Dow Suing Canada Because Quebec Bans Controversial Pesticide

Thursday March 5, 2009
That's right Montreal. Our federal tax money is being spent as we speak on defending Quebec's Pesticides Management Code -- a code that limits the use of cosmetic or non-essential lawncare products -- to a company that brought you innovations as varied as saran wrap, Styrofoam and napalm-b!

Dow AgroSciences -- a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical -- and their legal team invoked a nifty NAFTA provision and want compensation in the order of $2 million plus legal fees reimbursed over Quebec "wrongfully" banning the use of products containing 2,4-D (which is, incidentally, the "safer" of two herbicides used, in ester form, to make chemical superstar Agent Orange, another fine Dow product).

source

I don't know what members here think about this article, it's pretty obvious that the 2,4-D is not very good for health reasons... But to sue Canada for this (because the province of Quebec passed a law prohibiting the product) is really disturbing... Why should we allow corporations to impose any products that we dont want? i mean, really...

Originally posted by teklordz
Why should we allow corporations to impose any products that we dont want? i mean, really...

Isn't that precious? See, one of the cool things about NAFTA is that if we grow any cojones that end up costing a U.S. firm any money...or restricts their access or trade, then we get sued!!

There oughtta be a lamp post and a string of piano wire for whoever approved that particular clause.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


yup, we should propose amendments to this NAFTA BS. We have the power to say no. There should be a law that protects us against outside corporations. (no law suits allowed) or something like that. I don't know much about international law, maybe i'll look into to it, just to see..

Toxicity

The LD50 determined in an acute toxicity rat study is 639 mg/kg.[3] Single oral doses of 5 and 30 mg/kg body weight did not cause any acute toxic effects in human volunteers.

The amine salt formulations can cause irreversible eye damage (blindness); ester formulations are considered non-irritating to the eyes.

On August 8, 2007, the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a ruling which stated existing data do not support a conclusion that links human cancer to 2,4-D exposure.[4] However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified 2,4-D among the phenoxy acid herbicides MCPA and 2,4,5-T as a class 2B carcinogen - possibly carcinogenic to humans. [5]

source

So, carcinogenic to humans, according to the IARC, meaning possible cancer! And this corporation wants us to buy this stuff. As if...

IMO no Corporation should be able to sue anyone for not buying their product! That's absolutely ludicrious!

If this goes through I can see the implications being far ranging in aspect, not just for Canadians but for all of society.

So ... you won't buy my product? FINE! I'll SUE you! You'll pay one way or another!

btw .. that was heavy sarcasm!

I hope with all my heart that this case is thrown out on it's ear! It has no basis other than some stupid clause in a bill that shouldn't have been passed in the first place. (My Opinion!)

reply to post by cnichols


Thanks for the support for this cause is important to me. I agree 100% with you words, and more people should be aware about these corporations bullying other "countries"... Insane world we live in...

I agree with the lamp post and piano wire thing... it's a clause in chapter 11 NAFTA and this isn't the first time, it's been happening for years. Check out Ethyl corp and their gasoline additive MMT - that's an often cited case. As per chapter 11, the corporations can't sue their own governments, just foreign governments. SO, they can ban all these crazy harmful substances in their own country, then sue us for trying to do the same to protect our citizens!

It drives me crazy that so many Canadians are up in arms about Obama wanting to re-look at NAFTA - it could be our only chance to change these things!!!!

Well, DOW, you should spend your money on research to make better product instead of wasting your money on a lost cause.

It's the same thing Monsanto is doing to the farmers around the globe. They want to be the only ones in control of the seeds for the food source - and the pesticide used to control the food source.

It is out of hand. They are out of hand. There are a handful of people
and corporations out there that simply seek to control the species with their
poison - and in turn control the very odds of our survival and health.

These are criminals. They need to be treated as such.

Like our environment isn't toxic enough already, now we are to be coerced into buying more of their poson?
Drastic situations call for drastic solutions.
I don't think that any kind of pesticide or herbicide should ever be used on a lawn. I've heard of kids getting sick after playing on a recently sprayed lawn - regardless of the sign saying to stay off for a certain time.
The poison is there until most of it finally gets rained off and makes its way into our lakes, streams and drinking water.

reply to post by OhZone


I totally agree. I remember when my kids where 2 and 4 years old. I had a visit from a company that was offering pesticides for my lawn (back in 1991) and i refused. The salesman tried to convice me because my lawn was not exactly the greenest in the neighborhood. I didn't care, i did not want my kids to get sick. I was conscious of the possible threat, so i decline and told him to get off my property.

This is RIDICULOUS!!!
How many of these dumba- stories do we have to hear?!! Seriously, HOW MANY TIMES do we need to be openly fleeced by the well-to-dos in this world before someone SOMEONE stands up and tells them to get bent?!

Damn...

The Canadians need to fight this tooth and nail. What a disgrace.

Although the OPs news is disconcerting, I still put my money on the human race. There are too many of us, waking up, and doing our own researches about this "reality that does not feel right".

The time is coming when enough will be enough.

I guess that all we can do, is to keep researching and finding out about these atrocities, while more and more wake up.

Nice post and thanks for bringing this to our attention.

reply to post by Le Colonel


You are most welcome. I find weekends are very busy while researching the web. Awareness is so important, and the www is the best way i know to find out what's going on.
The most important thing is to talk about it, to any and all. And ATS is the best tool to do this!

Just to bring another perspective to this discussion.

"WE" did not desire that Dow stop selling cosmetic pesticides in Quebec.

How will anyone know that this statement is true?

Because if "WE" didn't want to buy and use those pesticides then we would not have freely and willingly walked into a store and plunked our money down on a counter in exchange for those products. If the general public didn't want to use these products, they simply wouldn't buy them! The fact is that most members of the public do want to buy and use these pesticides!

A small group of people wanted to stop the use of cosmetic pesticides and mounted a public opinion campaign to convince the public that these products were a health risk. They were unable to convince the public that these insignificant risks outweighed the benefit of using the pesticides.

So in true democratic fashion - this small group of people usurped government power to get their way. The government was only too willing to go along with it because they could then present themselves to the public as being environmentally responsible and concerned about health.

The reason those non-toxic pesticides were banned is because a very small group of people would like to see ALL pesticides banned and the most innocent way they could start on their personal campaign of control was to demonize the pesticides that were the least toxic! Just like the anti-smokers only wanted smoking to be banned on all flights lasting less than two hours back in the 70's

So we have a situation where the majority of the public wants to buy a product, a company wants to sell it to them but a small minority want to enforce their will on the public.

Isn't it reasonable that if you want to interfere with the livelyhood of others for no scientifically supportable reason, that you should have to pay for that privilege?

Pesticides are the reason why we have been able to grow sufficient food to feed the population and protect the crop from rats and other animals. If you think expose to pesticides is a health risk - you should try starvation sometime. If the side effects of pesticides concern you, you should try looking at the chemicals in the food you eat each and every day.

Further, without the use of these non-toxic products, we can expect the spread of noxious weeds. NO I am not referring to dandelions. I am referring to poison ivy, thistles ect. The fact that we will have these weeds in our cities is not so bad but when they start infecting agricultural fields, farmers will be forced to use the more toxic products to keep the fields weed free. And when people want to keep their lawns weed-free, they will also be forced to use the more toxic products.

And exactly how is this all helping the environment?

And exactly where is this small group of people getting their funding - why from the government!

Tired of Control Freaks

A private American corporation suing Provincial government? The stink of madness is so strong it's hard to deny now. At least Quebec has the guts to take a stand against one of the major forces of destruction in this world. I hope the world takes notice.

Thank you for posting this.

This is rediculous.. i stopped buying DOW, because their chemicals! God knows how many times ive used bathroom cleaners, including tilex, where my skin wrinkled up and my eyes were tearing like someone had put a lighter in my eyes...
This is so rediculous..canada dosnt want thier product...big deal!! move on DOW... Yuor just as irresponsable as dawn dish liquid and clorox, back in the 1980's dawn ddint have ionic proertys to it, so accuamlted in water, it literally created whats reffered to as firewater.
Clorox has been filmed by the EPA back then, dumping toxic sludge into local water ponds.
boycott DOW!!!

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
Just to bring another perspective to this discussion.

"WE" did not desire that Dow stop selling cosmetic pesticides in Quebec.

How will anyone know that this statement is true?

Because if "WE" didn't want to buy and use those pesticides then we would not have freely and willingly walked into a store and plunked our money down on a counter in exchange for those products. If the general public didn't want to use these products, they simply wouldn't buy them! The fact is that most members of the public do want to buy and use these pesticides!

A small group of people wanted to stop the use of cosmetic pesticides and mounted a public opinion campaign to convince the public that these products were a health risk. They were unable to convince the public that these insignificant risks outweighed the benefit of using the pesticides.

So in true democratic fashion - this small group of people usurped government power to get their way. The government was only too willing to go along with it because they could then present themselves to the public as being environmentally responsible and concerned about health.

The reason those non-toxic pesticides were banned is because a very small group of people would like to see ALL pesticides banned and the most innocent way they could start on their personal campaign of control was to demonize the pesticides that were the least toxic! Just like the anti-smokers only wanted smoking to be banned on all flights lasting less than two hours back in the 70's

So we have a situation where the majority of the public wants to buy a product, a company wants to sell it to them but a small minority want to enforce their will on the public.

Isn't it reasonable that if you want to interfere with the livelyhood of others for no scientifically supportable reason, that you should have to pay for that privilege?

Pesticides are the reason why we have been able to grow sufficient food to feed the population and protect the crop from rats and other animals. If you think expose to pesticides is a health risk - you should try starvation sometime. If the side effects of pesticides concern you, you should try looking at the chemicals in the food you eat each and every day.

Further, without the use of these non-toxic products, we can expect the spread of noxious weeds. NO I am not referring to dandelions. I am referring to poison ivy, thistles ect. The fact that we will have these weeds in our cities is not so bad but when they start infecting agricultural fields, farmers will be forced to use the more toxic products to keep the fields weed free. And when people want to keep their lawns weed-free, they will also be forced to use the more toxic products.

And exactly how is this all helping the environment?

And exactly where is this small group of people getting their funding - why from the government!

Tired of Control Freaks

Can anyone explain this to me, I do not understand what this person is expressing?(He seems to have joined just for this post, he also foed the op.)

I wrote that post. I am sorry but I do not understand what "foed" means.

I posted this because I am fed up with control freaks who want to usurp government powers to socially engineer society and control the behaviors of others.

The whole gist of this entire thread is that Dow has quite a nerve sueing the Quebec government for banning cosmetic pesticides. The original poster stated "we don't want their product".

That is an incorrect statement. If the people did not want those products, they would not buy them. Nobody, including Dow, forces anyone to buy them. If people did not want to buy their products, then they wouldn't and their would be absolutely no need for a ban.

The fact of the matter is that a small group of people wish to control the behavior of others by petitioning the government to ban the products based on toxicity.

The science simply does not support this position. Even the information provided in this thread stated that they fed 0.639 mg/kg of pure ingredients to rats. I weigh 180 lbs (about 80 kg). An equivalent dose for me would be 54 mg (approx.). Even at this high a dosage, the rats (and the humans) didn't get sick. Yet somehow, the neurotics of the world, think that if they just walk beside a lawn that has been sprayed - they are going to get cancer.

Get a life! you are just as likely to get nailed by lighting while walking on that sidewalk as to get cancer from such a small, insignificant exposure to such a chemical. You aren't even going to come close to that dosage even if you were sprayed directly in the face and inhaled lungfuls of the stuff!

But somehow you all think it is ok to stop other people from using these products and you haven't even considered the risks of banning the use (I mentioned a few - like exposure to poison ivy and exposure to far more toxic products.)

So the majority of people support the use of this product (they voted with their dollar when they bought it) and the company is making a living from the sale of this product.

Who are all you people that think you can lightly interfere with someone's livelyhood and NOT get sued for it?

Poison Ivy...I can't believe you would use that. That is the dummies argument in the world.

There are many ORGANIC products that help growth of grass, but, why even having just grass? Why not having organic apples, pears, nuts, strawberry and vegetable, instead of stupid bare grass?

So, if there is no alternative? Same is for food, right? If we don't buy MONSANTO poison, we should all go to jail, correct?

This world is becoming a horrible place to live in. A true horror.