Pesticides ok for national security

 The federal government’s budget bill included provisions for cabinet to over-rule Health Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency to allow farmers and foresters to spray products banned by the agency so they can deal with economic and national food security threatened by a “seriously detrimental infestation”.

Senator Rosa Galves is pushing back.

She said it would keep Canadian farm products out of markets such as the European Union who would not accept crops that may have been sprayed with pesticides it bans.

Galves is considered an expert in pollution and its effects on human health.

She said Prime Minister Mark Carney “is saying that we must absolutely find other clients” outside the United States “and this is non-coherent with that.”

“We cannot let politicians make the decisions that science should be doing,” she added. “It’s very dangerous.”

Rose Galves, left, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May