Green MLAs want quicker action on glyphosate report
Three and a half years after a report recommended tighter restrictions on glyphosate spraying, some lawmakers say the pace of implementation has been too slow.
"It's clear that not a lot of work was done on it in that time," Green MLA Megan Mitton said.
"There were some things completed and some things very recently completed, but I would have liked to see more progress."
The report by the legislature's committee on climate change and environmental stewardship made a number of recommendations on the future of herbicide spraying in the province. It followed extensive hearings with scientists, foresters, Health Canada researchers, First Nations, industry and the public.
The recommendations included larger setbacks from dwellings and watercourses, that N.B. Power phase out aerial glyphosate spraying and an analysis of potential alternatives.
In an update to the committee, Christie Ward, the assistant deputy environment minister, said 11 of 20 recommendations have been "completed" to date, while the remaining nine are underway.
Some MLAs pointed out, however, that what the department has implemented is not what the initial report actually recommended.
"When you went through the recommendations of the committee that were unanimously adopted, you pointed to a number of those recommendations that were marked as completed, which were not implemented as recommended," David Coon told department staff Wednesday.
"So essentially you rejected those recommendations."
For example, the report called for setbacks from dwellings to increase to one kilometre from 500 metres. Ward said permits for aerial glyphosate spraying issued last year increased setbacks to 500 metres from 155 metres.
Instead of the minimum 100-metre setback from watercourses recommended in the report, ground application requirements were moved to 30 metres from 15 metres, and aerial spraying requires a minimum distance of 65 metres.
Ward said that the department has spent time trying to understand the intent of the committee's recommendations and to carry out the spirit of them, even those based on a misunderstanding of the regulations that already existed.
"These recommendations are complex in some cases, many of them require rigorous scientific review, they also require a baseline of information, so you know where you're starting from and where you need to get to," she said.
"There's been a lot of work done in the background to really understand all aspects of the pesticide program."
But Mitton said she'd prefer a more direct answer from the department on whether the committee's recommendations have been followed.
"When the auditor general has a report, there's a response from the department and then there's an update," she said.
"I almost feel like we need a bit more of a formal process, or to bring them in more often, to keep that accountability going because I don't accept some of those answers as a checkmark."
Environment Minister Gilles LePage backed up his staff, noting the report, which he helped prepare as an opposition member of the committee, did err at times in its understanding of existing regulations.
However, LePage agreed with other comments over the pace of action on the report over the last few years.
"In the past six years, I think there was a lack of work on that file, and that's why it's part of my mandate," he said.
"I was part of the evolution of pesticides in this province, with the research on this committee, and I take it personally, and we are going to focus on pesticides even more than the previous government."
LePage's mandate letter from Premier Susan Holt includes two mentions of herbicide spraying. One is to implement all recommendations from the committee's report. The other is to investigate alternatives to pesticide and herbicide use and "re-evaluate the safety of glyphosate with new and comprehensive data specific to New Brunswick."
"We're looking daily and monthly on the impacts of how it's done," he said.
"But don't forget, our regulations are very strong and very rigid for application and for use."
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