Excerpt from Francis Campbell’s article:
‘“Health Canada approves what pesticides are safe for use,” Porter said. “If someone has concerns about the pesticides they approve for use across the country, they need to contact Health Canada. Our role is to make sure the companies that are spraying comply with strict terms and conditions when spraying.”
Newington said the province’s response shows a pretense of not being aware of the problems with glyphosate, for which “the approving (federal) agency sort of ignores all of the modern science.”
“They just want to pass it off and say, ‘You have to go talk to Health Canada,’ and that fig leaf is getting smaller and smaller.”
Looking out the window of her Mount Hanley home on North Mountain in Annapolis County this week, Newington said billowing smoke is visible from the far-off Long Lake fire, evidence of the climate crisis emergency.
Newington said the goal of spraying glyphosate on a recovering clearcut is to kill hardwood trees to promote the growth of marketable softwood.
“The goal is to kill the most fire-resistant trees, leave the most fire-susceptible trees, the conifers, the softwood, the spruce and fir,” she said.
“If you send in a mechanical thinner, they cut down those (hardwood) saplings and the saplings lie on the ground and they gradually rot but if you spray them with glyphosate they just stand there like dead kindling, drying out.
“Why on earth would anyone even be talking about spraying during this season when Nova Scotia has the worst fire index in Canada in terms of how dry we are and how vulnerable we are to fire.”’