The federal government must revisit its approval of a popular weed-killer, court says

Parliament Hill is shown in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — The federal government has been ordered to reassess its 2022 approval of a popular weed-killer after a Federal Court judge ruled ­this week the original approval was unreasonable.

In a decision issued Tuesday, Justice Russell Zinn gave Health Canada six months to reassess the health risks of glyphosate — the most heavily-used pesticide ingredient in Canada — after the agency failed to show it considered new scientific evidence identifying new or elevated risks associated with the herbicide when it renewed the registration for a product containing it.

Glyphosate has been on the market since the 1970s and is in more than 169 pest control products sold in Canada, including Roundup. Farmers use it to keep weeds out of their crops.

Bayer, which makes Roundup through its subsidiary Monsanto, has faced multiple lawsuits in the United States from Americans claiming the herbicide gave them cancer. Several cases resulted in multi-million-dollar awards to the plaintiffs, while others have been overturned on appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Bayer’s appeal in one case, although the company could continue to appeal as lower courts rule against it. As of July 2024, the company still faced about 58,000 claims.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported in 2020 there were no risks to human health from current uses of the herbicide, but its assessment was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The EPA has not yet provided a reassessment.

Europe has banned certain formulations of glyphosate products and has banned pre-harvest use of it. Canada has not forbidden those products and still allows growers to use glyphosate products prior to harvest.

In August of 2022, Health Canada was in the process of renewing the registration for a product called Mad Dog Plus, which contains glyphosate.

By law, the agency can rubber-stamp a product registration renewal as long as the product is materially the same and no new evidence of risks associated with the product’s ingredients is presented.

But during the renewal process, four environmental organizations — including the David Suzuki Foundation and Environmental Defence — presented Health Canada with 61 new scientific studies identifying new or increased risks associated with glyphosate.

While the Federal Court’s ruling didn’t speak to the health risks of glyphosate, Zinn said Health Canada failed to show any evidence that it evaluated the new studies.

“The record offers no meaningful insight into how (Health Canada) considered the 61 new scientific studies the Applicants submitted, if it gave them any consideration at all,” Zinn wrote in his decision.

“Brief and conclusory internal documents indicating mere ‘awareness’ of the evidence do not meet the ‘justification, transparency, and intelligibility’ threshold necessary for reasonableness review.”

Zinn didn’t quash the approval of Mad Dog’s registration, saying the situation was not the company’s fault and withholding registration would cause it harm. Instead, he gave Health Canada six months to review the new studies and show proof that it considered them.

“I find that maintaining the renewal indefinitely without sufficient justification would undermine regulatory accountability,” Zinn ruled.

“(Health Canada’s) failure to provide a meaningful explanation regarding the 61 new scientific studies cannot be overlooked.”

Health Canada last re-evaluated glyphosate between 2004 and 2017 and concluded it posed acceptable health and environmental risks.

“The decision really confirms that Health Canada does have an obligation to keep up with the science, and they will need to be transparent in how they address that new science,” said Laura Bowman, a lawyer with Ecojustice, one of the environmental groups that asked for the judicial review.

“Previously, the public would only get to see what (Health Canada) thought about new science every 20 or 25 years, whereas now they’ll have to address it on a more regular basis.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 20, 2025

Nick Murray, The Canadian Press