What Happens When They Spray? | The Fight to Stop Glyphosate in Ontario's Forests

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Hello, everybody. It's Eric here from love the north. Don't forget to subscribe and share and let everyone know about what's going on

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in your own backyard here in the north. And of course, the website is love the north.ca. So wherever you're seeing us, subscribe and share. Today we're going to be talking about stop the spray Ontario. It's an organization that's been started a number of years ago. And we have Maureen here via zoom to talk to us a little bit more about it. So Maureen

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introduce yourself and the organization,

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Hi, it's Maureen Hutchison Parker. I'm with a stop the spray Ontario and stop the spray Canada. And I've been fighting the spray for about five years now. I only found out about chemical forestry when I was 60 years old. So five years ago, but it's been going on for approximately 70 years in Canada coast to coast. It's one of Canada's longest environmental fights.

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So what does the spray actually do? Where do they put it and what's it for? Well, when the lumber companies clear cut the forest, when everything grows back, the shrubs, the berries, the poplar, aspen, all the natural regeneration, the lumber corporations, they just say, no, not that forest. And they just spray weed killer, glyphosate, any herbicide over at all, kill it all because they only want coniferous trees to grow. They only plant coniferous trees, softwoods that grow fast so that they can go in later and clear cut it again.

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Does this mean when you have everyone who's planting trees on the summer programs are only planting coniferous trees? That's right. They only plant coniferous trees. They do. They want their trees to grow fast and they just kill anything that will compete with the coniferous trees. So you said they're spraying lysophyte. Some of us might know lysophyte. I relate that to Monsanto. Is that the same thing or is Monsanto the brand name? That's, yeah, Monsanto owned the company that first had the glyphosate and then Bayer bought it. So now it's Bayer that has the glyphosate.

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But in the first years, it wasn't glyphosate. It started out with Agent Orange. They were actually spraying these over the forest. We even on our website, Stop the Spray, Canada.ca, we even have stories from the people that worked in the Agent Orange era. So anyway, that was eventually banned. It was due to a dioxin contamination as well. But then they switched to glyphosate in the early 80s and they've been spraying lysophyte since then. But there's still different ones, different herbicides. The herbicides change. The chemicals change, but the spraying continues.

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So where are they spraying? And what effect does it have on the forest such as the wildlife? Well, that's the problem. It is poison and it is going into the waterways. The animals, they're eating it. When they spray the poison, they put up warning signs for the people telling you not to walk on, you know, telling them that, you know, the pesticide's been sprayed. But we've always said animals, birds, pollinators, they don't read the signs and they are getting sprayed and it is wiping out all the vegetation that they rely on.

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when they mass spray the clear cuts, they create a dead forest. It's dead. There's nothing there. There's nothing alive. They're creating dead forests. You know, everybody's been saying we have to protect the bees. Even in Ottawa, on Parliament Hill, there's a big sign saying, you know, the bees, pesticide use is affecting them and they have, you know, bee colonies. And you just say, well, then if we're all supposed to be protecting the bees and the environment and the water, why in the world are they mass spraying glyphosate or any chemical herbicide? It's weed killer over our forests. And of course, like everything that's eating this, they say you talk to a trapper, the hunters, they say the poison is going right through the food chain. But of course, the people defending the spray, they don't want to talk about that. They just want to keep spraying the forest because it's cost effective. And that's all they talk about is that it's a cost effective way to manage the forest. They call it forest management. We call it, well, it's ecocide. You are killing everything. And then what happened was in 1999, the federal government, the Senate, they did a two-year study on the boreal forest and what was happening to it. They said that all chemical herbicide and pesticide use should be phased out of the boreal forest as soon as possible. That was in 1999. They had a whole chapter on Aboriginal realities. The study was called competing realities, the boreal forest at risk. And they had a whole chapter called Aboriginal realities. And they said that we have to respect their rights, their territories. They are the ones that hunt and fish and forage in these forests. And it's not just them, it's all of our wildlife. Everybody needs berries. Nobody wants to be eating poison. And then when they're wiping it out and just planting coniferous trees, there is not the natural forest that feeds the birds and the animals and everything that relies on the forest. It's going into the waterways. It's affecting the fish. The Ministry of Natural Resources will tell anglers not to use. It's against the, they'll get fined if they use a salamander as bait. But meanwhile, they will spray poison from helicopters over salamanders,

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over ecosystems, over everything. What happens to a butterfly's wings when it is sprayed with glyphosate? And the Ministry of Natural Resources tells us to plant milkweed to help the endangered monarch butterfly. Well, oh, I guess it's our job to protect the forests and not theirs. And so they just keep spraying. But in 2001, Quebec, they listened to their people. Quebecers, they gained their protection from the spraying when Quebec stopped issuing spraying licenses in forestry. And industry had, no say, they had to adapt. And so they did. And that was in 2001. So all the other provinces, they just kept on spraying. Because another thing that happened was in 2000, the glyphosate safety study that was now considered to be ghostwritten by Monsanto, that came out in 2000. So the regulator, Health Canada, they just been saying glyphosate poses no unacceptable risks. And they have cited this study again and again. And it was cited again when Health Canada reregistered glyphosate in 2017 for another 15 years. Safe Food Matters, Mary McDonald, she sued Health Canada for this reregistration. And they're still in court. Nothing is settled. In court, it's easy to drag stuff out. Yeah, it's just dragging and dragging. Safe Food Matters did win one, when in 2022, Health Canada tried to just approve Mad Dog Plus, a glyphosate herbicide. And Safe Food Matters took them to court along with Eco Justice and allies. And they lost in court. The court said that Health Canada, they did not review the new studies. Because glyphosate studies are coming out. I mean, everybody knows. Well, what happened was, I mean, everybody's just doing the studies, studies after studies after studies. And it's making people sick. And the court cases are paying out billions. And for it's called failure to warn, right? For all these cancer people. It's gone on for so long. But then, finally, in December 2025, that safety study was officially retracted. And then Health Canada, they just kind of went, we didn't rely on that study.

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so they're not doing anything about it. And that's quite, it's quite incredible to have that happen. So now, come March, last March, there was international, the International Glyphosate Symposium in Seattle, where international scientists from around the world, they all agreed that the harms that glyphosate is causing, it's beyond cancer. It's just it's endocrine. It's everything. It's, I don't even have the list of all the things that happened to people when they're exposed. It's chemical exposure. And in the forest, the people that have relied on this forest, they have been chemically exposed now for 70 years. And it's cumulative. And, and we can't just keep thinking that cost effective, you know, that it's for the bottom line that like who is, who is paying for it? Yeah, someone's, someone's obviously, you know, there's profit sounds, it sounds like there's profit being made somewhere. Well, for, for all the conspiracy theorists that are out there, I often hear about chemtrails way up in the sky. Now, how, how is it? How is the glyphosate? How is it sprayed? It's by helicopter and it's, you know, low to the ground. A lot of people will see this and think I'm talking chemtrails and conspiracy theory, even when we're talking about the sportsman show, because we've been trying to raise awareness to this now for decades, because, you know, the 94% of the people in Ontario live in Southern Ontario and they are not close to the forest. So, so the mass majority of people in Ontario do not know that this is happening in the forest. And I didn't even know until just five years ago, and it's been going on longer than my whole life. But anyway, so we've been raising awareness, we've got four years of billboards, there's at least 45 billboards that have been put up and the tech elders, they have their own billboard campaign, we've just tried to get Ontarians to understand the problem. It has been on the news, but it's just not enough. And so anyway, another big thing we've done is go to sportsman shows, because of course, sportsman shows at the sportsman show in Toronto, the people that fish and hunt, they should know what is happening in their forests. They should know that because they're the deer, they're all getting exposed to this as well. And, and I was standing, it's hard though because the people look at you just sideways, they, they don't understand it. And it was really hard to explain to people. And, and I was trying to tell someone, you know, I'm just trying to protect the forest. And one fellow, we just went, stop, talk to my wife, she's the one that wears the tinfoil hat. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. See, I think it's, it sounds like it's an awareness challenge in order to get people to come to terms with reality of what is actually happening. You know, there's a chopper in the air, distributing the product onto the forest. And you said anything it touches that it comes into contact is, gets affected. And then of course, it, you know, it just goes on and on.

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That's right. I mean, it is poison. And, and what happens too, there's been a lot of food studies though, out there just saying that, you know, it's going into the roots and then it's coming back in the plant and it's staying for years. It's not just dissipating. You know, the people that are just saying, oh, it just washes away. It's like, yeah, well, where is it washing away to anyway? It's still getting in our waterways. And then when you think about the North and the communities in the North, well, these chemicals, even the most advanced water treatment plants, you know, in cities can, I mean, they, they, they can't even get these, they're forever chemicals, right? But I'm not sure, you know, which chemical it is, but it's really hard to get this chemicals out of the water. Well, these people don't have their, their drinking water from a well. They're, you know, what kind of systems are they supposed to, they're already, they're already complaining. They've been fighting the poison now for decades. And now they're expected to try to get it out of their water. Yeah, it's tough to, it might, you know, I don't want, I don't know what the, what the composition of it is. However, whenever you get your water tested, you know, most places when you're on a well, the city, in our city will only check, I believe, to see if there's coliform or E. coli in there. That's right. They don't test for glyphosate. No, there's no, nothing else now, you know, just, I'm on a well and I did bring it to another place where they tested it. Every element of the periodic table. So I know exactly what's in my water. There is a chemical, not a chemical, there is a natural occurring element in there that I'd like to get rid of. I have yet to do that. But anyways, it's, I know what's in there and that they show you the levels of where it's the levels of toxicity to, to your health. But glyphosate, if it is in the water system, does chlorine kill it actually, or does it get rid of it? Because that's what the, that's what municipalities may just do in order to kill any bacteria. But this isn't a bacteria, this is a chemical. Right, exactly. It is, yes. So, you know, just that being said, even if you're in the city and it just washes away, well, where's it washing away to? Of course, you could be getting it even though you're in the city. Is that even possible? Yeah, oh yeah. And it's washing, I mean, our watersheds, they've been spraying it for 70 years, our watersheds flow everywhere. They flow right through the rivers into the Great Lakes. Everybody should be concerned about this poison. Everyone should be.

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There's a strange thing that happened in Maine. In Maine, Senator Troy Jackson, he fought the aerial spraying of glyphosate for 17 years and he got the bill passed. We were all, this was about 2022, I think, don't quote me on that. We were all so happy that the state of Maine passed the bill to end this. Well, only to have the governor, Janet Mills, veto the bill because she said, well, if we don't spray it aerially, it's going to be too dangerous to spray on the ground.

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So we all have to watch what we're saying because if you just fight aerial glyphosate, then they're going to come down with the ground and spray garland.

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So it's never been just one chemical. It is chemical forestry itself, whether it's from the air, whether it is on the ground. It's chemical forestry. You're killing the natural regeneration of the forest. They're only planting the coniferous trees. Now they've been doing that for decades. What kind of forests have we grown? So what is happening out there now in a warming climate with wildfires that, geez, there seem to be uncontrollable right now. Well, what's happens in and even right on the government of Canada's website, it tells you that a deciduous forest, especially when it's in summer, when it's green, I mean, it rarely gets a crown forest that's uncontrollable. But coniferous forests, I mean, coniferous forests just have these fire ladders. They're very dense. They're very dry. There's no moisture. They don't have leaves. And the coniferous forests, they go right up to the top to these dangerous crown fires. Uncontrollable. They say it's barely impossible to fight from the ground. And these now in a drawing of warming climate, I mean, we have created our own prices here if, you know, well, and then now even just this year, all the Indigenous, the First Nations that have been evacuated now, these are the same people that have been formally

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opposing the chemical forestry since the 80s. We have our first signed resolution is dated 1989. That's our first documented one that is on Stop the Spread Canada.ca. And, and then there's been, you know, year after year, everybody there, they've been signing resolutions, government to government resolutions, demanding them stop the spray stop poisoning the forest, they are worried about the wildlife, their waters, their berries, their medicines, everything. And they have been systemically ignored.

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Rain, that's more than a, that's more than a mouthful for an afternoon. What we'll have to do is get you to come back

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to see how your fights been going. And if we can bring the awareness to to what's going on in the forest because everything, everything's going down and it's coming into our water supply and that should be something that is, you know, everyone should be aware of that whether you're in the city, in the bush, in rural area, wherever like we all need water to survive and if we're poisoning ourselves at the expense of profits, you know, is it worth it?

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It's not worth it. And it's, it's gone on for too long.

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