Croplife Canada seeks Supreme Court challenge of Toronto pesticide by-law

CropLife Canada and the Urban Pest Management Council (UPMC) wants to challenge the City of Toronto’s by-law banning beneficial pest control products before the Supreme Court of Canada.

CropLife Canada is asking the Court to hear its legal challenge on the City of Toronto by-law. “Pest control products are already regulated by Health Canada and provide many benefits to Canadians,” says Lorne Hepworth, president, CropLife Canada.

“The power of municipalities to remove, without any proper scientific foundation, the benefits provided by a science-based federal legislation is an issue of great importance to Croplife Canada and its members,” said Hepworth. “Municipal regulation that restricts the use of registered pest control products works at cross-purposes to the federal regulatory regime for pest control products, and deprives the public access to beneficial products.”

CropLife Canada feels that access to federally registered pest control products is an important issue to Canadians and that is why they are taking this to Canada’s highest court. While there may not be a lot of farms in the City of Toronto, the Toronto by-law sets a troubling precedent for Canada’s farmers. Giving municipalities the authority to regulate and ban pesticides, whether urban or rural, denies farmers and others the benefits of the technology. “The Supreme Court needs to examine the other part of the equation — the benefit side,” said Hepworth. In fact, studies show that without pesticides, production costs would go up by 75 per cent and food retail prices would go up 27 per cent.