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All About Saskatoon
February 27 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Pesticides and Prairie Wetlands: A Battle for the Burden of Proof
Wednesday, February 26, 7-8pm. Online via Zoom.
Join us for an account from the front-lines of pesticide regulation from one of Canada’s leading experts, Dr. Christy Morrissey.
In the spring of 2021, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) released their final decisions on the re-evaluation of the most widely used insecticides in Canada, the neonicotinoids– compounds that are banned in the European Union. The PMRA surprised the scientific community by reversing their own earlier (2016) proposed decision to ban all outdoor uses of neonicotinoid products due to “unacceptable risk to aquatic organisms.” This recent controversial decision, which was an apparent flip-flop, represents a familiar scenario for pesticide registration in North America. Here I highlight how this protracted regulatory process for neonicotinoids is an example of a familiar industry-led effort to bend the science, by targeting scientists and demanding an increased burden of proof. This presentation represents a call to action to increase the speed of regulatory decisions for pesticides, remove industry influence in the regulatory process, and communicate the decision-making process more transparently to improve public trust.
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