Canada is set to allow greater amounts of pesticide residue on fruit and vegetables because our stricter regulations pose a potential "trade irritant" to US producers. The change in policy will affect hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates....

Canadian regulators and their U.S. counterparts have been working to harmonize their pesticide regulations since 1996, as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This at a time when municipalities throughout Canada are fighting for - and winning - the right to restrict the use of toxic pesticides in their communities, the most recent of which was the high profile court battle in Toronto. In 2005, Toronto finally received the legal go ahead to reduce the non-essential use of pesticides when the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the pesticide industry's final court challenge. Now the government of Canada is set to loosen the reigns on pesticide control on the food we eat to accommodate American trade interests. Welcome to the world of free trade and blurred borders.

Brilliant....just bloody brilliant.

The US government has issued a notice that companies that make or distribute toys or other children's products that include lead will face increased scrutiny as a part of a move to avoid lead poisoning in children.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will now be making contact with up to 120 importing and manufacturing companies by the end of April to instruct them to provide health and safety studies if any lead might be found in the products they make for children.

The risks posed by lead poisoning have been known for decades and are so severe that in the 1980s the petroleum industry was forced to eliminate lead from gasoline - and it's certainly not every day that the oil industry changes its product line in the face of social and health concerns.

So the question is, why is there any lead in children's products in the first place?

Making children's toys from lead is about as intelligent as allowing mercury into the food chain or dumping sewage into drinking water sources. Rather than patting the government on the back for this move, its time to get aggressive with the companies that are placing known poisons in children's toys in the first place.