Last fall the Supreme Court of Canada made a decision that upheld the power of municipal governments to restrict the use of pesticides within their communities. The landmark decision reinforces the authority of municipal governments to protect the health of their citizens and their environments from harmful contaminants.

  The case involved a municipal bylaw passed in 1991 by the Town of Hudson, Quebec, which tightly restricted the use of pesticides for non-essential (or cosmetic) uses within its boundaries. Chemlawn and Spraytech, both companies that routinely apply pesticides, had lost challenges to the bylaw in two Quebec courts before appealing to the Supreme Court to strike down the bylaw.

  Sierra Legal Defence Fund lawyers intervened on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, World Wildlife Fund, and Nature-Action Quebec. The lawyers argued that municipalities have a critical role in protecting the health of residents and the environment, and that pesticide reduction measures are within the bounds of their local powers.

  The unanimous Supreme Court judgment emphasized the importance of environmental protection for all orders of government. The decision is expected to lead many municipalities throughout Canada to enact similar bylaws.

  The judgment reaffirmed that "environmental protection has emerged as a fundamental value in Canadian society" and asserted that "our common future, that of every Canadian community, depends on a healthy environment. As a direct result of the Sierra Legal’s intervention, the court emphasized the need to take international law principles into account. For the first time it cited the ‘precautionary principle’ – a well-established concept asserting "environmental measures must anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of environmental degradation" and that a "lack of full scientific certainty" should not be used to postpone preventative measures.

  A symposium was held recently in Bracebridge on the cosmetic use of pesticides in Muskoka. Several scientists spoke on this very controversial issue. Dr Len Ritter of the Canadian Network of Toxicology prefaced his remarks with a statement to the effect that he, as a scientist, could neither endorse pesticide use nor could he advocate a ban. While he could show studies that human cancers have not increased in recent years, he had no data on the increase of other health conditions such as asthma. While he could show no correlations between pesticide use and cancer, he could not show the effect on fish and other wildlife. As Dr. Norman Yan, of York University, pointed out, this is the nature of science. He went on to say that science is imperfect at best and cannot predict the impact of multiple stressors (many contaminants acting together) in the environment. In his summary, Dr Yan stated that " even with the best of intentions we (scientists and society) make mistakes." Science moves slowly in small steps and just gives us the best answers at a particular time with a particular degree of probability.

  Are we in Muskoka ready to take the ‘precautionary principle’ into account in dealing with the cosmetic use of pesticides?