Let's Ban Bans......

Ban Guns! Ban Pesticides! Ban cellphones! Ban driving! Ban commercial development! Ban smoking! Ban sex! And the list goes on and on and usually bans are initiated by those who are the least impacted by the ban.

The Ottawa Citizen's Dan Gardner argues that Ontario's environment minister, John Gerretsen, having been confronted with the lack of scientific evidence supporting the province's new pesticide ban, did what all anti-chemical activists do. He "switch[ed] to a different argument"—namely, that we don't know the cumulative effect of any one chemical interacting with other chemicals. This is largely true, says Gardner, but unfortunately, there are more than a million chemicals in the food supply alone, and "one-half of all substances tested have been found to produce cancer in high-dose animal tests." So if the minister is serious about his concerns—and surely a man in his position would have to be, right?—then he's got some serious work to do.