Canada Health news release, joint statement with ECCC, and AAFC June 20, 2023
Federal News Release (Health Canada)
“Today, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, along with the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), and the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), announced next steps toward a sustainable approach to pesticides management while giving farmers the tools they need to keep providing reliable access to safe and nutritious food.” Link to the full News release.
The “proposed amendments are a result of the 2022 consultations on targeted review of the Pest Control Products Act.”
Be advised that the “Government of Canada is eliminating the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes on federal lands through amendments to the Greening Government Strategy (GGS), led by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS).”
Environment and Climate Change Canada is tasked with generating “real-world data to help make progress on this sustainable approach to pesticides management in Canada and to better understand the impacts of pesticides on the environment.”
The policy documents guiding these decisions include:
- 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)
- Sustainable Agriculture Strategy
- Greening Government Strategy
The ECCC is also developing a 2030 National Biodiversity Strategy which will also align
The motivation behind the shift in pesticide use is to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and reducing the overall risk from pesticides by at least have by 2030. Strategies included in the Global Biodiversity Framework to reduce the risk of pesticides include:
- reduction in pesticide use
- timing of application
- effectiveness of a product
- science
- and alternative pest management approaches
“As such, the GBF target focuses on the overall impacts and risk management of pesticides and does not command a specific target reduction in pesticide use.
Health Canada has been and will continue to increase the transparency and accessibility of decisions, including posting plain language summaries of key decisions online and disclosing applicants’ names as applications enter the review stage for both pre- and post-market. Health Canada has also launched the external Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) for pest control products and consulted key stakeholders on a transition to a continuous oversight approach and systematic review of emerging science.” see today’s announcement
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