Good Morning.  My name is Wayne Grafton and I’ve lived in Winnipeg for most of my life and have worked for many years as a teacher in the public school system as an English teacher and guidance counsellor.

I’m going to speak about only what I’ve experienced in my life, in my neighbourhood, in schools I’ve taught at, and with one paragraph on the CBC - Wendy Mesley documentary.

I’m not a science teacher and my background in science isn’t great, but I understand enough about the dangers of pesticides and herbicides to appreciate that these are powerful chemicals. 

The main point I want to emphasize is that I see too many people in my community who are complacent about the use of these products and I would very much like to see some sort of restriction on their use within the city.  Why?  Well for openers two close neighbours of mine have used herbicides. They each also have recently had their dogs die six months apart, from a cancer that paralyzed their legs.  It was agonizing for all involved. To me this was shocking and, as a parent, I would rather my neighbours no longer used these products, because I think there is a connection between the death of the dogs and herbicide use.  Every dog I’ve known eats grass.  So whatever is sprayed on the grass ends up in the dog.   

My doctor tells me that if a compound were perfectly safe, that would be because it doesn’t do anything at all. If a medicine – any chemical really- is effective in dealing with something, then it has side effects and these side effects can be quite dangerous for some people.  I take an aspirin every day. My doctor tells me it is good for my circulatory system. This aspirin that is so beneficial for me could be lethal to some of the students I teach, because they’re younger and most drugs affect young people so much differently than they affect adults.

Ever since someone said, “Here take this. It will fix what ails you”, people have had to endure all kinds of claims that some new compound will be a real “cure”.  Mercury was once offered as a cure for syphilis; in the early 1900’s heroin was promoted by pharmacists as a tonic – a real pick me up; during WWII, DDT was put forward as an effective insecticide. It’s almost laughable now to think of how recklessly some chemicals have been used in the past. I sometimes have the sense that today chemicals must be better tested and we must be better protected against these types of inappropriate and dangerous use of chemicals.  Then something happens and I realize that we may not be any better protected today than people have been in the past. 

Recently, Wendy Mesley – a CBC reporter appeared on television detailing her battle with cancer. Doctors told Ms Mesley that her type of cancer had an environmental cause and it was this idea of an environmental cause that Ms Mesley found most upsetting. If you saw this series, then you might remember that she wondered why she hadn’t previously heard more about “environmental factors” being the leading cause of cancer.  
As a teacher and guidance counsellor, I have attended workshops and taken courses on topics such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism, Asthma, and learning disabilities.  The experts on these topics always cite environmental connections to these types of disorders. Who the child is, his genetics, is important, but his surroundings, his environment, seems to have a large impact on the development of these disorders.

It strikes me that for a long time claims have been made about chemicals that are only partially true. It seems to me that the general public doesn’t get all the information.  I think that to a certain extent that is because the people promoting these products don’t completely know what effect the products do have.  They just don’t know, but they promote the product as if they do know that it is safe, because that’s how they will make money. It’s their job.

My job as an educator and a parent is to oppose further degradation of our environment and in this light I think that the cosmetic use of pesticides and herbicides is irresponsible. Do we really think these compounds ending in –icide, a suffix meaning “to kill”, don’t have a detrimental effect on us? I can appreciate that everyone would like a nice green weed free lawn. It makes a great picture. But who wants that if the cost is another sick child?

In our city we have a small group of people who clearly suffer greatly as a result of the effects of pesticide and herbicide usage.  I’m referring to those people who for different reasons have compromised immune systems.  I’ve found that there are quite a few people in this category.  You’d be surprised how many students like this there are in schools.  People with extreme allergies for example or who are undergoing chemotherapy and try to carry on as normal a life as possible and can tell immediately if someone has applied a pesticide or herbicide near them.  Such an application seems to leave them nauseated.  Students like this often have to leave school and go home.  If they are at home, they just suffer.

I understand that over 100 municipalities across Canada have already passed bylaws prohibiting the application of most herbicides and pesticides from residential yards and parks.  Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Brandon are 4 such municipalities.  As a parent and teacher, I think it’s time Winnipeg joined them. 

As I said earlier, I think that too many people have been lulled into complacency when it comes to the use of these types of chemicals that seem to have such uncertain affects on our environment and on us. When the medical community states that they see a connection between environmental contamination and the rise in many illnesses, they do so emphasizing that there is a scientific uncertainty as to the extent of the connection. The action of pesticides and herbicides is complex.  They act at the level of the cell, the organism, the population, and the ecosystem. The science needed to appreciate this problem becomes difficult as most of us lack the scientific background to understand what is at stake here.

You’ve likely heard about what is referred to as the Precautionary Principle.  It says something like that we should be careful when there are credible threats of harm and a lack of scientific agreement about cause and effect relationships. And that sounds like a good idea to me. 

I appreciate that if a reward is large, we are more apt to take risks. So much in life is based on risk and reward.   For example, spraying for mosquitoes is controversial in our city. It is likely that Malathion does negatively impact our environment. How could it not? So why are we doing it? It’s clear that the mosquitoes can make some people sick – and some people get very sick.  So we risk degrading our environment by Malathion use because the potential reward is large. We can clearly save some people from getting sick from mosquito borne illnesses – notably West Nile. This is worth the risk.

Having a weed free lawn, how great a reward is that and how much are we willing to risk for that weed free lawn?

To me, the proposed ban on the cosmetic use of herbicides and pesticides makes good sense and I ask the committee to support such a proposal.  I would like to close with a quote from Kimlee Wong, the 3rd presenter this morning: Our children deserve better!

Thank You.