Delays on herbicide restrictions show province aims to protect industry, says Green MLA [video]

Green Party MLA Megan Mitton says she isn’t satisfied with answers from government officials about delays in the implementation of herbicide-spraying restrictions.

Those restrictions were mandated by Premier Susan Holt last year and were recommended by an all-party legislative committee about four years ago. But at committee hearings last week, Natural Resources officials revealed that several recommendations from the November 2021 report — notably those dealing with “setbacks” or buffers meant to separate herbicide spraying from homes, bodies of water, and protected natural areas — remained incomplete.

“The priority here hasn’t been the environment, hasn’t been health, hasn’t been to actually respond to what the MLAs directed them to do,” Mitton said in an interview with the NB Media Co-op. “It’s been to maintain the status quo.”

She called the news from last week’s hearing “completely unacceptable, but not surprising.” The Green Party had previously criticized the slow pace of change back in June, when officials from the Department of Environment told the committee that setbacks from homes had been increased from 155 metres to 500 metres. The 2021 report had called for a one-kilometre setback from homes, apparently based on the mistaken belief that a 500-metre buffer was already in place.

In June, Christie Ward, the assistant deputy environment minister, said that “our permit condition has never been 500 metres, so it was starting from 155 metres…. the determination was to go from 155 to 500.” Instead of expanding the buffer to one kilometre, the department opted to issue “notifications” to people within one kilometre from a spray block.

At the time, the senior bureaucrat said the Environment Department had aimed to capture the “intent” of the recommendations. Green Party Leader David Coon said that government officials had effectively “rejected” directions from elected officials in the all-party report.

On Tuesday, Department of Natural Resources officials indicated that those policies remained unchanged, and they warned that greater setbacks could reduce timber yields.

Mitton said this reflects a desire to “protect the interests of industry when it comes to the spraying of glyphosate and herbicides in our forests,” instead of listening to MLAs who endorsed the report unanimously.

She said it’s noteworthy in part because several Cabinet ministers from Blaine Higgs’ Conservative government were part of the legislative committee that supported the report in 2021. They included Mike Holland, minister natural resources; Gary Crossman, minister of environment; and Margaret Johnson, minister of agriculture and fisheries.

More recently, Holt also mandated several of her Cabinet ministers to implement the recommendations of the report, but the impasse raises questions about whether those ministers are directing their staff accordingly.

The Department of the Environment has defended its policies, saying in a statement that pesticide use in New Brunswick is “tightly regulated” and “guided by science.”

In response to queries from the NB Media Co-op, the Environment Department cited specific changes including increased setbacks from surface water, which increased from 15 to 30 metres “for ground-based forestry applications of products containing glyphosate.”

A spokesperson said in an email that “setback distances required by provincial permits are significantly more stringent than those specified on Health Canada approved product labels. For example, the setback from surface water for ground applications of glyphosate-based herbicides on the product label is often as low as one metre.”

But those talking points appear to dodge the substance of recommendations dealing specifically with aerial spraying. Mitton expressed frustration about the lack of “direct or comprehensible answers” from government officials after quizzing them about their progress last week.

Other recommendations that haven’t been carried out include one calling for a ban on the spraying of pesticides in protected watersheds. On that score, Natural Resources officials indicated during last week’s hearing that no spraying has taken place within those watersheds over the past five years.

But Mitton said a ban should be enshrined in law, even if the practice of spraying in designated watersheds, which provide municipal drinking water, has been phased out. “We can’t just accept that, oh, well, we’re not doing it now and just rely on goodwill.”

The Department of Natural Resources didn’t respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Clean Air Act

The Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship also held hearings last week on the Clean Air Act, with presenters ranging from Wolastoq Grand Chief Ron Tremblay to corporate executives from J.D. Irving Ltd. The NB Media Co-op asked Mitton for her takeaways from the hearings.

“The majority — all of them except ones with a financial interest in keeping the status quo — all the other presenters, they were saying we need to reduce air pollution, that we need to understand that there’s no safe level of air pollution,” Mitton said.

Daniel Saucier, a postdoctoral fellow at l’Université de Sherbrooke, told the committee about his research in New Brunswick showing a link between pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and the neurodegenerative disease ALS. Researchers identified the biggest cluster in Bathurst, near the industrial port of Belledune, he said.

Mitton noted that Green Leader David Coon has brought forward legislation that would create a right to a healthy environment. That bill goes to committee this week.

“The Clean Air Act currently doesn’t guarantee the right to clean air,” Mitton said. “Having the right to a healthy environment, as a standalone law, could encompass having the right to clean air, clean water and a clean environment generally.”

She called on residents to get involved in public sessions and to submit comments to the government as the review continues. “I’d encourage people to get engaged because right now there are New Brunswickers who are being made sick or who are dying because of air pollution that is being allowed.”

David Gordon Koch is a journalist with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users (CACTUS).