My Letter Story

As a grade four student at St. Martin’s in London, Ontario in 1970, our class studied pollution.  Perhaps Mr. Coleman was a bit ahead of the curve as the 1970’s did usher in an era where we questioned the unbridled oil-driven economic growth of post-war North America.  We were divided into groups and I was disappointed to be saddled with the group that was to present to the class all about ‘Noise Pollution’.  I thought that air and water pollution were much more important.

Fast forward to 1990 when I started an organic lawn care business.  The year 1990 was touted as the first year of what was to be the e-decade, as in e- for the environment.  Interestingly enough, the decade did become the e-decade for all of the electronic innovations such as e-commerce, e-books, and e-mail that became entrenched in our personal and working lives.  

Eventually I became President of the Organic Landscape Alliance, a group of small businesses that had forsaken the traditional chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  The system was skewed very much in favour of the companies using chemical products and spreading these over people’s personal living spaces, ont the ground, into the air and into their water system.  A provincial government employee even came up with a power point presentation and system to support chemical lawn care companies in their quest to combat grassroots efforts to ban chemical usage for cosmetic purposes.  

The pivotal vote for by-laws in Ontario for the ban of pesticides for cosmetic purposes in Ontario was in May 2003 when the City of Toronto was voting on a by-law to ban pesticides on lawns.  It was going to be a close vote and both lobbying and media attention were intense.  The Organic Landscape Alliance was involved but most in an informative capacity.  

The vote at Toronto City Council was in a couple of days.  I was busy.  I had two fussing baby boys at the kitchen table pleasantly distracting me, but I knew that I had to do something.  I wrote a letter.  

The letter below went to all Toronto City Councilors and to the Toronto Star.  We immediately received feedback from enough undecided Councilors that this was the information that they had been missing in order to make an informed decision.   They needed to know that if they voted to ban pesticides that they wouldn’t be leaving their constituents high and dry with no way to care for a lawn.  My letter convinced enough Councilors that enough good alternatives existed for homeowners and businesses.  
Once the Toronto by-law passed in May 2003, the die was cast.  Other municipalities who had been waiting to see what happened in Toronto then carried on with their own by-laws.  Eventually, as was the case with the smoking by-laws, when enough of a critical mass happened across the province in terms of municipal by-laws, the province stepped in and made a law province-wide.

While there are many people whose tireless efforts for as many as 15 years made this law that puts human health as a priority, this one letter made the difference at the critical juncture.  I invite you to join the grassroots effort that is Unpublished Media to find that letter in you that can help shape a better world.