1. Children should be free from involuntary urban pesticide exposures while walking to school. This general assumption can be used to evaluate the provisions of any proposed bylaw.

2. People have a right to be safe in their homes, free from involuntary pesticide exposures. The Nova Scotia Environment Act includes safeguards for the full enjoyment of one's home and property, which are frequently violated by the effects of unwanted exposures to landscape pesticides.

3. No one should be expected to leave their home to avoid pesticides. Conversely, no one should be kept a "prisoner" in one's home in order to avoid landscape pesticides.

4. A pesticide bylaw should protect the entire community, not just those highly sensitive to pesticides.

5. Children and the unborn are especially vulnerable to toxic exposures in their environment.

6. Effective pesticide bylaws recognize that the proprietary interestsof commercial businesses should never take precedence over the health of the public.

7. ALL ingredients in commercial pesticide formulations should be fully listed whenever they are sold or used, without exception.

8. Bylaw provisions, including the early stages of a bylaw phased-in over several years, should make use of the specific provisions granted to HRM by the jurisdiction in Section 533 of the Municipal Government Act (as distinct from the limiting jurisdiction imposed on other Nova Scotian communities).

9. Requirements for a "medical reason" to partake in the provisions of a bylaw were omitted from the jurisdiction for HRM, which specifically states that it is "open to the public."

10. There are clear economic advantages to a "clean and green" community.

11. A phased-in plan should be implemented leading to a total ban on landscape pesticides.

12. Preliminary stages in the bylaw will be accepted more readily if everyone knows a total ban is coming.

13. Public education initiatives are crucial at all stages (initial,midway, and for the long range future) to the full acceptance of a bylaw.

14. If a registration system is employed, it should be fully open to all members of the public.

15. Risk is a social construct. Only the members of each community can decide how much risk they are willing to accept.

16. It is impossible to keep pesticides confined to the place where they are applied.

17. Sensitive areas such as waterways, schools, hospitals, parks, sources of drinking water, etc. should be identified and provided with ample buffer zones in which pesticide use is prohibited.

18. HRM is in urgent need of a comprehensive Wellhead Protection Program to protect groundwater and drinking water sources from pesticide contamination. Sprayers do not even know where the approximately 20,000 Halifax-area wells ARE when they apply pesticides.

19. The regulatory vacuum surrounding urban pesticide use should becorrected. Proposals involving notification-only are not addressing the problem.

20. The increasingly urgent need for sustainable environmental policies clearly indicates that we should be removing those environmental toxins that are non-essential and within our ability to control. As the Medical Officer of Health for Toronto has suggested (Oct.1998), a logical place to start is with landscape pesticides.