Manitoba is doing away with what it calls harmful synthetic chemical lawn pesticides.
Legislation will be introduced next session to bring an outright ban on such products that increase health risks to children and pets. Federally-approved, effective, low-risk bio-pesticides would replace such products on store shelves.
“Medical experts are clear that synthetic chemical lawn pesticides pose risks to human health, especially in the early stages of life, and to pets as well,” said Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh on Friday. “We must reduce exposure to these products where they are not needed.”
Manitoba will join more than 170 Canadian municipalities, which have already outruled the use of such lawn chemicals.
Earlier this week, Landscape Manitoba delivered hundreds of signed postcards from citizens opposing such a ban. A survey by the Green Action Centre in February found the majority of Manitobans support the ban of cosmetic pesticides.
The ban would only permit federally approved bio-pesticides for sale and use on lawns, driveways, sidewalks and patios as well as school grounds, playing fields and playgrounds used predominantly by children and on health-care institution and child-care centre grounds
The legislation would become law in December 2014 if passed, with a one-year grace period for homeowners and would specifically exempt agricultural lands and gardens, golf courses, sod farms, and high-risk noxious weeds and poisonous or invasive species.
