A Big Opening for Pesticide Policy in Canada...

The saga of the controversial cosmetic pesticide ban in Quebec is storming on. Amidst all the legal chaos taking place between DowChemical and the governments of Canada and the province of Quebec, the Ontario government's own ban on cosmetic pesticides came into effect today. 

Ontario's ban prohibits approximately 250 different products from being used for cosmetic purposes and is now considered the world's toughest regulation on cosmetic pesticides. There is no indication from DowChemical--the huge chemical company that is currently in a snit over Quebec's ban of one of its chemicals--as to whether or not it'll pursue similar legal action against Ontario's ban.

If it were to pursue legal action, it would have to go through the federal government because it is filed under NAFTA. As it stands, the lawsuit against Quebec's ban technically lists the federal government as the defendant. If Dow were to pursue action against Ontario, it would be a nearly identical case so it would make most sense for it to add the Ontario ban to its list of woes. This would, of course, raise the size of the NAFTA claim significantly because of the huge market share in Ontario that could be lost.

But Dow might not do that. It might see how the Quebec case goes and if they win, then they'll start hunting down all the other jurisdictions that have banned its product. We can only hope they don't win because if they do, governments will have little motivation to regulate on environmental issues.

But here's an opportunity. Two of the largest provincial economies in Canada have banned cosmetic pesticides. Since the lawsuit is going directly through the federal government, it is technically targeted at a 'Canadian' regulation rather than a provincial one specifically. All of the other Canadian provinces and territories should take this opportunity to implement their own bans of cosmetic pesticides. 

It might be risky in that if Dow wins, all the provinces that regulate the pesticides might be subject to a large fine. But if all the main jurisdictions of Canada were to implement similar bans it would certainly strengthen the case for the federal government in the DowChemical case. Furthermore it would indicate to the federal government how important such an issue is.

Most importantly, any type of potential ban like this would strengthen the case for jurisdictions to be able to regulate on important environmental issues, regardless of Chapter 11 and the rest of NAFTA.

Happy Earth Day, kids.