Field inspections in freefall

Over the past five years, ministry inspections of pesticide sellers and farms that use them have halved, from 1,537 in 2019-2020 to 751 in 2023-2024, data revealed under the Access to Information Act.

While the province has more than 2,500 permit holders for the sale or use of pesticides, the ministry has reduced its capacity to catch offenders who, for example, possess prohibited chemical substances, exceed prescribed quantities, or improperly store products. or spread them with the risk of polluting waterways.

Pesticides, “it will be us who will eventually consume them at the end of the food chain,” says Christian Daigle, president of the Union of Public and Parapublic Services of Quebec (SFPQ), which represents the inspectors. “For us, it poses a problem that the ministry is abdicating its primary mission.”

Remote inspections

A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, Frédéric Fournier, indicates that with the exception of the first year of the pandemic, in 2020, “each year, the ministry has devoted approximately the same control effort to the sector of pesticides”.

However, other figures from the ministry show that there was a total drop of 760 inspections in five years, from 1,800 to 1,040. On the other hand, this total combines the inspections carried out in the field — which take 2 to 3 working days — and those that are done “off-site”, by email or telephone, and which are much less extensive.

This twinning tends to inflate the figures, deplores the inspectors’ union. “For me, it’s intellectual dishonesty on the part of the ministry,” says Christian Daigle.

Mud on the boots

The loss of half of field inspections concerns Claire Bolduc, agronomist and prefect of the MRC of Témiscamingue. Until 2008, she was responsible for inspections as regional director of the Environmental Control Center of the Ministry of the Environment for the Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Nord-du-Québec region.

“We always say to agronomists: ‘if you want to be a good agronomist, it takes a lot of dirt. Go to the field, walk the field’. It’s the same thing for inspectors.”

— Claire Bolduc, agronomist and prefect of the MRC of Témiscamingue

The prefect draws a parallel with police surveillance, which encourages drivers to slow down on the road. The frequency of field inspections, she points out, has a similar effect on farmers, who are encouraged to comply more with pesticide rules, to their benefit and that of the population. “Compliance with these measures means drinking water. Compliance with these measures is what we are going to eat,” says Claire Bolduc.

Health impacts

The drop in field inspections comes as pesticide sales reach record highs in Quebec.

According to the most recent report from the Ministry of the Environment, sales for 2022 exceeded the five million kilogram mark in Quebec, down less than 1% compared to the historic record of the previous year. Marketed under the Roundup brand, glyphosate is by far the most popular pesticide, accounting for 42% of sales.

Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University, Dr. Martin Pelletier showed in a study how glyphosate could disrupt the human body’s response to infections. And he does not look favorably on the drop in inspections on the ground.

“It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me to reduce these observations. We know more and more that pesticides are not harmless to humans,” explains Mr. Pelletier, who is a regular researcher in the Infectious and Immune Diseases axis at the Research Center of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval.

Dr. Pelletier fears that the reduction in surveillance will encourage the proliferation of pesticides in fields. He is also worried that Quebecers are ingesting more.

“It’s like we’re putting the responsibility on the consumer to say: ‘well, it’s up to you to find another solution if you don’t want to be exposed to that, otherwise, fine, too bad’.»

— Dr. Martin Pelletier, professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Laval University

Lead in the promises

After the affair of the whistleblower Louis Robert and a parliamentary commission on the impact of pesticides, the Minister of the Environment had hoped that the systematic use of pesticides would become “an approach of the past”, believing that a use “limited and responsible” would reduce the risks they entail.

In an omnibus bill adopted in 2022, Minister Benoit Charette gave muscle to the law on pesticides, in particular by introducing fines for violators. This “demonstrates the desire” of Quebec to “strengthen the application of the law regarding pesticides and to ensure responsible management of pesticides,” underlines Frédéric Fournier, spokesperson for the ministry.

In 2023-2024, the first year where fines were imposed for pesticides, the ministry imposed 13 for all of Quebec.

More tasks, as many inspectors

The Ministry of the Environment does not specify why its inspections have dropped for pesticides. It is not a question of lack of personnel, maintains the union. “We are not saying that there are fewer inspectors than before,” says Christian Daigle, of the SFPQ. The problem is that there are more mandates than before, which are given to the same number of inspectors.”

According to Mr. Daigle, the ministry should correct the situation by carrying out an intensive campaign of inspections to make up for the accumulated backlog. It should then establish more rigorous planning, in order to have sufficient staff to absorb the increase in mandates.

Accounts to be given

For the director of the Ecosanté Research Collective on Pesticides, Policies and Alternatives at UQAM, Louise Vandelac, the government must answer the questions raised by the decline in field inspections.

If “we monitor less and less, we should demand accountability from those who give orders,” says Ms. Vandelac. I mean, why do they do it? What are their motives? There are no fewer problems, there are no fewer pesticides, there are no fewer side effects, there is no less erosion of biodiversity. In other words, what is the logic that can explain such an attitude? In my opinion, the burden of proof is on them.”