The City of Quebec wants to ban the use of pesticides for aesthetic purposes on its territory. Its elected officials will have to decide this spring on a draft regulation aimed at restricting the outdoor use of products considered to be the most at risk for health and the environment.
The complete list of products that the City wants to ban by 2024 has not yet been revealed.
Neonicotinoid insecticides — dubbed “bee killer” pesticides — would, however, be banned “at all times,” reads a document presented Monday afternoon to councilors at a city council plenary session. .
The herbicide glyphosate — sold under the trade name RoundUp — will also be banned, except in exceptional cases. Biopesticides, which have less toxicity, will remain authorized.
“You have to understand that we are not at war against the lawn,” assured, during the meeting, Geneviève C-Lévesque, director of the environmental monitoring section at the City of Quebec. “We prefer a healthy lawn, with a good root system, which is resilient to droughts, new pests or climate change, than a completely dry and decimated lawn,” she added.
exempt farming
However, the 109 agricultural businesses in the agglomeration will be excluded from the by-law. The nine golf courses in the territory will have to submit a pesticide reduction plan.
“The by-law is not intended to be an end in itself, but rather a means to encourage a change in behavior among our citizens,” explained Florence Boudreau-Pineault, environmental advisor at the Department of land use planning and development. ‘environment.
“We are going to have communication tools that will allow us to carry out prevention and education with our citizens. There will also be coercive measures that will be able to be applied in the event of a violation of the regulations. So it’s sure that it’s ambitious as a regulation, but at the same time, we believe that we have the tools to be able to apply it, ”she added.
The City of Quebec is following in the footsteps of Montreal and Laval, which have adopted similar regulations in recent years. In the spring of 2021, the city of Laval banned glyphosate, the best-selling herbicide in the world and in Quebec.
A few months later, Montreal banned the use of 36 pesticides in addition to prohibiting their sale on the shelves. Glyphosate was part of the lot.
In Quebec, nearly 160 municipalities regulate the use of pesticides in one way or another.
According to the latest figures published by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, in 2020, pesticide sales in urban areas represented 18% of total pesticide sales in Quebec. Domestic use pesticides, ie products sold to individuals, accounted for 73% of these sales.