Canada/Quebec City wants to ban "cosmetic" pesticides
The City of Quebec wants to ban the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes on its territory. Elected officials will have to vote in the spring on a draft by-law aimed at restricting the outdoor use of products considered to be the most hazardous to health and the environment.
The full list of products that the City wants to ban by 2024 has not yet been released.
Insecticides from the neonicotinoid family - dubbed "bee-killer" pesticides - would be banned "at all times," reads a document presented to councillors Monday afternoon at a full council meeting.
The herbicide glyphosate - sold under the trade name Roundup - would also be banned, with some exceptions. Biopesticides, which have less toxicity, will remain allowed.
"It is important to understand that we are not at war with the lawn," said Geneviève C-Lévesque, director of the environmental monitoring section of the City of Quebec, at the meeting. "We prefer a healthy lawn, with a good root system, which is resilient to drought, new pests, etc.We prefer a healthy lawn, with a good root system, that is resilient to drought, new pests or climate change, than a lawn that is completely dry and decimated," she added.
Agriculture exempted
The 109 agricultural businesses in the region will be excluded from the bylaw. The nine golf courses in the area will be required to submit a pesticide reduction plan.
"The bylaw is not intended to be an end in itself, but rather a means of encouraging a change in behaviour among our citizens," explained Florence Boudreau-Pineault, environmental consultant with the Planning and Environment Department.
"We will have communication tools that will allow us to do prevention and education with our citizens. There will also be enforcement measures that can be applied in case of violation of the bylaw. So it's certainly an ambitious regulation, but at the same time, we believe we have the tools to be able to apply it," she added.
Quebec City is following in the footsteps of Montreal and Laval, which have adopted similar regulations in recent years. In the spring of 2021, Laval banned glyphosate, the most widely sold herbicide in the world and in Quebec.
A few months later, Montreal banned the use of 36 pesticides and banned their sale on its shelves. Glyphosate was among them.
In Quebec, nearly 160 municipalities regulate pesticide use in one way or another.
According to the latest figures published by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, in 2020, urban pesticide sales represented 18% of total pesticide sales in Quebec. Pesticides for domestic use, i.e. products sold to individuals, represented 73% of these sales.
Source: www.lapresse.ca
