Hudson is a township sandwiched between the city of Montreal, to the east and the farms and forests to the west, in the province of Quebec, Canada.
And through the last decade of the last millennia on to the first years of this one, she created history of a kind – she withstood several levels of high profile legal challenges, all the way till the supreme court of Canada, on its Municipal level ban of cosmetic and other lawn pesticides.
This became a precedence making event, and the cascading effect was various other provinces ended up enacting bans on cosmetic lawn pesticides at the municipal level as well as initiatives taken at provincial levels to ban harmful pesticides.
A full length documentary video has been produced named “A Chemical Reaction – The story of a true green revolution” whose web description goes as – “
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A Chemical Reaction, is a 70 minute feature documentary movie that tells the story of one of the most powerful and effective community initiatives in the history of North America. It started with one lone voice in 1984. Dr. June Irwin, a dermatologist, noticed a connection between her patients’ health conditions and their exposure to chemical pesticides and herbicides. With relentless persistence she brought her concerns to town meetings to warn her fellow citizens that the chemicals they were putting on their lawns posed severe health risks and had unknown side effects on the environment.” |
Jennifer Dumoulin
To learn more about the case, and to understand how Canadian law works with regard to Municipalities jurisdiction in banning what it might consider to be harmful to its residents and environment, I tried to call the persons involved. The key person was Ms June Irwin, who as a doctor first noticed the link between ill health and exposure to pesticides in her own patients, and single handedly pushed the issue through the Municipality of Hudson, which eventually, through initiatives and efforts of the then mayor, environmental agent and councillors, ended up in an enforced by-law that banned application of all pesticides in the town without specific permit, and where violators were subject to heavy fines.
June Irwin was not available, as she was on a holiday. So I got the next best person – the current Environmental agent in the town of Hudson – Ms Jennifer Dumoulin, to speak with me on record, for the purpose of creating this audio podcast, as an educational tool for the public and to raise awareness. There appears to be significant level of interest outside of Hudson and Quebec, and even outside of Canada, to learn how Municipalities might address such concerns from its residents, through actions taken initially at the level of Municipal Councils.
The audio podcast is just over 17 minutes long. It can be listened by clicking the player button at the bottom of this blog. Alternately it can also be downloaded and stored for listening at leisure, through iPhone or iPod and similar devices through iTunes store, free of charge. To find this Podcast and other episodes from me, search for Tony Mitra in the search field in iTunes Store and you should find it. The name of this specific Podcast is - Jennifer Dumoulin of Hudson Quebec on pesticide ban.
I hope this Podcast and information will be of value to the discerning listeners. My thanks go to Jennifer Dumoulin for agreeing to speak with me on record, for taking time out to do so, and for being patient with my questions.
Relevant Links:
- A Chemical Reaction – the Documentary Film.
- Environmental Law Centre on Municipal Regulation of Pesticide Use.
- Appeal to oppose Bill-88 (pesticide use) in Ontario.
- ELC: Submissions on Restricting Cosmetic Pesticide Use in British Columbia – 2010.
- Canadian Environmental Law Association – on pesticide ban.
- Federation of Canadian Municipalities – Assessment of Municipal Acts of the Provinces and Territories.
