Pesticide compliance and enforcement

Find information on how Canada monitors and enforces pesticide compliance.

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• Compliance activities
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Compliance activities

Canada’s Pest Control Products Act and regulations are in place to protect the health and environment of Canadians.

In keeping with our policy, compliance officers across Canada promote, monitor and enforce pesticide compliance fairly and consistently. We also develop:

• compliance guidance documents
• strategies
• procedures

Promotion

We promote compliance so informed decisions can be made by:

• registrants (typically companies that own the pesticide registrations)
• manufacturers
• importers
• distributors
• users

We also promote compliance to increase awareness of the regulations to:

• Canadians
• industry
• associations

Through public consultations, stakeholders and the general public can provide feedback on pesticide regulatory decisions.

We consult our regulatory partners to form and improve working arrangements. This involves working with departments and agencies at all levels of government on pesticide compliance.

At the international level, we work with many regulatory agencies, including the:

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• European Commission, Environment Directorate
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Agricultural Pesticides and Biocides

Monitoring

To ensure compliance, Canada monitors pesticide:

• registrants
• manufacturers
• importers
• distributors
• users

We conduct inspections to determine compliance with such things as the:

• directions on labels
• distribution and use of registered products

Inspections may involve:

• collecting samples for analyses
• examining facilities, product labels and documents

Through our Regulatory Transparency and Openness Framework, we provide information on pest control product registrant inspections to Canadians.

Enforcement

We oversee and enforce compliance related to pesticide:  

• importation
• manufacturing
• distribution
• storage
• advertising
• packaging
• labelling
• record keeping
• use

At our accredited laboratory, we test pesticides to determine if they meet the specifications for which registration was granted. Analysis is also done to detect and report pesticide misuse.

Measures to enforce compliance range from education to prosecution. They may include:

• encouraging voluntary removal of product by the distributor
• seizing the product
• refusing entry of the product into Canada
• issuing a compliance order, warning or penalty
• amending, suspending or cancelling the product registration

Enforcement bulletins provide information on violations that have resulted in warnings or penalties.

Canadians can report a pesticide incident or suspected violation via the Public Engagement Portal Complaint and Violation Form.

Pesticides compliance and enforcement annual reports provide a summary of promotion, monitoring and enforcement activities.