The “Safety” Foundation Has Been Retracted and March 2026’s International Glyphosate Symposium Experts made it even clearer: current glyphosate science no longer supports blanket claims of “no unacceptable risk.”
The fact: In late 2025, the Williams, Kroes and Munro glyphosate paper- the most widely cited industry-aligned safety review of its kind – was formally retracted over serious ethical concerns tied to ghostwriting and the integrity of the article’s conclusions.
Why it matters here: Health Canada’s 2017 glyphosate re-evaluation, RVD2017-01, cited that paper in its reference list while assuring the public that glyphosate was “unlikely to pose a human cancer risk” and would not pose an “unacceptable risk” when used according to label directions.
The accountability issue: PMRA cannot use a paper to reinforce public confidence in a safety conclusion, then dismiss its relevance once that paper is retracted for ethical fraud. If it helped support the public case for “no unacceptable risk,” its collapse matters.
Independent Science Has Overtaken the Old Safety Script
New in March 2026: At the Seattle Glyphosate Symposium, nearly 70 experts reviewed the latest evidence and adopted the Seattle Statement on Glyphosate and Public Health. Their conclusion was blunt: glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides harm human health and can cause cancer, and the evidence is now strong enough that “no additional delays in regulation of glyphosate can be justified.”
The statement also points to harms beyond cancer, including endocrine, neurological, reproductive, kidney, liver, and metabolic damage, along with genetic damage, oxidative stress, and hormonal disruption.
Seattle Statement on Glyphosate and Public Health
https://deohs.washington.edu/sgs/statement
University of Washington news release on the symposium
https://deohs.washington.edu/news/sgs
C&EN coverage: Public health experts call for stricter glyphosate regulation
https://cen.acs.org/food/agriculture/glyphosate-symposium-health-epa-bayer-monsanto/104/web/2026/03
Ontario Professional Foresters: Your Sign-Off Changed on May 1, 2025
The requirement: As of May 1, 2025, the OPFA officially implemented its Indigenous Peoples, Lands & Resources Standard as part of the Professional Standards of Practice.
The mandate: Professional foresters practising in Ontario are now required to meet competencies related to Indigenous jurisdiction, Aboriginal and treaty rights, engagement protocols, consultation and accommodation, and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
The phase-in reality: The two-year window to May 1, 2027 is not a delay in the standard itself. The standard is already in force. The phase-in applies to when certain existing members must complete and document competency, not to whether Indigenous jurisdiction can be ignored in 2026.
But the real question now is bigger. After years of failure-to-warn cancer litigation, ongoing lawsuits, major settlements and verdicts, Canada’s own class action, Ontario’s cosmetic ban, decades of unresolved Indigenous rights issues, the December 2025 retraction, the March 2026 Glyphosate Symposium conclusion, and 61 Ontario municipalities saying no, continued spraying would represent more than a regulatory failure. It would be an ETHICAL FAILURE. (see Ontario’s Toxic Legacy for sources and links)
The takeaway
- PMRA is federal. Federal registration is not the same as a forestry decision.
- Provinces can act – in 2001, Quebec ended forestry spraying without Federal Regulatory Changes, and in 2009, Ontario banned cosmetic glyphosate to protect Children and Families from “unnecessary risk”. But Ontario, BC, AB, NS and NB, carved out exceptions for forestry.
If glyphosate truly posed “no unacceptable risks,” why was it banned on lawns and gardens to protect children and families from unnecessary risk?
Why are forest children, families, wildlife, and water denied that same protection?
The real question is not whether PMRA exists. It is why provinces still choose to spray.
