeking a license for its product?
One could spend an evening or two worse ways than reading Shive Chopra's "Rotten to the Core."
I used to know rather a lot of highly principled people. They grow old and retire, then die ... and what replaces it is not a picture of principle!
Risk assessment can be difficult, but risk assessment agencies have done a pretty good job of balancing risks with benefits of pesticides. Compared with the products of 50 yrs ago, pesticides today are safer with fewer side effects. Of course, I recognize that lobbying orgs such as Ecojustice need income too, thus this series of articles.
Really? How do you "balance" this sort of thing: "The toxicity related to CPF is significantly high affecting the reproductive capacity, nervous system, endocrine, cardiovascular and respiratory system ..."
CPF is a breakdown product of chlorpyrifos ...
That reproductive capacity relates to male fertility, primarily; "nervous system" relates to permanent inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, leading to (among other things) ADHD, learning disabilities, behaviour problems, impaired strength and muscle control; endocrine systems have to do with the likes of estrogen and testosterone mimickers; cardiovascular and respiratory system issues speak for themselves. Many of these effects, including "developmental delays" appear at much higher rates in 3 yos whose mothers have been exposed to chlorpyrifos than in controls whose mothers were not exposed.
I guess if you're looking at profits and GDP (both of which are improved by massive applications of agricultural chemicals), and you don't wind up suffering from chronic illnesses that derail your life, your own fertility and sexuality hasn't been impacted, and you aren't a parent or sibling of a child affected by those chemicals ... I guess the risks might have been measured quite well.
Personally, I find the comment about "lobbying orgs such as Ecojustice" needing income too, abhorrent. I've met and seen the work of some of the people who work for is dismissively called "lobbying orgs," and know for a fact that they make less money than they could in other employment: they do it because they are driven by a desire to make the world a better and safer place. Their work is science-driven, not profit-driven.
The same cannot be said for the agri-chemical manufacturers.
I spent a bit of time reading some of the science (research, that is) about scientific bias in relation to who pays the piper. That body really *does* call the tune: the tune of the conclusions. The number of ways bias is introduced (usually purposefully) into "science" is mind-boggling -- the number of ways data is "cooked," equally so.
Ultimately, the virtually unanimous conclusion as to conclusions is that they overwhelmingly "favor" the source of funding.
When the source of funding is a body looking to improve the environment ... well, that's what the conclusions wind up being.
There are so many revolving doors between industry and its regulators that it's dizzying to consider. And they cook the bias books at both ends: project managers in business getting "their" products past their internal detractors, then "retiring" from the project and going to work for the regulatory body, in many cases leading the team that decides whether or not the product is licensed.
Canada tends to do whatever the US did ... except when it comes to removing products. Our regulators pretty consistently, it seems, buckle to industry's claim that they've "paid government a licensing fee" when in fact they've paid a licensing application fee -- for which they've often submitted false information which, of course, disagrees with the findings of the government's own scientists -- unless they've also been bought off (which isn't unheard of).
If you sit on the scale on the side of the various chemical industries, and weigh it against what's presented as negligent harm to human health, and all the downstream effects from that ... and that is what a pretty good job of balancing means, well then, I'd have to agree with the statement.
Assuming, however, that dictionary meanings are applied, and truth, and everyone plays by the rules of law ... well then they do an absolutely abominable job. The human cost speaks for itself.
I don't enjoy popping bubbles, but sometimes just can't ignore facts just to preserve bubbles, however imbued with comfort.
Push come to shove, the assessment agencies find in favor of their masters, and the government licensing agencies aren't overly-inclined to seek fact ... and disregard entirely the human lives wrecked (not to mention the impact on healthcare and educational institutions). If it's not on the scale, it doesn't get weighed at all.
Hear hear. I am so sick of Bothsiderism supporting the devil that is characteristic of this era. Thank you for speaking up.
Time people rediscover integrity and moral fibre.
I could not even make this comment in reply to the vile hard right propaganda that passes for msm journalism these days, it would be expurgated and I might be banned.
Thanks N.Obvs, for a voice again.