Industry Gets Representation on PMRA Transformation Steering Committee

Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PRMA), which is undergoing a transformation process, has appointed Sean Rollo to its Transformation Steering Committee.

Rollo, who is technical and business development manager at Orkin Canada and president-elect of the Canadian Pest Management Association (CPMA), will represent the pest management industry in committee deliberations.

Other steering committee members come from agriculture, forestry, pesticide manufacturers, regulatory, and environmental and animal welfare advocacy organizations.

The committee has four main areas of focus: improve transparency of research and information used in decision making; increase the use of real-world data and independent advice; improve human health and environmental protection through modernized pesticide business processes; and undertake a targeted review of the Pest Control Products Act.

Smaller groups are forming to work on specific issues and actions, such as a science advisory committee that will advise PRMA, as appropriate, prior to federal decisions on pesticides on issues such as including maximum pesticide residue limits.

The steering committee also is exploring ways to provide continuous oversight of the pesticide product lifecycle instead of PRMA re-evaluating products once every 15 years, said Rollo. This could help streamline the registration and re-evaluation process for pesticide products. It would give industry experts and the public more time to provide data and feedback and PRMA officials more time to review it.

PRMA and CPMA officials met in March 2020 at the Pest Management Canada conference in Quebec City, where PRMA unveiled plans to transform the product re-evaluation process.

“Then COVID hit, and everything went quiet,” said Rollo. “Now it’s ramped up again, and it’s much bigger. They’re involving everyone, which I think is really good.”

Rollo called the PRMA transformation initiative “very encouraging,” but time will tell how effective the steering committee is at implementing change, he said.