Council split on pesticide issue

By Andrew Zwicker

Pesticides in Rossland will live to see another day--at least for now. At this week's council meeting, city councillors found themselves split on a pair of motions on this contentious issue. Following a presentation and request by the Canadian Cancer Society and Prevent Cancer now at the February 8th regular city council meeting, three options were brought back by staff this week to be decided upon.

Option one would be to instruct staff to prepare a bylaw under the existing legislation. Option two, which was recommended by the city manager, was to await the result of the Province of BC’s consultation process and the subsequent legislation before proceeding with a bylaw of the city’s own. Option three would be to simply take no further action.

Councillors' opinions on the issue were split evenly down the middle. Laurie Charlton, while not necessarily against a full ban, suggested that “there is a huge volume of competing data. Speaking as a PHD chemist, I think we could quite readily say that there isn’t anyone on council with the knowledge or experience to adequately evaluate all of the information out there. I think the recommendation here of waiting for the experts the province can bring on board is the prudent thing to do.”

Councillor Wallace agreed with that standpoint and added to it her thoughts that this kind of ban is not within the city’s scope of jurisdiction.
“The point I want to make is that this council doesn’t need to state a stance as anti or pro. We need to stay within our jurisdiction. This is something being handled by the provincial and national governments. There is so much downloading onto us already I am hesitant to voluntarily jump forward and do work for them that we don’t need to be doing. I think the best approach at this time is stay on task with our jobs and let the province do their job.”

Waiting on the province to deliver results and trusting in those results was a bone of contention for some councillors. Kathy Moore, speaking on whether or not to wait, result said, “I’m not that impressed with the leadership from the province, and if municipalities can do the right thing then we should and then [we can] can influence the province's decision. I for one don’t want to wait for the province.”

Thus far in the war on pesticides, the provinces of Ontario and Quebec have banned their use and more than 125 municipalities across Canada, including 25 in BC, have already banned the sale of cosmetic pesticides. While there has been research and evidence provided on both sides of this argument, there seems yet to be no smoking gun study with clear and decisive evidence that pesticides negatively impact human health, at least not one that the provincial government has seen and accepts. Many jurisdictions, however, have undertaken their own studies and/or chosen to follow the 'better safe than sorry' principle. The province of Quebec in particular spent nearly two years studying the issue before recommending and ultimately enacting their ban.

If such a bylaw was to be introduced in Rossland, one question to be answered would be, 'how are we enforce it?'. In her presentation to council two weeks ago, Diana Daghofer of Prevent Cancer Now suggested the best approach would be for neighbours to patrol one another and city staff only step in on a complaint-by-complaint basis. Such a system could be seen as pitting neighbour against neighbour, however. Mayor Greg Granstrom pointed this out as one reason he would not be supporting a ban at this time.

On the issue of enforceability, several councillors noted that when it comes to bylaws arround dogs, burning and idling, ”we don’t really seem to enforce our bylaws here anyway,” noted Councillor Andy Stradling, adding, “When I think of idling and burning bylaws, I don’t think they are being enforced but what they do is state the city’s position with respect to idling or burning in backyards. That is often enough to discourage residents from those practices which we as a municipality would like to discourage.”

When called to question on a motion to await provincial results, Mayor Granstrom and councillors Wallace and Charlton were in favour with councillors Stradling, Smith and Moore opposed. Councillor Spearn was absent from the meeting. On the flip side, when the motion to enact a bylaw was put to question, the results were reversed. The result: a hung council.

“This is why we have seven and not six people on council,” cautioned the city’s corporate officer after the vote.

As it stands now, the issue is off the table for at least six months unless council votes to bring it back. For now, the sale of pesticides in Rossland will still be legal even though there are currently no retailers in town selling them. Charlton concluded the discussion with a little advice to the city. “Not enacting a ban doesn’t mean that local residents can’t make their own choices to stop using pesticides.”