On June 11, the federal government published the National Food Security Strategy, warning that excessive regulations can impose costs, raise prices and reduce investment. The strategy linked weaknesses in Canada’s agricultural sector to unchecked federal regulations and global pressures, including the ever-evolving U.S. tariffs. A week later, Parliament passed Bill C-30 through a legislative shortcut limiting debate and amendments to weaken pesticide regulation.
This decision creates a contradiction that is difficult to ignore: its inadvertent consequences will ultimately result in the economic losses the government says it wants to prevent.
Among the bill’s most consequential changes are amendments to the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA) that authorize Cabinet to override Health Canada’s pesticide decisions for reasons of national economic and food security. Cabinet may also grant exemptions for persons, classes of persons or things that would otherwise be subject to the standards of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. These changes abandon the original intent of the PCPA enacted in 2006 and grounded in preventing unacceptable risks to humans and the environment.
Critics of the bill accuse the government of bypassing transparent debate to dodge public and parliamentary scrutiny. Some warn the changes will leave Canada economically vulnerable by restricting access to international markets with stricter environmental and health regulations. Others point to potential environmental damage.
What is most alarming is the bill does not define what constitutes a threat to economic or national security. Without a clear definition, Bill C-30 creates a legal loophole, handing sweeping, unchecked regulatory power to Cabinet with no criteria for when overrides are justified.
As the leading national organization in nursing and health policy development, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) recognizes the importance of protecting Canada’s economic and food security but firmly rejects the changes as they lack any scientific grounding. For nurses, pesticide regulation is not simply an agricultural or trade issue; it is a public health concern.
For more than three decades, CNA has championed planetary health. This approach is rooted in high-quality scientific evidence on the impacts of harmful human practices and substances, such as pesticides, on human and environmental health. Bill C-30 threatens this goal, posing significant health harms, including but not limited to endocrine disruption, cancer, congenital defects and a host of other health risks. Economic analysis indicates that endocrine-disrupting chemicals already cost Canada nearly $35.8 billion annually, adjusted for inflation, although the true cost is likely higher. Moreover, the resulting harms of Bill C-30 will be borne disproportionately by Indigenous communities, children, agricultural workers, individuals in rural communities and people with chronic health conditions.
The risks are also gendered. Women make up a growing population of farmers in Canada, and decades of research show they face disproportionate health vulnerabilities from pesticide exposure. Until now, pesticide risk assessment has included scientific evidence and sex- and gender-based considerations. However, the recent changes threaten these considerations and sabotage Canada’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality.
Bill C-30 also contradicts the government’s own strategies, including the Pan-Canadian Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, which relies on the One Health approach. This perspective recognizes that food security, environmental integrity, animal health, human health and health equity are fundamentally interconnected. Allowing harmful agricultural pesticides under the pretext of national economic and food security compromises this very premise, as these chemicals contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by creating soil environments where resistant bacteria thrive, and eventually rendering first-line antibiotics ineffective.
The consequences are already evident. Nurses see the impacts on their patients, including longer hospital stays, more complex infections and fewer effective treatment options. In 2018, resistant infections were linked to more than 14,000 deaths in Canada, with 5,400 directly caused by AMR. If action is not taken, the cumulative deaths due to AMR are expected to climb to 396,000 by 2050. The financial toll is equally stark. Canada spends an estimated $1.4 billion annually on AMR-related diseases, costs that are projected to rise drastically. Over the next 24 years, AMR is expected to trigger $388 billion in total GDP losses. This includes $120 billion in cumulative health-care costs alongside an additional $11 billion in annual losses to the agricultural sector.
To be clear, pesticides are not the sole driver of AMR. Inappropriate prescribing and misuse of antibiotics remain major contributors, and nurses are committed to antibiotic stewardship through education, surveillance and judicious prescribing. But evidence consistently points to gaps in governance arrangements within the agricultural sector as important contributors to the AMR crisis. By allowing the federal Cabinet to override science-based pesticide restrictions, Bill C-30 renders the AMR action plan fundamentally flawed, and risks bringing devastating death and economic losses sooner than 2050.
CNA, backed by more than a century of nursing and health policy leadership, joins the growing coalition of interest groups demanding a repeal or substantial amendment of Bill C-30. As shown by the evidence, its immediate and long-term health and economic consequences are severe and far-reaching, and frankly undermine the logic used to justify it.
With the renewal of the national AMR action plan on the horizon in 2027, we urge the federal government to resolve this policy incoherence and align national economic and food security strategies with health and environmental protections. At a minimum, any override should be narrowly defined, evidence-based, transparent and subject to public and parliamentary scrutiny.
Acknowledgement: The authors wish to thank all the CNA staff who contributed to this piece.
