May 19, 2003
Among her many attributes, Lorraine Van Haastrecht has two things that Toronto Health Board Chair Joe Mihevc can’t take: commonsense and pluck.
When Mihevc puffed himself into a high state of righteousness over radio ads for the Toronto Environmental Coalition, group spokeswoman Van Haastrecht stood firm.
Van Haastrecht, who runs Dr. Green Services, was accused of "fear mongering," all for pointing out, via a series of ads, that unkempt weed-choked lawns and gardens could attract mosquito swarms and subsequently the risk of deadly West Nile Disease.
In politically correct times, where it is sometimes tempting to run for cover, Van Haastrecht simply came up with new ads, the main theme of which was "bad information leads to bad legislation."
Mihevc, hell-bent to have colleagues on Toronto City Council approve a ban on pesticides, must have been seething.
With his knickers all in a twist, Mihevc criticized the lady gardener, and her group of 12 lawn-related companies, for choosing a name for their lobby too close to that of a major environmental group. The Toronto Environmental Association (TEA), made up of volunteers, truly cares about the environment, lectured Joe, whereas the Toronto Environmental Coalition is only a lobby group for the lawn and garden industry.
Well, if business takes a comfortable back seat on the Joe Mihevc priority list, it doesn’t in the one passionately advocated by Lorraine Van Haastrecht.
In standing up to Coun. Joe Mihevc, this little lobbyist showed admirable pluck and courage. Mihevec had the clout of his city hall office behind him. Van Haastrecht had only herself and her wits.
From firsthand experience, I can tell you that the interest groups catered to by some councillors can get downright nasty. With their full attention on her, Van Haastrecht never lost sight of her dignity, and remained absolutely unflinching.
The `lady of lawns,’ who has spent the past 26 months visiting councillors at City Hall, must have infinite patience. Staying the course, she wasn’t driven away by numbing bureaucracy or the politics of pandering.
As sturdy as any of the weeds she means to uproot, Van Haastrecht refuses to allow the truth of her arguments to get lost in the shuffle. The Toronto Environmental Alliance does not have a monopoly on ‘truly caring for the environment’. Everybody reasonable cares about the environment. One could argue that gardeners and lawn related professionals, whose job it is to create green life, care about it even more.
It is, as Tony Di Giovanni of Ontario Landscapers points out, "us and not the activists out there planting all the trees."
As the Battle of the Lawns heats up to May 21, when council will debate inflicting a bylaw banning pesticides on the public at large, it’s Van Haastrecht 1-Mihevc 0.
Resolute and indefatigable, Van Haastrecht has a lot of smarts. And she didn’t get them by sitting around in a fatcat local councillor’s office.
The spade, the trowel, and the rake are her proud symbols. And staying in the trenches means being armed with science and knowledge. For instance, in November of 2001, Toronto City Council requested that the Board of Health provide an accurate report on pesticide usage in the city of Toronto, with the guidance of Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, a representative from the Toxicology Institute at the University of Guelph, and representatives from the lawn care industry and from the special interest groups.
The completed report clearly indicates that there is no proof of adverse health effects from pesticide usage to human health, or to the welfare of the environment.
Yet, in the wake of the report, Dr. Sheela Basrur was instructed to prepare a bylaw to restrict pesticide usage in Toronto, citing the "precautionary principle."
In other words, all input from Health Canada, the Toxicology Institute of Guelph University, and professional lawn care applicators was ignored.
Money from the public purse (read your tax dollars) paid for the totally ignored report.
Van Haastrecht is a practical woman, an attribute acquired from running her own business, Dr. Green Services.
"If there was something wrong with the products we use on lawns, do you think I would have my own sons working for the business?" she asks.
Mihevc, who exerted his influence in getting local radio stations to pull her group’s original ads, did nothing to stop Lorraine Van Haastrecht in her tracks; her high heels can still be heard echoing through city hall corridors.
This is not a battle her industry intends to give up on.
"To me, it is truly outrageous that special interest groups will be dictating public policy in Toronto, and science has been thrown out the window," she says.
During the course of the battle, the spirit of the woman who won’t give up has drawn many new foot soldiers, some of whom want her to run for council.
As far as some of his own constituents are concerned, Joe Mihevc’s seat would be a good place to start.
CanadaFreePress.com offers this as a campaign slogan: "Joe’s gotta go."
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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