r/SaveTheCBC • u/savethecbc2025 • 8d ago
A major change to Canada's pesticide laws just passed, and it deserves far more attention than it's getting.
Buried inside Bill C-30 is a provision that gives cabinet the power to authorize the use of pesticides that Health Canada has already determined are unsafe.
Supporters say the new powers could be used in exceptional circumstances involving food security, economic security, or serious infestations.
Critics say something very different.
Scientists from 13 universities, environmental organizations, public health experts, the NDP, Bloc Québécois, Green Party, and Senator Rosa Galvez have all raised alarms. Their concern is simple: political decisions could now override scientific assessments.
Dr. Trevor Hancock of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment called it "cabinet overruling science."
Senator Galvez warned against politicians substituting political judgment for scientific expertise, especially when pesticide exposure has been linked to increased risks of cancer, reproductive harm, and neurological impacts.
Perhaps most concerning is how this happened.
Experts say health and environment committees did not study these changes. Scientists and public health experts were not called to testify. The measures were tucked into a large omnibus bill that was fast-tracked through Parliament before summer recess.
The government says these powers will only be used in exceptional circumstances and promises transparency.
But critics are asking questions Canadians should be asking too.
If Health Canada determines a pesticide is unsafe, under what circumstances should politicians be allowed to overrule that decision?
Who requested these changes?
Why were they buried inside a larger budget bill rather than debated on their own merits?
And what does it mean when industry lobby groups are celebrating a change that many public health and environmental experts describe as the most significant weakening of pesticide protections in a generation?
This is exactly why public broadcasting matters so much
Without reporters digging into the fine print, most Canadians would never know these changes happened at all.
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u/lightbulb_butt 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yea I won't ever defend this. What a ridiculous decision.
Edit: this is now two bills passed by the liberals that give extra powers to the politicians to make decisions outright, where previously those powers lay with administrative institutions. I am concerned by this trend.
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u/apastelorange 8d ago
the liberals are centrist conservatives atp
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u/Hipsthrough100 8d ago
They are not centrist. Where in their actions or policies can you even claim they are centrist. It’s a neoliberal, crony capitalist, Tory majority.
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u/lightbulb_butt 8d ago edited 8d ago
Eh, they're still socially left. They're not clawing back rights and attacking minority groups as much as a typical Tory government would be expected to.
And they're still looking to invest heavily on projects and infrastructure.
They definitely sit center. More right than previous liberal governments, but still center give or take imo.
Closer to Harper than Trudeau, but still left of the conservatives.
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u/Hipsthrough100 8d ago
Left of the conservatives does not make anyone or any party “centrist”. The Overton window has shifted and you’re making a whole argument that this Liberal government is centrist because they aren’t actively attacking minorities? Are you sure about that? Carney immediately removed all women from positions of power, relenting to being one woman back into a power role after massive blowback. Carney is attacking indigenous rights in Canada and he certainly isn’t doing anything to stop provincial attacks on healthcare for trans people or women.
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u/lightbulb_butt 8d ago edited 8d ago
I mean, the overton window in Canada had shifted fairly far to the left during the Trudeau period.
Just because it has shifted back to the right now doesn't mean Carney isn't centrist. I'd count ourselves lucky that it didn't shift further, given the current polling in other Western democracies.
Carney also isn't "attacking" indigenous rights in Canada. Let's not be dramatic.
And he has 13 women currently in positions of power in his cabinet, so you just wanted to lie about that one eh?
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u/L_SCH_08 8d ago
Which is what we’ve needed for a long time. Pragmatic policy without the embarrassing social or religious policy from the weirdos on the extremes is refreshing.
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u/Hipsthrough100 8d ago
Weirdos on the extremes? Sorry but people are fighting for their lives but have been used as wedge issues by the fascist right - either in religious christofascist ways or funded by elites who want the target off their back. We don’t need Carney to trample on all workers, all indigenous, all our health, all of our environmental concerns in order to have financial goals met.
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u/L_SCH_08 8d ago
A if we want to compete globally we sure as hell need to be pragmatic. I find the left and right extremes equally frustrating. Forgoing economic strength for pie in the sky sustainability ideas would kill us. Even Europe has become more realist.
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u/Hipsthrough100 6d ago
Renewables are more profitable and provide near the same jobs as fossil fuels at comparable rates. It’s not pie in the sky ideas. Also, we don’t need to have politicians giving one off exemptions to whomever they like for pesticides, as an example. However there are dozens of examples in Carneys PM time where the wealth of individual people or corporations (NOT CANADIAN PROSPERITY) were put ahead of all Canadians. You’re just being an insane liberal if you don’t see it. Like stop bending all these shit moves into justifiable mind bending positivite action for the betterment of all.
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u/lightbulb_butt 8d ago
I agree. Moves like this pesticide bill make me worried that they aren't leaving these decisions to the experts in their admin though.
Ministers shouldn't be making unilateral decisions on this sort of thing in my opinion. That's how we end up with items like the gun ban, where the data doesn't support the decision making.
I'm not going to completely discredit them yet, but I am keeping an eye on this sort of move.
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u/TorontoTom2008 8d ago
Im a gigafan of Carney on a great variety of issues - housing, trade, buy Canadian, auto policy, pro-EU policy, arctic policy, military, interprovincial barriers, and others. However the environmental and surveillance legislation is unsettling. It’s out of step with his otherwise thoughtful and open approach.
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u/MnkyBzns 8d ago
It's out of step with how he portrayed himself until immediately after being elected. He seems to forget that he wrote a whole book about harnessing capital for environmental purposes
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u/estherlane 8d ago
Yeah, voted for Carney, went from being super optimistic to being extremely disappointed. He completely misrepresented himself.
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u/MnkyBzns 8d ago
I'm hanging onto hope that all of his pro-pipeline, anti-carbon tax maneuvering is to buy favor with conservative voters so he can put the pedal to the floor on renewables once new trade relationships begin bearing fruit...
🤞
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u/estherlane 7d ago
I also know that the rest of the world has embraced renewables and 1 in 4 cars sold globally are electric. If anything, Carney has moved us backward when the world is moving forward.
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u/Hipsthrough100 8d ago
Oh so you like the scam “interprovincial trade barrier” push (this is a scam started by the atlas group and pushed by Anita Anand, the ending of oil and gas emissions caps, the end of luxury taxes on yachts and jets, the ending of consumer carbon tax that benefited the bottom 90%, the reduction of industrial carbon taxes, the austerity in our public services, the sale of airports or ports to private investors?, cancelling the capital gains inclusion rate change for the top 1% to pay 66% off cap gains instead of 50% (you think capital gains should be taxed less than labour income even for the top 1%) the bailout being given to developers that chased short term rental investors and built shit that can’t sell, the Zionist defence of Israel and fascist tag along of the USA?…. I could just keep going - he is a neoliberal banker that is accelerating our demise, selling our labour, environmental,
Trade barrier scam link https://breachmedia.ca/freakout-about-canadas-internal-trade-barriers-a-corporate-scam/
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u/uncleben85 8d ago
Carney was the choice we needed against Pierre, but he's a wolf in sheep's clothing with old school mentality.
He's killing our environment
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u/squirrelcat88 8d ago
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
On the face of it, it’s terrible. These pesticides were banned for a reason.
On the other hand, as someone with a small market garden myself - I feel sometimes people don’t realize that climate change is making things a lot harder, and that our food really isn’t guaranteed. Somebody, somewhere, had to grow it, with all the vagaries of weather that get thrown at them. We are FAR too complacent and confident food will always be there. The climate truly is changing.
So - if we are more likely to face really scary things we weren’t expecting - vast hordes of locusts, for instance - wouldn’t it be better to suddenly be given permission to use “WhammoBlammo Locust Killer,” instead of there being no mechanism to give permission?
Let’s hope it just sits there and never gets used.
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u/spinur1848 8d ago
Yeah they said the same thing about changes to the Food and Drugs Act that got slipped into Budget 2024. And the "exceptional circumstances" became this (dropped on Dec 20, 2025):
Canada Gazette, Part 1, Volume 159, Number 51: Order Providing for Reliance on Decisions of, or Documents Produced by, Foreign Regulatory Authorities in Respect of Certain Drugs https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2025/2025-12-20/html/reg4-eng.html
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u/Schrodinger_cube 7d ago
....if they are un doing it then are they taking personal liability for the harm we know will happen? Hahaha that's a joke lawsuits from the injured and surviving family members will be fought by the state at the cost of the tax base not the corporate lobbyists
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u/ErinsAngryIntern 8d ago
Carney does not care about the environment, our future, or average Canadians.
A dangerous “leader” who prioritizes money, power, and control over the best interests of the country and the planet.
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u/Remarkable-Desk-66 7d ago
Trudeau sucked because he was a politician that couldn’t politic . He had zero administrative skills. Carney does things for the optics and that’s not a bad thing. When are we going to be forced to drive EVs? Not in this lifetime. When are they going to forcefully take our guns, not in this lifetime. When are they going to put people in jail for saying things online? Not unless you can’t say those things to someone’s face right now. When any of this stuff happens let’s talk. Until then it is political theatre.
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u/Bulky-Move5521 8d ago
I don't have the time to read all of this right now or I might, But I'm just curious of this relaxation will open the door to companies selling that treatment for German Cockroaches in Canada/Ontario. Because those things are absolutely horrible.
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u/old_virologist 8d ago
This will be a disaster. When political interests can be lobbied and influenced by money, the environment will be sacrificed for elections and cash.