Cabinet shuffle bad news for environment and human health
Cabinet shuffle bad news for environment and human health
Millvale – Premier Ghiz’s cabinet shuffle is bad news for the environment and human health. According to the premier, the shuffle is designed to “ better reflect government’s priorities over the next few years”. The promotion of potato producer and Minister of Agriculture George Webster to deputy premier is a clear signal the Ghiz government intends to ramp up support for industrial agriculture, said Green party leader Sharon Labchuk.
“This appointment comes on the heels of the release of the Commission on Land Use and Local Governance which recommends increased support for industrial agriculture and an exemption for large corporate farms to own more land than what is allowed under the Lands Protection Act,” says Labchuk. “And last month lawn pesticide legislation was passed that does nothing but ban one pesticide and numerous organic products. After all these years of Islanders lobbying and complaining about contaminated groundwater and air, this is what they get.”
Labchuk says it was the Liberal government of the 1980’s, under Premier Joe Ghiz, that encouraged the potato industry through subsidies to expand potato acreage by 70% with a corresponding increase in chemical fertilizer and pesticide use.
“Environment Canada air monitoring tests show PEI’s air is laced with a cocktail of pesticides known to cause cancer. These pesticides are mainly potato fungicides and there is no way to eliminate or even reduce the amount of fungicides used on potatoes grown in this industrial monocrop system,” said Labchuk. “Scientists at the University of Waterloo found that trace amounts of pesticides, too small to even be measured until recently, can wipe out immune systems in animals exactly the way drugs administered to human organ transplant recipients do, so that organs aren’t rejected. Everyone living in PEI breathes agricultural pesticides. The implications for human health, in light of this research and what we already know about the toxicity of agricultural pesticides, are horrifying.”
Scientists said impaired immune systems could lead to humans dying of infections or diseases that a healthy person would be able to resist easily. Combine damaged immune systems with pesticides known to cause cancer and strongly linked to learning disabilities, birth defects, lowered IQ, and reproductive problems, it’s no wonder the levels of cancer, asthma, allergies and other diseases are so high, said Labchuk.
“This latest round of announcements from Premier Ghiz is just so discouraging,” said Labchuk. “Not only has industrial agriculture contaminated the air we breathe but virtually every drop of drinking water in PEI is polluted with chemical fertilizer. He is taking this province further down the path of industrial agriculture when it is so obvious it’s destroying the environment, ruining lives and costing taxpayers a fortune in subsidies and health care costs.”
Labchuk said with the era of fossil fuels coming to a close chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced from fossil fuels will not even be available, so the switch to organic agriculture must happen sooner rather than later if PEI is to avoid economic and social upheaval and have any chance at all of food security.
“The Green party would immediately shift to an organic system of agriculture and dismantle the potato industry,” said Labchuk. “The Department of Agriculture would serve the interests of Islanders, making the production of organic food for local consumption a priority, rather than pandering to the interests of big agriculture.”
Contact:
Sharon Labchuk
902-621-0719
902-940-1262 cell
slabchuk@greenparty.ca