Since the Montreal regulation on the sale and use of pesticides came into force in January 2022, about ten retailers have been fined for having prohibited products in store. However, no fine has yet been issued for using a prohibited pesticide on private property.
Ten businesses were fined for “selling or offering for sale a pesticide whose active ingredient” is prohibited from retail sale in Montreal, reveals the list provided by the municipal court at the beginning of July.
Two Canadian Tire stores, a Home Depot, BMR and Home Hardware stores, two RONA-branded businesses (one RONA L’entrepôt and one affiliate), two garden centres and a landscaping centre were fined in 2022 and 2023.
During this period, 65 businesses were targeted by the new regulation, but only 60 remain, the City told us. The ten or so stores caught in default therefore represent approximately 15% of the retailers concerned.
In January 2022, Montreal became the first city in Quebec to ban the sale and outdoor use of around thirty molecules contained in herbicides, insecticides, fungicides (against mold) and rodenticides (against rodents).
Offenders*
Mega Centre Montréal, a landscaping business, was the only business fined in 2022. It received four tickets (three for glyphosate-based herbicides and one for an insecticide-miticide containing malathion). Cost: $6,756. “We closed the file and paid the tickets,” Cristina Di Re, Director of Customer Service, told us. The City said the business was in good standing during a follow-up inspection in the fall of 2022.
The BMR on Langelier Boulevard in Saint-Léonard paid a $1,250 fine, “an isolated situation,” assures the chain’s spokesperson. “The employee at the checkout accepted the return of a Malathion product […] purchased by a customer in another store in the network and the product was inadvertently put back on the shelf by a clerk,” writes Kaven Delarosbil. “The procedure has since been reminded to all employees.”
The two Canadian Tire stores (Alexis Nihon Centre and Tricentenaire Boulevard) that were fined are “two isolated cases, involving a few units of a product [qui] took place […] “due to human error,” the company’s spokeswoman, Cindy Hoffman, wrote to us. “Upon discovery, the products were immediately removed from shelves.” Cost: $1,567 per store.
Latendresse hardware store, part of the Home Hardware chain, in Pointe-aux-Trembles, paid a $1,250 fine. “We removed the product from the shelf as requested, we removed it from our inventory, but an employee took it thinking it was misclassified and put it back on the shelf,” said administrative assistant Céline Simard, without specifying the pesticide.
The Valbo garden centre, on Henri-Bourassa Boulevard East, received two notices. “We ordered Roundup from a supplier and they sent us the one we are no longer allowed to sell, instead of the one [sans glyphosate] which is really vinegar,” the manager, Maria Valentini, explained to us. Cost: $3,442.
At RONA L’entrepôt Pierrefonds, the inspector discovered five containers of an insecticide-miticide containing 50% malathion. “RONA places great importance on compliance with current regulations and is actively working to ensure that its operations comply with them. If an issue arises, appropriate measures in the circumstances are taken without delay,” the chain wrote to us. Cost: $1,633.
At the RONA-affiliated Quincaillerie Pont Mercier in LaSalle, an inspector found two boxes containing “a small poison that is permitted on the rest of the planet, but not on the island of Montreal,” owner Daniel Bourque told us. The product code, ordered at the request of a customer, did not mention the Montreal ban, Bourque lamented. Cost: $1,250.
Jardin Cléroux, in Pierrefonds-Roxboro, received two tickets. “In 65 years, we’ve never received an infraction, except last year,” lamented one of the owners, Daniel Cléroux. The business has just closed shop, but had initially planned to do so last summer. It was in this context that a “new product for mice” escaped the owners’ vigilance and was put back on the shelves, Mr. Cléroux told us, who said he did not receive the second ticket. Cost: $3,442.
At the Home Depot on Saint-Antoine Street West, an inspector found 22 mouse traps containing bromethalin, a banned rodenticide. “The fine has been paid,” the chain simply told us. Cost: $1,633.
“Anecdotal”
Ten stores pinned in two years, “it’s anecdotal,” estimates the director of the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience (BTER), Sidney Ribaux.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Sidney Ribaux, Director of the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience
These are large companies that have to navigate through regulatory frameworks in a dozen provinces and territories and thousands of municipalities. It can’t be perfect. I find that, generally speaking, companies have turned around fairly quickly and complied.
Sidney Ribaux, Director of the Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience
The Montreal regulation targets “corporate responsibility,” he emphasizes.
“It’s a lot easier for us to inspect 60 businesses than to have inspectors out there trying to catch someone using a product that they probably don’t even know they’re not allowed to use.”
The BTER also monitors commercial pesticide applicators. Two companies have been caught in default to date.
A numbered company specializing in extermination was fined ($1,567) for failing to submit its pesticide usage log on time.
In addition, the Elm Ridge Golf Club in L’Île-Bizard received 17 tickets for $1,567 for not having a municipal permit. “There was confusion, it fell between two seats,” said the club’s general manager, Philippe Duranceau, referring to the management changes last summer. The golf course plans to contest this pile of tickets totaling more than $26,000. Its permit is “in order for the year 2024,” the City told us.
Nothing against home turf
Montreal, however, has not issued any fines for the use of a banned pesticide on private land.
This aspect is “under the responsibility of each of the districts,” specified a spokesperson for the City, Gonzalo Nuñez.
However, before 2022, several districts had admitted to having great difficulty enforcing the regulations then in force, even when they suspected violations.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Micheline Lévesque, President of Alternative Solutions Environment
“The problem is always in the application,” emphasizes Micheline Lévesque, president of Solutions Alternatives Environnement, which has helped several cities adopt anti-pesticide regulations.
More than 150 Quebec municipalities, like Montreal, have adopted a regulation that is stricter than the provincial Pesticide Management Code. However, Mme Lévesque says he regularly sees lawns showing “symptoms” of treatments using banned synthetic pesticides, or poorly filled out signs on residential lots.
“At one point I gave up because I was calling every city,” she says with a laugh.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY GUILLAUME GRÉGOIRE
Guillaume Grégoire, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Laval University
“The real way to do this is to take turf samples and tank samples. [des produits appliqués]and have them analyzed for pesticides. But it’s very laborious, it’s very expensive, there aren’t many cities that do that,” emphasizes Guillaume Grégoire, professor at the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Laval University, who specializes in lawns.
Monitoring horticultural businesses that often have activities outside Montreal is “a little more complex” than inspecting retailers, acknowledges Mr. Ribaux.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Micheline Lévesque’s lawn is pesticide-free but enriched with clover and grasses. Dandelions can be found in the spring “when it’s in bloom, but at this time of year, you don’t see them anymore,” she says. When a lawn becomes “a field of dandelions,” it’s because its soil is “too compact and of poor quality for grasses.”
The fact that lawn maintenance companies must now have a municipal permit and provide the City with their register of pesticides used, “this will allow, over time, to better supervise them and follow up with them when we see that there are issues,” he predicts.
“We need to give this regulation a little time to live, to see if there are really issues or if these are exceptional cases.”
*Amounts shown are from municipal court records and include applicable fine and fees.
Read the article “Banned pesticides found in the store of a district councilor”
Read the article “A pioneering regulation rarely applied”
Consult the Montreal regulation on pesticides