Friday, July 27, 2007

Will a pesticide ban ever fly in Burlington, Ontario?

The new council seems to be a tad greener than the old one (by about 2 councilors and a mayor who presents himself as green, but I am not convinced) but I think they are still too suburban to pass such a law.

What do I mean by suburban? I guess I mean spoiled, used to driving everywhere, too rich, too greedy and generally turning a blind eye on the impact of the cities behavior on the environment. It would be lovely to have a mayor and council that had a vision for the future that was green, sustainable and risk taking when it comes to decisions like this. Of course a team like that could also be incredibly dangerous - but sometimes public consultation, more reports and expensive studies can cloud the issue. Lets face it people, tossing chemicals on our lawns is a really dumb thing to do.

Anyway will a bylaw be passed? We will find out on September 25th as the city meets to hear from delegates about the issues. The Sustainable Development committee will be there as will Pesticide Action Burlington and hopefully many other delegates. The word on the street is that any proposed bylaw ban would be rejected 4-3. In fact I heard through second hand information one councilor had suggested that a ban on pesticides would be unhealthy for some of their constituents because of the amount of weeds that would spread. Yeesh.

I hope we can help change their minds.

Lets see if we can generate a comment or two - what do the readers think?

Need more facts:
How about these from the Sierra Club.

"Once you begin to apply pesticides, your lawn can become addicted to chemical treatment. Repeated applications can cause soil to become conditioned, which speeds up degradation of the pesticides. This results in the need to apply increasingly toxic chemicals at more frequent intervals to control the pest problem. Meanwhile, beneficial organisms are killed off, soil can become sterile, and pesticide-resistant insects breed to produce a species able to withstand the toxins and continue eating your grass!"

or David Suzuki:

"Over 6,000 Canadians suffer from acute pesticide poisonings every year. That is one of the findings from research conducted by David Boyd for the David Suzuki Foundation report, Northern Exposure: Acute pesticide poisonings in Canada.

Nearly half of those poisoned by pesticides are children under the age of six—imagine 100 kindergarten classes, or 50 school buses full of young children."

And finally take a look at who has tackled this issue already - looks like Burlington needs to get with the program.

Rank Municipality Prov Population Pesticide By-law Status
1 Toronto ON 2 481 494 Adopted
2 Hamilton ON 490 268 Drafted
3-9 Waterloo Region* ON 508 000 Adopted
10 London ON 271 003 Adopted
11 Markham ON 208 615 Adopted
12 Windsor ON 208 402 Adopted
13 Vaughan ON 182 022 Drafted
14 Oakville ON 144 738 Adopted
15 Guelph ON 114 943 Adopted
16 Pickering ON 87 139 Drafted
17 Peterborough ON 71 445 Adopted
18 New Market ON 65 788 Adopted
19 North Bay ON 52 771 Adopted
20 Caledon ON 50 595 Adopted
21 Georgina ON 39 263 Adopted
22 Orangeville ON 25 248 Adopted
23 Thorold ON 18 048 Adopted
24 Cobourg ON 17 172 Adopted
25 Collingwood ON 16 039 Adopted
26 Smith-Ennismore-Lakefield ON 16 000 Adopted
27 Perth ON 6 003 Adopted
28 Gananoque ON 5 167 Adopted
29 Deep river ON 4 000 Adopted
30 Georgian Bay ON 2 230 Adopted
31 Cobalt ON 1 229 Adopted
32 The Archipelago (Parry Sound) ON 505 Adopted

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