Report a Pesticide Incident

All pesticides are tested and evaluated for safety before being registered for use by Canadians. To continue to monitor for safety after they are registered, Health Canada collects pesticide incident reports from Canadians.

If you are a pesticide registrant or applicant, please consult the Mandatory Pesticide Incident Reporting for Registrants and Applicants section.

What is a pesticide incident?

A pesticide incident is a negative effect (adverse reaction) to humans, animals (pets or livestock) or the environment (plants or wildlife) that can result from being exposed to a pesticide.

Pesticide incidents include:

• Effects to humans, such as skin rash, headache or nausea
• Effects to a domestic animal like a pet or farm animal, such as vomiting, bleeding or itchy skin
• Effects to the environment, such as dead fish or birds or yellowed leaves
• Problems with pesticide containers, such as a leaking container, misfiring spray can or blocked nozzle.

How do I report a pesticide incident?

You do not have to be certain that a pesticide caused the effect in order to report it.

There are two ways you can report a pesticide incident:

1. Contact the pesticide company as listed on the product label. They are required by law to report all incidents related to their products to Health Canada.
   or
2. Report the incident directly to Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency via our Public Engagement Portal Voluntary Incident Reporting Form. The form included in the portal allows you to report on the following:
   • Human Health Incident
   • Domestic Animal Incident
   • Environmental Incident

   A Packaging Incident form can be requested directly from the PMRA's Information Service.

For help in filling out the forms, please contact our Pest Management Information Service. Refer to these definitions for further information.

What happens to the information I submit?

All pesticide incident reports submitted to us are made available to the public on our website through our Public Registry. Personal information is removed from a report before it is posted.

How does Health Canada use the information?

We use all available information to assess if the pesticide was the cause of the reported effect. If so, we assess what the risk to Canadians is and how similar incidents can be prevented. We do this by attempting to answer these questions:

• When and how did exposure happen?
• Are the effects expected?
• How many other incidents of this kind have been reported?
• How complete is the information in the report?
• Was the product used according to the label instructions?
• Is the product used a lot in Canada?

Health Canada could conclude that an effect is unrelated to a pesticide, or that it is unlikely, possible, probable or highly probable that the effect was caused by a pesticide. Sometimes the results of our evaluation of an incident may be inconclusive due to insufficient information. For example, many of the symptoms commonly reported, such as headache, nausea and coughing can be due to causes other than being exposed to a pesticide.

If we do identify an issue, actions taken can include:

• Providing safety tips to the public
• Improving label instructions
• Adding safety measures to the label

Additional Resources

• Annual Reports on Pesticide Incidents
• Public Registry - Incident Reports
• Report Pesticide Problems - Fact Sheet

To report a problem with another type of product (for example, drugs or cosmetics), please visit the Adverse Reaction Reporting for Specific Products webpage.

For more information on pesticides, please contact our Pest Management Information Service.