Only one company has been found in violation since Montreal banned the sale of synthetic pesticides on its territory more than a year ago. This is the Mega Center Montreal in Saint-Léonard, whose president Angela Gentile is a councilor in the same district.
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Mega Center Montreal received four libel charges last September for “selling or offering for sale” pesticides containing glyphosate and malathion at its Boulevard Pascal-Gagnon facility.
The company was found guilty of three of those offenses in mid-March. The court date for the fourth offense has been postponed to the end of May. According to the minutes of the district court, the three default judgments were made in the absence of the accused.
Mega Center Montreal president Angela Gentile is a councilor for the Saint-Léonard-Est neighborhood and the official opposition critic for commercial development.
Ms Gentile, who was held at the shoulder with the precinct in a lake on Wednesday, it was her daughter, Cristina Di Re, director of customer service at the Mega Center, who answered us.
The company contested the findings via email but was unaware of the release date, Ms. Di Re said in a telephone interview. She therefore wants to appeal judgments.
PHOTO HUGO-SEBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Cristina Di Re, Customer Service Manager, Mega Center Montreal
We didn’t have a chance to defend ourselves, to prove that we didn’t sell those products.
Cristina Di Re, Customer Service Manager at Mega Center
When returning the products, Mega Center wants to provide its sales register and the credit note issued by its supplier to prove that the prohibited pesticides were not the subject of a transaction following the violations.
Trading was defaulted twice in April 2022. This is more than four months after the Montreal regulation banning the retail sale of synthetic pesticides went into effect.
“Before we had the inspection, these products were on our shelves because we were waiting for more details on these bans,” Ms. Di Re said.
During the first inspection on April 12, three Roundup-brand herbicides, whose main active ingredient is glyphosate, were offered for sale, the city official said in the report. The latter submitted a complaint to the manager demanding that the three offending products be removed from the shelves within 48 hours.
PHOTO ALL AROUND
Roundup Super Concentrate
When the mourner returned 12 days later, it was Ms. Di Re who received her. Two of the reported herbicides were still on store shelves and a third banned product, an insecticide miticide containing malathion, was discovered. Ms. Di Re received the second criminal complaint.
The customer service manager assured that the banned products were withdrawn and the employees were informed on the same day.
The products infringed were Roundup Ready-to-Use, Roundup Super Concentrate and Roundup Concentrate, and Malathion Liquid Insecticide-Miticide Concentrate, the violation report said.
The three guilty verdicts relate to malathion and two Roundup products. The company received $4,250 in fines and $1,256 in costs, for a total of $5,506. The violation for the third Roundup product, for which the company faces a court hearing in May, carries a $1,250 fine and at least $308 in costs.
PHOTO HUGO-SEBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Products offered in place of prohibited pesticides at the Mega Center
Fourteen branches found at fault
Montreal became the first Quebec city to ban the sale of pesticides with 36 active ingredients, including glyphosate, in January 2022.
The Office of Ecological Transition and Resilience (BTER) had identified 65 companies affected by the new regulations. During the first inspection tour in the spring, 14 of them, more than one in five, received information about violations.
“Everyone was checked afterwards. The bottom line is that only one company has relapsed,” a city spokesman told us via email. Thus, the Mega Center Montreal received four insults.
“Note that[à la suite de] The BTER carried out a final check last autumn after the offense notices had been delivered, and the company then complied with the regulations,” emphasized the city.
Some customers asked about banned pesticides after they were taken off the shelves, Ms. Di Re testified. “Especially for Roundup because it was a product that people were familiar with. We offered them another solution, a product that we could sell. »
In the whole province?
To reduce the use of pesticides in urban areas, Quebec is proposing to expand the list of banned retail ingredients across the province. The draft regulations presented at the end of February show that there would be 61, almost three times as many as today (22). However, glyphosate does not occur, criticized the militant network Vigilance OGM.
Meanwhile, at least one other town, namely Granby in Estrie, will ban the sale of glyphosate-based herbicides from June.
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110 Number of inspections conducted in 2022 in Montreal businesses selling pesticides. 18 infringement notices were issued, four of which were grounds for insults.
Source: City of Montreal