Health Canada probes claim that government officials helped pesticide company overturn a ban

Health Canada is investigating after Canada's National Observer revealed that government officials supported efforts by the pesticide industry to discredit a researcher's findings and overturn a proposed ban on a class of pesticides harmful to bees, the environment and human health. 

During Friday's Question Period in Ottawa, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May pressed the government to respond to the Observer's story, which showed that civil servants colluded with pesticide manufacturer Bayer Crop Science to discredit water quality data collected by Christy Morrissey, a University of Saskatchewan professor. Her research was part of the basis for a proposed neonicotinoid (neonic) ban in 2016.

Responding to May's question, Yasir Naqvi, parliamentary secretary to the health minister, said the ministry takes the allegations seriously and the department’s pest management regulator will examine the concerns raised.  Morrissey confirmed she has been summoned to a meeting with the senior directors general of Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) next week. 

"None of this is in a timely manner. It has taken three years and a media story to get them to address it," she told CNO in an email Friday. Morrissey filed a formal notice of objection when the proposed ban was overturned in 2021 and noted that Canada's pesticide laws require the regulator to address formal scientific objections to its decision within a reasonable timeframe.

 "That is not reasonable," she said. In her objection, she outlined how Bayer obtained her unpublished water sampling data from the PMRA and then hired a team of researchers to write a report claiming most of it was not relevant to the agency's neonic review. 

While they ostensibly set out to replicate her data, they did not ask her for detailed GPS coordinates and relied primarily on Google Earth satellite images to make their assessment. They did visit a "few sites," the report notes — but at the end of drought-stricken summer when many of the wetlands Morrissey sampled were dry.

Neonicotinoid are a class of pesticides harmful to human brains and sperm and deadly to bees, insects and birds. They are banned in Europe because of the ecological harm they cause. Canada initially planned to follow suit, but relented after years of pressure by industry. 

Critics were unconvinced by Naqvi's response. 

"For the past decade, Health Canada has repeated the line that they are examining the evidence of harm from neonics, all the while continuing to allow their widespread use," said Lisa Gue, manager of national policy for the David Suzuki Foundation. 

"If the government is finally ready to take these concerns seriously, the health minister should immediately appoint an independent panel to review the flawed neonic evaluations, …ban neonics as the EU has done, and reform the PMRA to prevent this kind of inappropriate industry influence in future pesticide assessments,"  Gue said.

"It seems like this minister does not know what is going on in his department," added Laura Bowman, a lawyer with Ecojustice who specializes in pesticides. "Health Canada waits years before requesting key health and environmental information for fast-tracked pesticides like neonics," and has a pattern of ignoring bans proposed by its own scientists. 

“These reversals tend to rely on junk science from pesticide registrants to cast aside published peer-reviewed studies.  I don’t think that is the kind of process that Canadians would call rigorous." 

Speaking with Canada's National Observer Thursday, NDP agriculture critic Richard Cannings said that his party supports farmers and recognizes that part of their efforts to grow food can mean using pesticides. 

"Canadians are okay with using pesticides as long as they're used responsibly, and as long as they're properly regulated," he said. 

But the revelation that the regulator was helping pesticide producers undermine independent researchers to keep their products on the market "is not how we should be doing science — and certainly not how we should be doing science that is designed to protect the health of Canadians and the health of our ecosystems."