Montreal bans use of toxic pesticides on golf courses on its territory

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Claiming to be the first municipality in Canada to do so, Montreal will ban the use of most dangerous pesticides on golf courses on its territory, as of the 2025 golf season.

That means that as of next spring, Montreal’s eight golf courses will have to follow the domestic pesticides ban adopted by the city in January 2022, the mayor and executive committee’s office announced Thursday. Golf courses had been exempted from the ban in 2022 to give them time to study alternatives.

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“Pesticides are considered among the principle causes of decline in global biodiversity and are extremely harmful to human health,” said Marie-Audrée Mauger, the city’s executive committee member responsible for environmental issues. “Despite these facts, we note an increase in the use of these products across Quebec and elsewhere. As a metropolis, we must set an example by further limiting the use of pesticides everywhere in Montreal, including on golf courses.”

She said the city will help golf course operators transition to pesticide-free management. With this bylaw, she said, the city is “taking strong action to protect human health and biodiversity everywhere on its territory.”

The city has been experimenting over the last few years at its municipal golf course near the Olympic Stadium to find effective ways to run a golf course without using the most toxic products.

After consulting with golf course operators, agronomists (responsible for maintaining the greens), municipal and provincial public health officials, and environmental groups, the city has opted to make golf courses subject to the same regulations as those that apply to agricultural and horticultural operations.

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Thus, the use of the most toxic pesticides will be banned, with two exceptions: the use of the herbicides mecoprop and 2,4-D can still be used to control plantain, a perennial weed, between April 15 and June 15, and chlorothalonil to control pink or grey snow mould between Oct. 15 and Dec. 1.

Another exception, for safety reasons, is rail transportation operators. They will be permitted to use the otherwise banned pesticides to facilitate maintenance of railway tracks and their rights of way, since experiments to determine the effectiveness of alternatives to the use of the toxic pesticides have been inconclusive.

Montreal will also be revising its list of prohibited molecules in pesticides used on its territory, to reflect the fact that some of them — namely chlorpyrifos and chlorthal dimethyl — are no longer approved by Health Canada and are in fact, banned across Canada due to their extreme toxicity.

The Municipal Golf Course of Montreal is already successfully applying the terms of the amended pesticide bylaw.

In January 2022, the city of Montreal banned the sale of more than 100 pesticide products for domestic use, including the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. That bylaw provided for an exemption for golf course operators, which will no longer exist once the amendment is adopted.

At COP 15, a United Nations conference on biodiversity held in Montreal in December 2022, the city participated in setting targets under the Global Biodiversity Framework to reduce the use of pesticides globally by half by 2030.

mlalonde@postmedia.com

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