Introduction
The Federal Court’s ruling in Friends of the Earth Canada v Attorney General of Canada is not what it appears to be.[1] On the surface, it appears to be yet another dry and narrowly focused judicial review of a bureaucratic decision far removed from the pressing concerns of Canadians’ daily lives. The Court’s blinkered judgment, however, reflects and reinforces Canada’s broken and captured regulation of dangerous pesticides—in this case glyphosate, a probable human carcinogen—present throughout our food supply. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s notorious glyphosate-based Roundup® pesticide, is the most controversial chemical that you’ve likely never heard of. But you’d never know it from the Court’s judgment in this case.
Background: The Glyphosate Controversy
Glyphosate, specifically Roundup®, was first registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1974; Health Canada followed suit in 1976. Glyphosate has since become the most heavily used agricultural pesticide in history, and it is also used extensively for other industrial and consumer purposes, including lawn and garden applications.
Scientific concerns about the adverse environmental and public-health impacts of glyphosate have grown for decades. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the world’s leading authority on cancer, classified glyphosate—including Monsanto’s Roundup®—as a “probable human carcinogen.” Product-liability litigation and regulatory challenges ensued in the United States and Canada and are ongoing at this writing. Meanwhile, the independent peer-reviewed scholarly literature on the adverse effects of glyphosate-based pesticides continues to grow. In June 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that EPA’s human-health assessment of glyphosate and the agency’s conclusion that there is “no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans” was itself “not supported by substantial evidence” and thus “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”[2]
A few months later, in October 2022, the applicants in the case at bar sent a letter to Health Canada’s semi-independent Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) enclosing 61 new scientific studies identifying new or increased risks associated with glyphosate.[3] The applicants urged PMRA to suspend all renewals of glyphosate-based pesticides until the agency has reassessed glyphosate based on the most up-to-date science.
Notably, in 2024 IARC reviewed the independent scientific evidence on the human-health effects of glyphosate published since 2015 and affirmed its classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.[4]
Yet EPA and PMRA have redoubled their regulatory approvals of glyphosate-based pesticides, insisting there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.[5]
Rubber-Stamping Dangerous Pesticides: The Case of Mad Dog Plus
While Monsanto remains the largest manufacturer of glyphosate-based pesticides, both globally and in Canada, other manufacturers have taken advantage of the expiration of Monsanto’s patent on glyphosate in 2000 to produce substantially similar products. Loveland Products Canada Inc. is one of those registrants, and in August 2022 Loveland applied to PMRA to renew the registration of its glyphosate-based pesticide “Mad Dog Plus” for another five years.[6] Loveland did not submit, and PMRA did not require, any new scientific evidence in support of its application. PMRA approved Loveland’s application in December 2022. PMRA issued Loveland a Renewal Registration Certificate, “a standardized form that primarily restates details from the application and confirms that the renewal was granted.”[7] PMRA “provided no formal reasons” for its decision.[8]
What of PMRA’s response to the 61 new scientific studies on glyphosate published since PMRA’s last assessment in 2017? The applicants moved under Rule 317 of the Federal Courts Rules for production of PMRA’s assessment.[9] After initially resisting production, PMRA admitted that it had no documents “specifically prepared” regarding the renewal of Mad Dog Plus addressing the 61 scientific studies.[10] According to the Court, “[n]o further information was provided, and the Minister of Health did not submit an affidavit or any other explanation clarifying the lack of documented analysis.”[11]
The Federal Court’s Decision: Glyphosate Gaslighting
The applicants challenged PMRA’s renewal of Mad Dog Plus on the ground that it was unreasonably based on a dated risk assessment absent any consideration of the most up-to-date science.
The Court concurred, sort of.
In response to the applicants’ October 2022 letter enclosing 61 new scientific studies for PMRA’s review, the agency eventually produced four brief internal memoranda. Each document contains “near-identical language that acknowledge[s] awareness of the new publications and state, without any elaboration, that the new evidence ‘does not change the current assessment on file that risks are acceptable when label directions are followed.’”[12]
The Court explained that PMRA’s decision “leaves the Court with nothing more than the Respondent’s [PMRA’s] assurance of ‘trust us, we got it right.’”[13] The Court concluded that it “cannot deem a decision reasonable when the record offers virtually no sign of whether the Agency has considered evidence that directly challenges its conclusions.”[14] The Court added that neither PMRA’s memoranda nor the record as a whole “substantively address any studies at all, they merely acknowledge their existence, despite the gravity of the concerns flagged by the Applicants.”[15]
It follows that neither PMRA nor Loveland demonstrated that glyphosate and glyphosate-based pesticide products do not pose unreasonable risks to the environment and public health. PMRA administers the Pest Control Products Act.[16] Subsection 2(2) of the Act provides that “the health or environmental risks of a pest control product are acceptable if there is reasonable certainty that no harm to human health, future generations or the environment will result from exposure to or use of the product, taking into account its conditions or proposed conditions of registration.”[17] This precautionary risk definition undergirds the Acts primary objective “to prevent unacceptable risks to individuals and the environment from the use of pest control products.”[18]
Yet the Court’s remedy effectively gaslights Canadians concerned about glyphosate. The Court refused to quash PMRA’s renewal of Mad Dog Plus, let alone address the registration status of glyphosate-based pesticides as a class, including Monsanto’s Roundup®. The Court entirely ignored the primary, precautionary objective of the Pest Control Products Act and based its remedy instead on concerns raised by the pesticide manufacturer Loveland. “Mad Dog Plus is but one glyphosate-based product among many similarly renewed by PMRA. It would be disproportionately onerous to force Loveland, and all parties in its distribution chain, to endure an abrupt invalidation of the renewal, pending reconsideration, particularly given that the statutory breach at issue is the PMRA’s lack of transparent reasons rather than Loveland’s wrongdoing.”[19] The Court instead remitted the matter to PMRA for reconsideration without quashing the renewal. The Court further ordered that the renewal will only be quashed on the date that is the earlier of the date that is six months from the date of the order versus the date that PMRA issues a decision in line with the Court’s reasons.[20]
The Court’s remedy favours the pesticide manufacturer Loveland and the firms in its supply chain. Nothing in the Pest Control Products Act authorizes this prioritization, which contradicts the Act’s primary objective, the prevention of harm to public health and the environment.
Moreover, PMRA’s unreasonable renewal of Mad Dod Plus is equally applicable and legally fatal to the regulatory approval of all the glyphosate-based pesticides currently registered by PMRA. This fact does not, however, support a remedy benefiting Loveland. Instead, it supports the applicants’ earlier request that PMRA immediately suspend all extant renewals of glyphosate-based pesticides until the agency can properly consider whether they do not pose unacceptable risks to the public and the environment.
And while the Act does not impose an independent obligation on pesticide manufacturers to provide PMRA with relevant scientific data and studies, it can hardly be said that Loveland came to Federal Court with clean hands. Loveland was either aware or ought to have been aware of the new scientific studies submitted by the applicants to PMRA, and yet Loveland provided PMRA with no submissions on those studies, not even in disagreement. A responsible company with due concern for public health and environmental protection would not have simply stayed mum on the live issue of glyphosate’s adverse effects, including the risk that it causes cancer in humans. For the Court to nonetheless privilege the industry’s pecuniary interests over the precautionary public-interest purpose of the Pest Control Products Act is disturbing.
The Court, despite having found PMRA’s renewal of Mad Dog Plus unreasonable, uncritically assumes that PMRA’s 2017 evaluation in response to IARC’s 2015 classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen is scientifically sound and reliable. The Court’s reasons fail to mention, much less consider, the extensive evidence squarely on the record before it that the regulatory science on glyphosate—including PMRA’s 2017 evaluation—is flawed. The Court does not consider the judicial review of the scientific reliability of PMRA’s 2017 evaluation of glyphosate still pending before another judge of the Federal Court.[21] The Court appears unaware that PMRA previously admitted to relying almost exclusively on industry-sponsored science and information, including the infamous “Monsanto Papers,”[22] a damaging admission prompting the federal government to undertake a $42 million “transformation agenda” that only recently concluded.[23] The Court does not discuss the U.S. Ninth Circuit’s comprehensive and damning 2022 review of EPA’s human-health assessment of glyphosate,[24] which was conducted in conjunction with PMRA’s 2017 evaluation. Nor does the Court appear to be aware of the ongoing legal challenge to the scientific basis of the European Commission’s 2023 reauthorization of glyphosate ongoing before the European Court of Justice.[25] The Court similarly makes no mention of IARC’s 2024 re-affirmation of its 2015 classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, surely a highly salient scientific development with pressing regulatory implications.
Conclusion
There is a bitter irony to the Court’s decision. The Court explains that it cannot possibly accept PMRA’s naked plea of “trust us, we got it right.” Yet after explaining that PMRA has failed to genuinely assess a body of grave scientific findings contradicting its regulatory approval of glyphosate, the Court’s remedy allowing probably carcinogenic glyphosate-based pesticides to remain for sale and use in Canada leaves Canadians with precisely the same “trust us, we got it right” problem.
A new approach to reviewing regulatory science is urgently needed. While the Court is correct that it cannot serve as the final arbiter of scientific proof, it can and must do better in assessing the proper weight of regulatory science, including utilizing well-established proxy rules for determining scientific reliability. Those well-established proxies include (1) the public openness and availability of the science in question and its potential for replication and reproducibility; (2) whether the science was conducted independently for the purpose of discovering the truth, as opposed to being commissioned and sponsored by vested special interests for the purposes of obtaining regulatory approval; and (3) whether the science was subject to robust scholarly peer review. How regulators and courts choose to interpret and use science to enforce the law and promote the public interest profoundly impacts the daily lives of ordinary individuals.
Both PMRA and the Federal Court must do better. Most importantly, they cannot continue to promote industry interests in profit maximization over the legally enshrined public interest in the precautionary protection of the environment and public health. Nearly 60 years ago, a CalTech geochemistry professor—Clair Patterson—sounded a similar warning to the U.S. Congress about lead pollution, which industry characterized as “natural.” Professor Patterson testified that it “is not just a mistake for public health agencies to cooperate and collaborate with industries in investigating and deciding whether public health is endangered—it is a direct abrogation and violation of the duties and responsibilities of those public health organizations.”[26]
Conflicts of Interest Statement
I have been paid to produce expert regulatory reports and provide expert-witness testimony for plaintiffs in U.S. litigation concerning the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and glyphosate-based pesticide products, including Monsanto’s Roundup® products. I have also been paid to produce an expert regulatory report and provide expert-witness testimony for plaintiffs in U.S. litigation concerning the harms of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” Finally, I have provided on a pro bono basis an affidavit in the Federal Court of Canada as a part of the non-profit organization Safe Food Matters’ application for judicial review in respect of Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency’s regulatory assessment of glyphosate and glyphosate-based pesticides. I have received no funding, support, or assistance of any kind in the conception, preparation, or completion of this article from any lawyers or other experts involved in the U.S. litigation or the Canadian judicial review.
[1] Friends of the Earth Canada, David Suzuki Foundation, Safe Food Matters Inc, and Environmental Defence Canada Inc v Attorney General of Canada, Minister of Health, and Loveland Products Canada Inc, 2025 FC 300 [Loveland].
[2] Natural Resources Defense Council et al v U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No 20-70787 (9th Cir. 2022) at 20, 33 [NRDC].
[3] Loveland, supra note 1 at para 8.
[4] International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), IARC Monographs on the Identification of Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans. Report of the Advisory Group to Recommend Priorities for the IARC Monographs during 2025-2029, Lyon, France (Mar. 19-22, 2024) at 213-16.
[5] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Glyphosate” (May 9, 2025), https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/glyphosate. Government of Canada, “Glyphosate in Canada” (Aug. 28, 2020), https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/consumer-product-safety/reports-publications/pesticides-pest-management/fact-sheets-other-resources/glyphosate.html.
[6] Loveland, supra 1 at para 9.
[7] Ibid at para 14.
[8] Ibid at para 12.
[9] Ibid at para 11. The Federal Court granted the applicants’ motion in Friends of the Earth Canada v Canada (Attorney General), 2023 FC 1438.
[10] Loveland, supra note 1 at para 11.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid at para 13.
[13] Ibid at para 43.
[14] Ibid at para 44.
[15] Ibid at para 46.
[16] Pest Control Products Act, S.C. 2002, c. 28.
[17] Ibid at s 2(2).
[18] Ibid at s 4(1) [emphasis added].
[19] Loveland, supra note 1 at para 54 [emphasis added].
[20] Ibid at para 55.
[21] Safe Food Matters Inc v Attorney General of Canada and Minister of Health, Court File No T2292-22.
[22] Environmental Defence, “Media Backgrounder: Health Canada’s re-evaluation of glyphosate and the Monsanto Papers” (Nov. 2018), https://environmentaldefence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Monsanto-Papers-Media-Backgrounder-Nov-2018.pdf; see also Danny Hakim, “Monsanto Emails Raise Issue of Influencing Research on Roundup Weed Killer,” The New York Times (Aug. 1, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-sway-over-research-is-seen-in-disclosed-emails.html.
[23] Government of Canada, “How we’re transforming the Pest Management Regulatory Agency” (Mar 21, 2024), https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/about-health-canada/branches-agencies/pest-management-regulatory-agency/transforming/how-we-are-transforming.html.
[24] NRDC, supra note 2.
[25] Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, “Next step: glyphosate approval is brought to the European Court of Justice” (Dec. 11, 2024), https://www.pan-europe.info/press-releases/2024/12/next-step-glyphosate-approval-brought-european-court-justice.
[26] See Air Pollution-1966: Hearings on S. 3112 and S. 3400 Before the Subcomm. on Air and Water Pollution of the Subcomm. on Public Works, 89th Cong. 315 (1966) (testimony of Clair Patterson) [emphasis added].
