Health Canada must reassess its approval of a popular pesticide after a federal judge ruled its renewed registration was based on dated risk assessments that failed to consider new scientific evidence.
The ruling, handed down this week by Federal Justice Russel Zinn, ordered Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) to reexamine its 2017 decision that found the glyphosate-containing Mad Dog Plus pesticide posed acceptable health and environmental risks.
That decision allowed the product to remain in use in Canada, despite a 2015 finding from the World Health Organization that classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.”
Mad Dog is one of more than 100 glyphosate pesticides approved for use in Canada. Registered for use in agriculture and industry, the pesticide is marketed as a weed control product that can be applied to a variety of crops — including, wheat, canola, fruit, berries, nuts and other trees — as well as industrial applications, like rights-of-way, public areas and turf grass.
In 2022, four groups — Friends of the Earth Canada, David Suzuki Foundation, Safe Food Matters, and Environmental Defence Canada — sent a letter to the PMRA calling on it to suspend the approval of all glyphosate products until it had assessed the updated science.
They included 61 scientific studies released after the 2017 decision that identified new or increased risks associated with pesticides containing glyphosate, said Zinn in his ruling.
Those risks included:
- increased toxicity when glyphosate is mixed with other products;
- hazards to humans;
- evidence of neurodegenerative and reproductive toxicity;
- environmental risks to freshwater habitats;
- indications that glyphosate worsens wildfire risks;
- and added ecological risks to wild pollinators.
Lisa Gue, a national policy manager for the David Suzuki Foundation, said the overuse of pesticides has contributed to the decline of several species, including the threatened Monarch butterfly.
“The scientific evidence continues to mount around the risks of glysophate,” Gue said.
Agency failed to show it weighed scientific evidence
The case pitted the four advocacy groups against the federal Ministry of Health and Loveland Products Canada Inc., a firm that in 2022 applied for and received approval to renew the registration of Mad Dog Plus in Canada.
At the time, the PMRA did not require, and Loveland did not submit, any new data in support of the renewal, Zinn said in his ruling.
In a 2023 letter to the four applicants, the regulatory agency said it was aware of the new science surrounding glysophate. It did not, however, explain how the agency used that evidence to assess risks associated with Mad Dog Plus.
When a judge later required the agency to produce documents that explained its regulatory approval of the pesticide, the PMRA said it could not provide any documents “specifically prepared” in the renewal of the pesticide that addressed the 61 new scientific studies.
“No further information was provided, and the Minister of Health did not submit an affidavit or any other explanation clarifying the lack of documented analysis,” Zinn wrote.
'Trust us, we got it right'
The four applicants in the case argued that the PMRA has a legal responsibility to carry out regular risk assessments of the products it regulates, even when it was renewing an already registered pesticide.
Justice Zinn, however, rejected that argument. He found the agency has been viewing renewals not as a mere “rubber stamping” formality, but as streamlined yet still substantive “pulse checks.” The justice found that was a reasonable position given the PMRA currently regulates more than 7,000 chemical products.
At the same time, Zinn said there was no sign that the PMRA had considered the dozens of scientific studies that directly challenged its conclusions.
The agency’s lack of transparency, Zinn agreed, reflected a “trust us, we got it right” approach.
Zinn ordered the regulatory body to reexamine its renewal assessment of Mad Dog Plus.
Within six months of the court decision, the PMRA is required to explain how it assessed the 61 scientific studies and confirm whether it still takes the position that the pesticide poses an acceptable risk to humans.
Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson said the department is reviewing the decision and “considering next steps.” Meanwhile, Johnson said the PMRA will continue to monitor for new information surrounding glysophate. That includes how other governments are regulating the chemical and new scientific evidence.
“Health Canada will take appropriate action if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the health or environmental risks, or value, of approved products containing glyphosate, are unacceptable,” wrote the spokesperson in an email.
Loveland did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Pesticide use explodes in Canada: report
The ruling comes less than two months after the release of a report that found the amount of pesticides sold in Canada has risen five-fold over the past two decades.
The study from Ecojustice — the same firm that represented the applicants in the Mad Dog case — used public data and access to information records to compile pesticide sales data across the country.
Results show the sale of active ingredients used in pesticides has soared to 130 million kilograms from 26 million kilograms in 2005. By 2018, Canada had become the fifth largest user of pesticides in the world, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
Ecojustice spokesperson Sean O’Shea said at the time that “the chemical industry is dominating the entire agriculture sector” with only a handful of the 7,000 pesticides registered for use in Canada actively monitored for impacts on humans.
The report describes Canada as on a “chemical-dependence treadmill” with market forecasts predicting a 29 per cent increase in the country’s pesticide market over the next five years.
“The regulatory system we have is designed to pump out pesticide product approvals. It does that well,” said Gue following the Mad Dog decision. “The volume of sales is always going up.”
Peter Ross, a former federal scientist who now works with Rainforest Conservation Foundation in Victoria, said the report was “hard hitting” and represents a “scathing indictment of oversight of pesticides used in Canada.”
Critics say agency shows lack of transparency
Meg Sears, a chemical engineer and chair of the group Prevent Cancer Now, said the regulatory approval process begins with companies submitting information on pesticides to Health Canada.
But Sears says the PMRA then makes a decision behind closed doors and does not release how it arrived at the approval of a pesticide.
“It’s the magic moment that the public has no access to,” she said.
Access to information surrounding how pesticides are approved has also faced a number of delays. The Ecojustice report notes 11 rulings from the federal Information Commissioner which found Health Canada’s PMRA delayed the release of information on pesticides for over four years.
Bruce Lanphear, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource & Environmental Management, said he was impressed with the scope of Ecojustice's investigation.
The report, said Lanphear in an email, “captured the key flaws in Canada's pesticide management program and illustrate how PMRA is failing to protect Canadians.”
He pointed to the “dramatic” — and his view, unnecessary — rise in the use of pesticides in Canada, and how both the European Union and China export toxic pesticides to Canada no longer allowed in their own jurisdictions.
“PMRA is restricting a few of the undeniably toxic pesticides, like chlorpyrifos and paraquat, but these actions are too little, too late,” he added.
Agency scientific advisor resigns
Lanphear previously served as co-chair of the PMRA’s Scientific Advisory Committee. But in 2023 he resigned his post. In a letter to the agency’s director general, the scientist slammed the agency for allowing industry to have an outsized influence on the regulatory process.
When the scientist requested to study the past registration of popular pesticides, he said he was denied access.
Lanphear also questioned how the PMRA addressed new research on toxic pesticides such as glyphosate. He pointed to one study which showed two-thirds of pregnant women in Canada have traces of the pesticide in their urine.
“I asked numerous times how PMRA uses new biomonitoring studies in their regulatory process. I never received an adequate response,” he wrote in his resignation letter. “I have little or no confidence that the Scientific Advisory Committee can help PMRA become more transparent or assure that Canadians are protected from toxic pesticides.”
For Gue, the latest ruling on Mad Dog Plus offers a window into an industry where the volume of chemicals entering the environment is frustrating efforts to properly regulate them.
“We have every reason to believe the same flawed process underlies the registration of all glysophate,” said Gue. “This decision confirmed our concerns.”
Editor's Note: This story has been updated from a previous version to include comments from Health Canada.
