They call it safe from comfortable offices. Workers carry it on their skin. Communities carry it in their bodies. Forests carry it in silence.
Every Poison Era Has Permission ✍🏼
- ☠️ DDT had official approval – until its ecological damage became impossible to ignore.
- ☠️ Agent Orange was made from 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T – herbicides from the same approved chemical era that exposed workers, forests, and communities before the dioxin legacy became impossible to deny.
- ☠️ In 1980 Glyphosate was not chosen because it was safe. It was just the next registered herbicide after the earlier poison era became impossible to defend.
And now, as the 2026 spray maps roll out, the scientific foundation they used to claim glyphosate “posed no unacceptable risks”, has officially collapsed with the recent fraud retraction, yet they are still signing off on it. And when glyphosate finally becomes too toxic to hide behind, the system is already using Triclopyr, Imazapyr, and whatever poison is comes next. ☠️
But registration is not “safe” and is not “consent”. Approval is not proof that workers, wildlife, water, medicines, berries, mushrooms, pollinators, and communities are PROTECTED.
🏛️ 27 Years of Defending the Indefensible
In 1999, after a two-year federal Senate study on Canada’s boreal forest and industrial forestry, the report Competing Realities: The Boreal Forest at Risk, recommended that “all herbicide and chemical pesticide use in the boreal forest should be phased out as soon as possible.” That recommendation was about protecting the boreal forest, its watersheds, wildlife, biodiversity, forest foods, medicines, rural communities, and the rights and traditional ways of life of Indigenous peoples.
Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia and Alberta kept spraying for another generation. 😱
Governments and industry have had more than a quarter-century to listen to their people, and that federal warning, and move away from chemical forestry – just as Québec did in 2001.
Victor Miller’s Story
Written in 2021 – Agent Orange wasn’t just sprayed in Vietnam… My name is Victor Miller. I’m 63 years old, a cancer survivor, and a former Ontario government employee whose job was spraying chemical herbicide defoliants within Ontario’s public and agreement forests.
I had a full government career and finished my employment term as a Conservation Officer for the province of Ontario, Canada. For decades, I’ve personally seen the damages being caused by chemical herbicide spraying.
As a summer student between 1976 to 1979, I worked in MNRs Forestry Branch. One of my jobs during this time period was to spray herbicides and insecticides. I also remember seeing MTO and Ontario Hydro at this same time with large spray cannons on the back of trucks travelling the roadways and hydro lines spraying large quantities of chemical herbicide defoliants. Sadly, it’s all still happening today. During my 3 year work project with MNRF carrying a backpack sprayer, we used 245-T along with other chemical herbicide defoliant products (I.e. the Agent Orange mixture) along with Malathion as the primary insecticide. The government issued PPE was minimal. The first few years, I was issued an off the shelf paper mask from the local hardware store, plastic goggles with perforations, rubber gloves, cloth coveralls and hard hat. Myself and the other government employees spent countless hot summer days with leaky backpack sprayers standing in clouds of insecticide and herbicide mist, soaked in insecticide or herbicide five days a week.
I remember coming home feeling sick from the smell of these chemicals and my skin feeling burnt. It wasn’t until my last year of spraying that we were given more adequate respirators with disposable filters, disposable coveralls with hoods, rubber boots, gloves, etc. That year we even had a supervisor assigned to us with an applicator’s license monitoring our handling of the chemicals.
I am a cancer survivor. I can’t prove that the cancer was a result of herbicides and insecticides and the government “experts” who reviewed my WSIB case rejected my claim. From the age of 18 to 21 years old during my assigned duties as an applicator, I was covered 5 days a week in insecticides and herbicides which are now deemed illegal for health and environmental reasons …. It makes me wonder. I also remember at the time wondering about the effects that these herbicides and insecticides would have on other plants and wildlife. I thought at the time that we wouldn’t be allowed to do this if it was detrimental to the environment – the government is protecting us. Later I worked as a wildfire fighter. Often I was fighting fires and breathing large amounts of smoke in extensive cutovers which had been recently sprayed with chemical herbicides, and I wondered at the time if my inhaling of smoke from the fire would also contain herbicide residue since wildfire fighters do not wear a protective breathing device? We are our own worst enemy aren’t we? I no longer trust the government to keep me safe and neither should you … Stop the Spray Ontario !!!
Charlie Purich’s Story
This is my story about Agent Orange and Ontario’s public forests … My name is Charlie Purich. I’m 78 years old. Back in the summer of 1961, at the age of 18, I began work for Ontario Lands and Forests (now Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry). One of my jobs that summer was to be a flagman for the Agent Orange chemical defoliants spray job program….. They didn’t call it Agent Orange, nor did we know what they were spraying. We found out later it was a mix of 2,4-D and 2,4,5T – the infamous agent orange Vietnam mixture…. We trusted the government and their scientists to keep us safe – we were wrong…
Several of us workers formed a line to wave a flag at top of a long pole so the aircraft could fly directly over us (as the line of sight) and spray in straight lines. We were setup in Kormak, Ontario, just south of Foleyet and Chapleau, Ontario. The water all flows north in this area – so I would imagine we drank this stuff….
The spray rained down on us for days and I can still smell it today like it’s burned into my nose – 60 years later….
Some of my work friends have since such time died of various diseases – I am disappointed to see that Ontario is still spraying toxic chemicals onto Ontario’s public forests and didn’t learn anything from our past. The government keeps allowing the forestry companies to keep switching chemicals until the science catches up and we realize how toxic these chemicals really are …. Enough is enough – Stop the Spray Ontario !!! Charlie Charlie Purich, 2021.
