A Rally Call for Public Outcry
To the Expositor:
The Traditional Ecological Knowledge Elders held a highway protest last week near Serpent River on Highway 17. This group has been vocal for several years, as reported by this newspaper, national media outlets and a CBC documentary, ‘Into the Weeds.’ Many of you may see their billboards on the northern highways: “glyphosate kills all.” Many of you may have also seen the Facebook posts by a nonprofit group “Stop the Spray,” which was started by Joel Thériault, a Northeastern bush pilot, noticing a loss of forest diversity as visible from the air.
Their protest was held as the Ministry of Natural Resources was commencing August 1 the aerial spraying of glyphosate in a large swath of the Spanish forest bordering Elliott Lake, Blind River and Espanola “to control competing vegetation” (as quoted on their Facebook site). They also continue to tout the line that glyphosate is deemed safe if used correctly, although this safety margin was last evaluated in 2017 and will not be reviewed until 2032. There are numerous meta-analyses to date and mounting data that demonstrate the harm to all microbiomes of human, mammal, soil and insects, to which I have personally demonstrated high levels of this known carcinogen in my dead bee colonies. (Note: meta-analyses are examination of data from a number of independent studies of the same subject, in order to determine overall trend. In other words, powerful evidence.)
Take note: It is not just the MNR spraying our forests, it is also the forest companies. Why? To selectively destroy the deciduous trees in favour of the more profitable coniferous trees—more profit. This is much like the approach of the industrial farming model in the south. The use of the this herbicide that is sprayed approximately 1/2-1 litre/acre on the cash crop lands of corn, soy and canola, to name a few. Thus, our province gets ubiquitous application of this compound in the north by forest companies and the MNR, highway roadside application by the MTO and most of our agricultural lands predominantly in the south and here on Manitoulin Island. As the famous 1500s Swiss physician Paracelsus stated: “the dose makes the poison.” How much total herbicide is applied in a year in just our province alone? Only the companies that make this know by their profit margins.
But here’s the clincher: for all these forest fires that we have been experiencing lately, one has to recognize that glyphosate is making our forests dry as tinder. Glyphosate is a desiccant. And also in destroying the deciduous trees that act as a natural buffer for wildfires, we lose that protection. Our forests are now ready to go up in flames at any lightning strike. Just take a look at the title of an article in the Narwhal publication of December 2024 “Aspen is a natural fire guard. Why has BC spent decades killing it off with glyphosate?”
It baffles me how the powers that be discuss carbon taxes and promote electric vehicles, and yet continue to allow this harmful compound to be sprayed year after year in our skies, on our land and spill off into our waters and a lot of this application is funded by you and me—the taxpayers.
I am just hoping that there are more fires that are lit, not in our forests but in the hearts of concerned Canadians like our TEK elders to speak out against this herbicide misuse. To quote Peter Gabriel: “You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire. Once the flame begins to catch, the wind will blow it higher.” Stop the spray.
Janice Mitchell
Tehkummah
