Ontario’s minister of the environment and climate change says the new category labelling neonics as pesticides will allow the government to easily lump future neonics in the same class.
Minister Glen Murray told the Ontario Bee Journal, an Ontario Beekeepers’ Association newsletter, that “this new Class 12 category is intended to deal with the family of neonicotinoids, and as it grows, we can actually quickly move others in there. This class allows us more flexibility. Part of our concern is that we’ve heard that there may be a whole new series of brands coming down that river that are very similar to neonicotinoids, so we could review the list as we go forward, to head it off at the pass. We needed a new class that recognizes how unique this product is and we’ve got that.”
Murray also told the journal that it will take about two years to build a team of public employees to verify if neonic-coated seed would be needed on a farm.
• Read the GFO’s response on page 37.
