A city council committee has spiked a weak pesticide bylaw that anti-pesticide activists described as an "unbylaw." You’ll remember that a ban on cosmetic pesticides never made it into the bylaw — why? Because aldermen who campaigned on a ban turned around and voted against the very thing they pledged to support. (Specifically: Jim Stevenson Ray Jones Joe Connelly Andre Chabot and John Mar.)
This morning I asked Connelly about his about-face. To recap here’s how Connelly responded when the Coalition for a Healthy Calgary asked him if he would "support a bylaw phasing out the cosmetic use of pesticides on private and public lands in Calgary" (he answered that question with a "yes"):
Calgary is generally a very safe and clean city. Anything we can do to further advance these characteristics only serves to enhance our quality of life and that of our children and our pets. This is my own personal opinion.
Having said that with 18000 Calgarians involved in “Imagine Calgary” and the resulting strategy to eliminate pesticide use by 2010 tells me that Calgarians care. Calgarians have spoken. It is incumbent upon government to put the mechanism in place to ensure this important goal is achieved.
So why did Connelly — who is considering a mayoral run — turn around and block this "important goal"?
"Bottom line you can’t enforce it and it’s going to cost a ton of money" he told me. "That’s the problem we have. And again it’s outside of our jurisdiction. We always want to swim in somebody else’s pool. We never want to do our own job and look at doing our own job well. We always want to deal with provincial stuff or even national stuff."
Connelly plans to run a piece in his next newsletter explaining his about-face (of course that’s not the word he uses to describe it). Here’s an excerpt:
Pesticides are completely regulated by both the provincial and federal governments. I do not believe it is in the best interest of Calgary taxpayers to add a third layer of municipal bureaucracy. In my opinion Calgary cannot afford the cost and burden associated with enforcing what will ultimately become an unenforceable bylaw. I am willing to bet that if asked Calgarians would rather see more of their hard-earned dollars going into effective snow removal and road-service assistance given Calgary’s unpredictable weather patterns than enforcing a pesticide bylaw that will ultimately result in their neighbourhoods being overcome with dandelions.
There you have it Ward 6!
