526878

research-article2014
IRS0010.1177/1012690214526878International Review for the Sociology of SportMillington and Wilson

Article

International Review for the

An unexceptional exception: Sociology of Sport

1­–22
© The Author(s) 2014
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environmental regulation DOI: 10.1177/1012690214526878
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in Canada

Brad Millington
University of Bath, UK

Brian Wilson
University of British Columbia, Canada

Abstract
This paper features a critical examination of recent legislation banning cosmetic pesticide
applications in the province of Ontario, Canada. It focuses in particular on the exemption of
golf courses from the province’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act of 2009. Drawing from a wide
range of materials, the authors first contextualize Ontario’s recent law through an overview
of the historical development of pre- and post-market pesticide regulation in Canada. This
includes a review of the fierce debates that have at times arisen between pro- and anti-
chemical factions. From there, the authors evaluate the Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act. In
one sense, the law – and especially golf’s exemption from the law – is said to exemplify
“environmental managerialist” decision-making, whereby governments must satisfy a “dual
mandate” of promoting economic growth and environmental sustainability simultaneously.
In another, related way, it is seen as demonstrative of an “ecological modernist” approach
to environmental problems in which industry-led, technologically-advanced solutions are
privileged above others. Taken together, golf’s “special status” in Ontario’s new pesticide
legislation is deemed reflective of a wider trend towards neoliberal environmental policy
making in Canada. It is also regarded in closing as a reason for future research into sport and
environmental policy.

Keywords
environment, health, pesticides, policy, sport

Corresponding author:
Brad Millington, Department of Education (1WN), University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY,
UK.
Email: b.millington@bath.ac.uk

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2 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

Introduction
In 2009, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada – led by the incumbent Liberal
party – unveiled the Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act. Arrived at following both an election
pledge from Premier Dalton McGuinty and a consultation process featuring spokespeo-
ple from industry and health organizations, the Act prohibited the use of pesticides for
cosmetic reasons on lawns, vegetable/ornamental gardens, patios, driveways, cemeter-
ies, and in parks and school yards. It furthermore banned more than 250 pesticides for
sale and outlawed over 95 pesticide ingredients for cosmetic uses (Ontario Ministry of
the Environment, 2009).
As could be expected, this legislation was touted by the Liberal government as evi-
dence of a commitment to reducing the risks associated with pesticide use. It was also
said to reflect their willingness to listen to citizens and experts. As described on the
Ontario government website: “We have listened to medical experts – like the Canadian
Cancer Society – who have made a convincing case for reducing our exposure to pesti-
cides, particularly children who are generally more susceptible to the potential toxic
effects of pesticides” (Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 2013). Indeed, support for
the legislation extended beyond government, with environmental activists like those at
the David Suzuki Foundation suggesting that, “the new ban has the potential to meaning-
fully protect human health and the environment from an unnecessary source of chemical
exposures” (David Suzuki Foundation, n.d.).
Although deemphasized in the government’s promotion of the legislation, there
were exception clauses in the Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act, perhaps the most promi-
nent of which pertained to golf courses. Said the Ontario government at the time:
“Golf courses are conditionally excepted from the ban provided they follow tough
new rules” (Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 2009). The most significant of
these involved gaining accreditation in Integrated Pest Management, a system for
managing turfgrass already familiar to the golf industry. This was evidently a point of
contention for groups like the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Cancer
Society who recommended that pesticides be fully excised from the golf superinten-
dent’s arsenal (Bachand and Gue, 2011; Canadian Cancer Society, 2013). By contrast,
and of little surprise, representatives of the golf industry supported their exemption
from Ontario’s new law. They also gave input – input that was ultimately reflected
in the law – as to what the “tough new rules” referred to by the government
would comprise.
This paper examines the circumstances surrounding, and provisions associated
with, the conditional exemption of golf from an otherwise far-reaching and widely
applauded legislative move. Drawing from literature on environmental policy, herein
we both historicize and outline the contemporary tenets of Canada’s intricate system
of regulating pesticides.1 In doing so, we pursue the following argument: that Canada’s
framework for pesticide regulation, while ostensibly precautionary at both the pre-
and post-market levels, is largely underscored by the principles of voluntarism that
have infiltrated other aspects of environmental oversight in recent years. In that golf’s
special status in Ontario’s new pesticide law is likewise undergirded by voluntarism
– as well as “ecological modernization,” a concept we explain below – this legislative

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Millington and Wilson 3

exception is in fact unexceptional to behold. With this in mind, we also suggest that
the provincial Liberal government’s decision to ban some pesticide uses while at the
same time exempting an industry with a well-developed environmental responsibility
program is relevant and instructive for those studying other national contexts where
debates about environmental and health-related issues and policies have been fore-
grounded in recent years, and where neoliberal-influenced reforms have also taken
hold (Andrews, 2006; Lazarus, 2008).
We carry out the following steps towards these ends. First, as noted we begin by
outlining existing research pertaining to government decision-making on environ-
mental issues. Here we feature a collection of overlapping concepts, including
“sustainable development,” “ecological modernization,” and “environmental mana-
gerialism,” while also explaining and documenting the impacts of these concepts on
policy making in Canada in particular. We also note the importance of studying
sport’s place in environmental policy making at this time, given the small
but growing body of literature documenting the “exceptional” status sometimes
bestowed on sport.
Second, we trace a history of and examine the present context for pesticide regulation
in Canada. At this time we specifically outline the structure of federal “pre-market” over-
sight and follow this with a description of provincial and municipal “post-market” laws.
This second step allows for an overview of Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act and
the reaction it engendered from various stakeholders.
Third, in our discussion section, we return to the theoretical concepts noted above,
and identify lingering concerns surrounding pesticide laws in general and Ontario’s leg-
islative framework in particular. In both cases, our stated concerns pertain specifically to
the role of industry in regulatory systems and, by extension, the role of voluntarism as a
neoliberal policy instrument. We close by recommending future research on sport’s “spe-
cial status” in environmental policy.
The information and arguments offered throughout this paper are drawn from and
based on our analyses of the following: (1) documents produced by two government-
appointed Standing Committees; (2) press releases from lobbyists for the pesticide
industry (e.g. CropLife Canada); (3) website materials and documents from health
organizations and environmental groups (e.g. the Canadian Cancer Society and the
David Suzuki Foundation); (4) trade publications produced by and for golf course
superintendents (namely GreenMaster, a Canadian-focused trade magazine); and (5)
media reports pertaining to golf, the environment, and/or Canadian pesticide law. Our
attempt to draw together and make sense of these interrelated but eclectic sources was
guided by what is commonly termed a “contextual analytic approach” (Grossberg,
2010; King, 2005). “Contextual analysis” work is underpinned by the assumption that
understanding the meaning of and contradictions pertinent to particular texts (includ-
ing policies) and practices requires assessment of the historical circumstances sur-
rounding the texts/practices in question, the social positioning of key decision-makers,
and the confrontations and power relations that emerge between stakeholders. As will
become evident, the main arguments we feature herein are illuminated only because of
our attention to these various contextual factors and to the ways they articulate with
one another.

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4 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

Literature review
Government policy and environmental managerialism
Our study of Ontario’s pesticide legislation and golf’s exemption from it is guided first
by research into the relationship between environmental protection and economic
growth. It is in particular influenced by research charting the impacts of neoliberalism on
policy making – impacts that have to a great extent involved the adoption of industry
responsibility as a governance strategy in recent years.
A first, most basic, term that is relevant in this regard is that of “sustainable develop-
ment,” generally defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment
and Development (WCED), 1987: 8; cited in Berger et al., 2001: 56; also see
Chernushenko, 2001: 10). This notion itself is based on the idea that economic, social,
and environmental concerns are inseparable, and therefore must be dealt with in an inte-
grated manner – hence the language of the “triple bottom line.” As many scholars have
noted, in the wake of the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development
(also known as the Brundtland Commission), sustainable development was embraced by
governments, industry, and activists alike. Indeed, so popular have sustainability dis-
courses become in recent years that, as Krueger and Gibbs (2007: 1) say, “it’s really quite
difficult to find anyone who isn’t in favor of sustainability” (cf. Swyngedouw, 2007).
Certainly, however, there are differing interpretations on how this notion should translate
into practice.
A more specific theoretical perspective pertaining to sustainability-driven work is that
of “ecological modernization,” or EM. If from one perspective sustainable development
can be deemed a rationale for slowing economic growth, when EM-driven theory and
sustainability-driven policies are linked (as they commonly are in the work of govern-
ment and industry – Davidson and MacKendrick, 2004), sustainability becomes “rede-
fined as one of the possible routes for a neoliberal renewal of the capitalist accumulation
process” (Keil, 2007: 46). More precisely, and as its name foretells, EM sees moderniza-
tion as both a cause of and solution to environmental problems: the technological inge-
nuity of late capitalism can be leveraged towards a “clean,” “superindustrial” phase of
existence (Huber, 1982; also see Spaargaren and Mol, 1992). This is true of both the
“strong” and “weak” variants of EM, though the former embraces multi-stakeholder
negotiations towards this end while the latter takes a market-oriented, deregulatory
approach more in keeping with neoliberalism (Christoff, 1996). Proponents stress that
EM is a realistic framework for solving economic problems without inflicting undue
economic pain (see Berger et al., 2001). By contrast, critics have questioned (among
other things) the fundamental premise that technologies can solve environmental prob-
lems either fast enough or without causing further environmental harm (Wilson, 2012a,
2012b). They also have problematized the policy implications of this concept (Davidson
and MacKendrick, 2004).
Indeed, the impacts of both EM and sustainable development on policy initiatives are
particularly germane to this paper. First relevant here is John Hannigan’s (2006) recount-
ing of what has been termed an “environmental managerialist” approach to governance.

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Millington and Wilson 5

Much as “sustainable development” points to the need for balancing economic and envi-
ronmental concerns, Hannigan notes the “dual mandate” typically faced by governments
in contemporary times, as well as the sometimes-problematic decisions that stem from
this. That is to say, faced with simultaneous pressures towards dirigisme in the name of
environmental protection and deregulation in the name of private sector growth, govern-
ments commonly enact policies that gesture towards the former while ensuring the latter
is indeed realized. In Hannigan’s words:

… governments often engage in a process of ‘environmental managerialism’ in which they

attempt to legislate a limited degree of protection sufficient to deflect criticism [e.g. about
environmental concerns] but not significant enough to derail the engine of economic growth.
By enacting environmental policies that are complex, ambiguous and open to exploitation …
the state reaffirms its commitments to strategies for promoting economic development.

(2006: 21; cf. Redclift, 1986)

Hannigan’s observations are important here in two senses. They first align with
strands of research that describe the technocratic approaches that have dominated envi-
ronmental management in recent years (cf. Heynen et al., 2007; Wilson, 2009). As
Wilson (2009: 3) suggests, the dominant technocentric problem-solving initiative in
environmental management has left managers preoccupied with “providing ‘practical’
assistance to state officials involved in [environmental management], thereby neglecting
political, economic or cultural forces that were conditioning processes associated with
environmental management.” Hannigan’s views furthermore reflect the related criticism
that EM – and particularly its “weak” variant – is overly trusting of corporate responsi-
bility. EM is, after all, typically reliant on a decentralized governance style, which is to
say one that mobilizes voluntarism as a key policy instrument (Berger et al., 2001).
This is not to say that in practice policy decisions favor industry interests without fail.
In his work on environmental regulation in Canada, Douglas MacDonald (2007) points
to examples whereby the country’s regulatory framework was ratcheted upwards with
the goal of directly curbing environmentally-compromising behaviors. As we shall see,
pesticide laws in Canada have in many ways been strengthened over time. Ontario’s
Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act in some respects exemplifies this.
And yet, both MacDonald (2007) and David Boyd (2003) are clear in articulating that
the logic of voluntarism has had profound and often negative effects on Canada’s system
of environmental oversight. In the early 1990s, Canada appeared on the verge of institut-
ing a strict environmental regulatory framework. With the 1993 federal election looming,
the incumbent Conservative government was moved to defend a relatively strong envi-
ronmental record; at the same time the Liberal party of soon-to-be Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien “prepared a Red Book promising significant further advances” (MacDonald,
2007: 134). Yet, in the decades that followed, a neoliberal policy imperative struck in two
related ways. The first of these involved funding reductions and corresponding decreases
in environmental staffing. From the 1990s to the present neither provincial governments
nor federal agencies were immune to the politics of austerity. Boyd (2003) describes this
trend as it pertains to the federal department Environment Canada, as follows:

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6 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

The link is obvious between budget cutbacks in environmental departments and a declining
ability to implement and enforce environmental laws. Governments in Canada engaged in an
unprecedented downsizing of environmental departments in the 1990s, led by the federal
government, in 1988 Environment Canada has a budget of $800 million, and the 1990 Green
Plan promised to inject an additional $3 billion over five years. However, in part because of the
recession in the early 1990s, more than 70 percent of the Green Plan money was never allocated
to the environment. By 1998 the budget for Environment Canada had fallen 30 percent to $550
million, more than $200 million of which was earmarked for weather forecasting. In terms of
personnel, in 1988 Environment Canada was the seventh-largest federal department; by 1998 it
was the smallest.

(2003: 239)

Cutbacks have come again more recently under the aegis of Stephen Harper’s
Conservative government (see Leahy, 2011).
As critics of EM might anticipate, the second impact of neoliberalism came in the
form of voluntary environmental programs. “For example,” writes Boyd (2003: 243),
“instead of passing laws or regulations to govern greenhouse gas emission, reduce smog,
increase motor vehicle fuel efficiency, or require energy-efficient buildings, the federal
government made voluntary agreements with industry.” This was surely an exciting
proposition for industries hoping to stave off potentially harsh and overly-limiting exter-
nal regulations, whether by appearing environmentally progressive and/or by actually
enhancing their environment-related practices. MacDonald (2007) lists several potential
causes for this transition, including the perception that law-based regulation was not
working to (for example) curb pollution, the wider deregulatory (and, we would add,
ecological modernist) climate of the day, the cascading effect of budget cuts (making
law-based regulation more difficult), and, most difficult to discern with complete cer-
tainty, the lobbying pressure of business groups. McKenzie (2002) labels the post-1996
era one of “Deregulation, Destaffing, Defunding, and Voluntary Compliance.” In
MacDonald’s (2007: 172) words: “While some new regulatory initiatives were put in
place, for the most part governments were unable or unwilling to do more than ask
politely for voluntary improvements in environmental performance.”
Taken together, and following McCarthy and Prudham (2004), in this paper we take
neoliberalism to be an ideological system that, when it comes to environmental policy
making, mandates a shift from binding legislation to voluntarist frameworks that privi-
lege industry self-regulation. At the same time, the principles of EM – most of all, faith
in the “greening” potential of scientific and technological ingenuity – are, as McCarthy
and Prudham (2004: 280) further argue, “suspiciously coterminous with the self-regulation
and neo-corporatism characteristic of neoliberalism more broadly” (cf. Jessop, 2002). But
this does not mean that policy making is inexorably driven by the neoliberal agenda.
Hannigan’s description of “environmental managerialism” suggests that specific policy
initiatives can reflect conflicting sensibilities: enhanced regulation in the name of envi-
ronmental protectionism on the one hand, deregulation and/or voluntarism in the name
of economic growth on the other. Below we describe Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban
Act as a law that is “conflicted” in precisely this way.

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Millington and Wilson 7

Environmental management and sport

Despite the considerable body of literature on environmental decision-making in neolib-
eral times, there remains a need for detailed investigations into the origins and eventual
outcomes of specific policy decisions pertaining to the environment. This is true in par-
ticular for studies charting the relationship between various levels of government (cf.
Berger et al., 2001; Gibbs, 2000). As we shall see, pesticide legislation in Canada has
over time been pulled in competing directions, creating complex circumstances for gov-
ernments at the local, provincial, and federal levels alike. We would furthermore argue
that sport has been largely overlooked by scholars studying environmental policy mak-
ing; at the same time, concepts like “environmental managerialism” and “ecological
modernization” have largely escaped the attention of sport scholars.
This does not mean there is a complete lack of literature on sport and the environment
in general. Scholars have documented, for example, how governments tend to leave deci-
sions pertaining to the environmental impacts of sporting events to the discretion of
groups like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and/or local Olympic organizing
committees – in other words, to groups that are not directly accountable to the public. In
a context where many governments are influenced by principles of neoliberalism but
need to appear particularly attentive to environmental issues, sport organizations’ active
promotion of their environmental stewardship creates opportunities for “compromises”
of this kind (e.g. see Hayes and Horne, 2011; Karamichas, 2013; Lenskyj, 2002; Wilson,
2012a, 2012b; Wilson and Millington, 2013).
Furthermore, given golf’s significant environmental demands, there is a growing
body of literature documenting the relationship between golf specifically and the envi-
ronment/environmental movement (see Mincyte et al., 2009). This parallels the public
scrutiny of golf’s environmental impacts that has manifested at both the local and global
levels in recent years. Protests against Donald Trump’s course development project in
Menie, Scotland – dramatized in the documentary “You’ve Been Trumped” (Baxter,
2011) – together constitute perhaps the highest profile case of the former (also see
Jönsson, 2012). At a broader level, the Global Anti-Golf Movement has critiqued not
only course development and maintenance practices but also the problems arising from
the international spread of the now-standardized golf course aesthetic (e.g. see Maguire
et al., 2002; Stolle-McAllister, 2004; Wheeler and Nauright, 2006).
In our own research we charted the developing environmental sensibilities of
American golf superintendents in the post-war years (Millington and Wilson, 2013). In
particular, we outlined how, despite a record of supporting chemicals eventually
deemed highly toxic (like DDT), golf superintendents mobilized their technical
expertise – and, by proxy, the principles of EM – to make a case for voluntary regula-
tion. In this regard we positioned our work alongside that of Harvey Neo (2010), who
notes that while stakeholder negotiations on golf’s environmental impacts have become
common in Singapore, there are ultimately limits on the stringency of measures of
environmental protection. That is to say, while new course management techniques
might arise in the interest of making golf courses more environmentally compatible,
certain matters – such as a halt on new course development – are “off the table” for
discussion.

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8 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

As we shall see, sport retains “exceptional” status in Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides

Ban Act. The concepts of voluntarism and the “dual mandate” are relevant to this legisla-
tion as well. First, however, we turn towards situating Ontario’s pesticide law in its
socio-historical context.

The exception in context: pesticide regulation in Canada

The origins of federal oversight
As stated at the outset, the decision to ban cosmetic uses of pesticides in Ontario was
hailed as landmark legislation. It is a decision that furthermore affected an already-
intricate system of regulating industrial chemicals in Canada. Both “pre-market” and
“post-market” stipulations were (and remain) in place: “pre-market” meaning those per-
taining to the testing and approval of chemicals before they reach the applicator’s hands;
“post-market” referring to constraints on the actual use of these chemicals once they are
in his or her possession.
It is the Canadian federal government (colloquially “Ottawa”) that is occupied with
the plight of pesticides before they reach the marketplace. As Ivo Krupka (2000) recounts,
Ottawa’s involvement in this domain stretches as far back as the 1927 Act to Regulate the
Sale and Inspection of Agricultural and Economic Poisons. The focus in this initial Act,
however, was on combating fraudulent claims regarding a pesticide’s purported merits.
It was not until the post-war years, and specifically the 1969 Pest Control Products Act
(PCPA), that legislative attention turned towards safeguarding both the environment and
the Canadian citizenry.
The timing of this transition was not coincidental. As is well documented, the 1960s
were a time of flourishing social movements in general, and saw the rise to prominence
of the environmental movement in particular (Hoffman, 2001). Rachel Carson’s book
Silent Spring (1962) was a particularly important touchstone for environmentalists, out-
lining as it did America’s mounting dependence on synthetic chemicals in unsettling
terms. As we have documented elsewhere, golf industry members to a great extent
embraced pesticides in the post-war years, and thus were naturally embroiled in the
Silent Spring “controversy.” This first meant responding with indignation to Carson’s
claims regarding the negative impacts of chemicals on people and the environment. Over
time, however, golf representatives came to recognize Carson’s legacy and even placed
themselves as allies in her quest (Millington and Wilson, 2013).
As Andrew Hoffman (2001) reminds us, Carson was not the first to express caution
over the implications of (for example) DDT spraying. But her view that nature should be
valued for its innate properties nonetheless caught on in both the United States and Canada
(see Boyd, 2003: 174). High profile environmental accidents in the 1960s furthermore
helped foment “a dramatic surge at the end of the decade in the levels of public awareness
and concern about pollution” (Harrison, 2000 [1996]: 56; also see Hoffman, 2001). What
is more, as a corrective to the liberal economic climate that preceded the Great Depression
(and as a stark historical contrast to the neoliberal turn that followed), the general legisla-
tive imperative of the 1960s was one of reining in Big Business. MacDonald (2007)
lists some key exemplars of this: restrictions on cigarette sales; heightened attention to

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Millington and Wilson 9

automobile design; tightening of food and drug regulations; and efforts to control pollu-
tion. Canada’s 1969 PCPA stands as another contribution along these lines. In combina-
tion with the PCP Regulations that passed three years later, the Act set out that pesticides
could not be imported or sold in Canada without registration and sufficient labeling.
Heightened transparency was therefore the order of the day, as successful registration
required (industry-supplied) data on a “control product’s” environmental and health-
related risks, as well as information on its value and efficacy (Hughes, 2000). In hindsight,
the regulatory measures instituted from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s – of which the
PCPA was a core component – formed a foundation for Canada’s environmental regula-
tory system for the decades that followed (MacDonald, 2007: 74).

Environmental protection, revisited

But this does not mean Canada’s system was impervious to change. McKenzie (2002)
notes that the 1970s were characterized by “bipartite bargaining,” whereby the federal
government downloaded a great deal of decision-making responsibility to the provinces,
who then negotiated with industry on the formation of environmental policies. The out-
put of this was both the enactment of provincial legislation like the Environmental
Protection Act in Ontario and a tendency to omit activists from the molding of such laws.
The chemical industry further inserted itself into the socio-political context of the day by
launching the Responsible Care Program through their allied body, the Canadian
Chemical Producers’ Association (CCPA). The approach taken therein was two-fold: on
the one hand, large chemical firms indeed worked to improve their environmental perfor-
mance; on the other, and as MacDonald (2007: 111) recounts, they “deluged” the public
with ad campaigns, using evocative imagery, “to show a caring, humane industrial sec-
tor, fully committed to giving society the benefits of chemicals, while shielding it from
their potential harm.”
Yet, in a not unfamiliar narrative, the 1980s brought this carefully crafted image into
question once again. Further high profile environmental catastrophes – for example, the
1984 Union Carbide chemical spill in Bhopal, India, that killed 2000 people in its imme-
diate aftermath, and another 1500 people in the months that followed (Hoffman, 2001:
96) – combined to form yet another tipping point in public opinion, and thus helped cata-
lyze a “second green wave” towards the end of the decade. Importantly, Harrison (2000
[1996]) notes a distinction between the green wave of the late 1980s and that of the
immediate post-Silent Spring years: the social and financial entrenchment of environ-
mental groups. As the 1990s approached, many of the environmental associations formed
in previous decades had matured, becoming fully-fledged professional organizations, at
times with “extravagant” budgets supporting their cause (Harrison, 2000 [1996]: 115).
McKenzie (2002) adds that environmental groups adopted legalism, rather than coopera-
tion, as their mantra in the 1980s. In theory, this could heighten the pressure on govern-
ments to adopt an authentically green sensibility. It furthermore initiated an era of
“multipartite” stakeholder bargaining in which activist groups were included at the nego-
tiating table.
The golf industry was again not spared from scrutiny in the 1970s and 1980s. Our
aforementioned study of American golf superintendents shows how this group mounted

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10 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

various responses to concerns over golf’s irrigation demands and reliance on pesticides.
This included, on the one hand, strongly worded defenses of chemicals like DDT from
key industry spokespeople in the 1970s, and, on the other – and in a seemingly contradic-
tory way – formal efforts to reduce pesticide spraying as the 1980s arrived (Millington
and Wilson, 2013). The latter was achieved through the promotion of Integrated Pest
Management, or IPM, a system established in agriculture that calls for more selective
chemical spraying, in part through the adoption of alternative “pest control” techniques
(e.g. “biological control,” whereby naturally occurring organisms are used to regulate
those deemed undesirable).
Further north, the golf industry in Canada seemed to follow a similar trajectory. The
early 1970s brought articles in GreenMaster, the Canadian golf superintendent’s flagship
journal, fretting over “militant environmentalists” (Shumway, 1971: 20) and the “half
truths” and “incomplete facts” inciting “damaging legislation”: “legislation which weak-
ens man’s dominance in nature” (Van Buskirk, 1971: 8–16). As reported in The Globe
and Mail newspaper (a major, nationally-focused Canadian news outlet) in 1970, golf
superintendents specifically opposed legislation at the provincial level, passing a resolu-
tion to exempt golf courses from a suggested ban on mercuries and arsenicals – chemical
types used to combat snow mold and pests/weeds, respectively. Said Gord Witteveen,
then president of the Canadian Golf Superintendents’ Association, “I don’t know how we
can work without them … There are very few substitute chemicals available” (Marks,
1970: 45; also see Millington and Wilson, 2014).
Yet by the 1980s articles were appearing in GreenMaster on non-chemical means of
turf treatment (Hall, 1983), on the superintendent’s increasingly sophisticated course
management equipment (Palmer, 1990), and, eventually, on IPM. In 1991, IPM’s multi-
farious approach to pest control was compared to the way a doctor might prescribe medi-
cal, dietary, and lifestyle forms of treatment (Fushtey, 1991), while an article from the
following year stressed that IPM could have significant environmental and financial ben-
efits, all at the same time (No Author, 1992). Indeed, that IPM could safeguard against
environmental damage, and that golf superintendents are trained environmentalists,
would become common refrains for the Canadian golf industry – including, as we shall
see, in the lead-up to Ontario’s recent cosmetic pesticide ban.
As the golf industry was embracing IPM in the 1990s, it had been more than 20 years
since the federal PCPA had been revised. There was no shortage of pressure to do so once
again. As Boyd (2003) writes, the perceived flaws in the PCPA were many, ranging from
its failure to consider multiple sources of pesticide exposure and/or cumulative effects to
its elision of pesticide reduction as a goal. In 1995, the PCPA was indeed re-imagined, the
most significant development being the creation of the Pest Management Regulatory
Agency (PMRA) within the federal department Health Canada. The PMRA would fall
under the purview of the federal health minister, who in turn would be flanked by an
executive director, by scientists charged with reviewing industry-supplied data on chemi-
cals up for review, and by two overlapping advisory bodies: the Economic Management
Advisory Committee, housing representatives from industry, and the Pest Management
Advisory Council, replete with spokespeople from health, environmental and consumer
groups, and from industry as well. A report from 2000 from the Standing Committee on
Environment and Sustainable Development of the House of Commons (that is, from

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Millington and Wilson 11

within Canada’s main legislative body) clarified the PMRA’s mode of operation. Based on
their review of industry-supplied science, the PMRA conducts both a “risk assessment” to
evaluate the toxicity of a given product and a “value assessment” pertaining to its utility
(Parliament of Canada, 2000, ch. 1). The dual focus on safety and value in Canada’s leg-
islative framework that had been established in 1969 remained squarely in place.
In 2006 the PCPA was revised yet again, seemingly in response to recommendations
for change made by the above-mentioned Standing Committee. The new Act formalized
policies first developed in the late 1990s for safeguarding children and pregnant women
and for accounting for pesticide exposure from multiple sources. It also added transpar-
ency provisions to enhance the public’s capacity to engage with (still industry-supplied)
pesticide data. For example, a public registry was published on the PMRA website, as
were the Agency’s consultation and decision statements. It was furthermore mandated
that pesticides be re-evaluated on a 15-year cycle – a move that, like other provisions,
struck at the heart of the above-described criticisms of the PCPA (Health Canada, 2009b).
The regulatory system was changing, though, as we outline below, not all of the Standing
Committee’s concerns were addressed.

From pre- to post-market: municipal and provincial oversight

Having described pre-market conditions and regulations, the question remains: what of
the fate of chemicals once in the possession of applicators such as golf course superinten-
dents? The post-market use of chemicals is a matter for provincial and municipal govern-
ments, and is where Ontario’s 2009 Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act becomes relevant.
The basic principle by which provinces and municipalities must abide is that legislation
may further restrict, but never relax, the permitted uses of a product according to federal
regulators. As Boyd (2003: 123) writes, “All provinces have laws governing the sale, use,
transportation, storage, and disposal of pesticides, as well as emergencies such as spills.”
He adds that for industrial uses, sellers and applicators are often required to obtain certifi-
cates and permits, and in some cases education and training as well. Historically, consum-
ers have been mostly unencumbered in their quests to obtain chemicals for deployment on
private property. This has changed, however, in the wake of recent legislation.
Perhaps the most significant event in the history of post-market pesticide regulation
in Canada came in 1991, when the small town of Hudson, Quebec, passed legislation
stopping the use of non-essential chemicals within its boundaries. If such a decision in
a town of less than 5000 people at first glance seems inconsequential, for chemical
producers and applicators it was evidently an unsettling precedent-in-the-making. The
protracted legal battle that followed was one that mobilized both pro- and anti-chemical
antagonists from far afield (McAllister, 2004: 122). The outcome of the case, not settled
until 2001, was a 9–0 decision from the Supreme Court of Canada in favor of the
municipality.
Hudson’s fate was therefore settled, yet there were broader ramifications still. Most
significantly, Hudson indeed set a precedent, for in its wake municipalities across Canada
devised similar laws. A noteworthy case along these lines came in the mid-2000s when
Toronto enacted a municipal ban on cosmetic pesticides. As in Hudson, supporters and
opponents of the ban prepared for a confrontation. On one side, the Toronto Environmental

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12 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

Alliance fervently advocated for new legislation, at first by canvassing the city for sup-
port from the public (Porter, 2013), and later by defending the ban in court. In carrying
out the latter act they were flanked by other health and environmental groups, such as the
Canadian Environmental Law Association, Environmental Defence, and the Ontario
College of Family Physicians. On the other side stood CropLife Canada, a trade associa-
tion representing the manufacturers, developers, and distributors of “plant science tech-
nologies” such as “pest control products” (CropLife Canada, 2013a), and one motivated
to challenge the by-law in Canada’s Supreme Court. Said CropLife’s president at the
time, “Municipal regulation that restricts the use of registered pest control products
works at cross-purposes to the federal regulatory regime for pest control products and
deprives the public access to beneficial products” (CropLife Canada, 2013c). In other
words, according to CropLife Canada, the above-describe pre-market regulatory system
was stringent enough (see Sandberg and Foster, 2005).
Nonetheless, Toronto’s by-law survived CropLife Canada vs City of Toronto. And in
that the Precautionary Principle was called forth in both the Hudson and Toronto cases
– that is, the notion of striving for harm prevention even in the absence of final evidence
about (for example) a pesticide’s capacity to inflict harm (e.g. see Boyd, 2003: 125;
Canadian Environmental Law Association, 2012b) – an interventionary regulatory cli-
mate was ostensibly taking hold.

The Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act

Indeed, in recent years, provinces have followed the lead of Canadian municipalities by
banning or taking steps towards banning the use of chemicals that had previously
received approval at the federal level (see Bachand and Gue, 2011). It is in this context
that Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act was instituted and, as noted at the outset,
regarded by many as landmark legislation. Ontario is Canada’s largest province and
home to its capital (Ottawa) and largest city (Toronto). More to the point, though, and as
stated previously, its new pesticide legislation was viewed as significantly restrictive,
which, for proponents, meant it was to a great extent protective against unnecessary risks
as well. Indeed, to the beat of Rachel Carson’s drum, the case against industrial chemi-
cals marches on, and was clearly articulated in the run-up to Ontario’s new law. A par-
ticularly notable example was a review released in 2004 by the Ontario College of Family
Physicians on pesticides and their potential effects on health. As Neil Arya (2005) sum-
marized in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the review featured many of the same
concerns about chemicals that had been raised in the past – among them: continued
exposure to pesticides on the part of “vulnerable” groups like children and pregnant
women; the possibility for multiple and/or chronic exposures; uncertainty surrounding
pesticides’ endocrine effects; and the PMRA’s reliance on industry-supplied data in
chemical reviews. Public health officials, Arya concluded, must therefore be heard:
“Their voice should be measured, credible, allowing uncertainty as to the precise magni-
tude of effects, but they certainly must support a ban on any and every non-essential
pesticide use” (2005: 92).
Another noteworthy initiative along these lines came in 2008 when a collection of
well-known health organizations released a joint statement in support of province-wide

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Millington and Wilson 13

legislation. In doing so, groups such as the David Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian
Cancer Society, the Ontario College of Family Physicians, the Canadian Association of
Physicians for the Environment, and several others rearticulated many of the above-noted
concerns regarding chemical use and exposure. What they added at this time was survey
evidence that 71% of Ontarians are in favor of province-wide restrictions on pesticides
and that environmental protection is the top priority for those living within Ontario’s
boundaries (Canadian Environmental Law Association, 2012a). Many of these same
stakeholders spoke to the Standing Committee on Social Policy considering the passage
of Ontario’s cosmetic chemical ban on June 9, 2008. Lisa Gue, for example, a policy ana-
lyst for the David Suzuki Foundation, highlighted an investigation by her organization
allegedly uncovering 1600 cases of pesticide poisoning across a one-year period – grounds
in her view for government intervention (Legislative Assembly of Ontario, 2008).
Yet, in the spirit of confrontation that characterized the enactment of municipal
bylaws, Ontario’s injunction had opponents too. Industry representatives also offered
their views to the Standing Committee on Social Policy in June 2008. This included, for
example, spokespeople for MREP Communications – who themselves represent applica-
tors of synthetic and organic products – and, once again, CropLife Canada. This latter
group also made their policy submissions pertaining to the Bill available online, express-
ing therein (among other things) the already stringent nature of Canada’s regulatory sys-
tem (as they observed in the Toronto case) and their support for exemptions for a variety
of stakeholders – the golf industry among them. Pesticides, they stressed, were being
unfairly stigmatized, while the legislative climate risked stifling innovation (CropLife
Canada, 2009). It is worth noting too that more broadly CropLife Canada has – like
health and environmental groups – positioned itself as devoted to environmental care.
This includes listing on their website precise ways in which the plant science industry is
“protecting people and the planet” (CropLife Canada, 2013b).
Nonetheless, the Bill passed, with the Liberal government and Premier McGuinty
naming the Canadian Cancer Society specifically in their claim that they had listened to
medical experts and their “convincing case for reducing our exposure to pesticides”
(Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 2013). The David Suzuki Foundation noted that
the new law “prohibits the use of 96 active ingredients in cosmetic pesticides for public
and private lawns and gardens, as well as the sale of 172 products containing these
chemicals” (Bachand and Gue, 2011: 5). What is more, this same organization added
that, as in Quebec, where similar legislation was passed, the Precautionary Principle
was seemingly at the core of environmental legislation. Said Lisa Gue, the aforemen-
tioned David Suzuki Foundation spokesperson, “The lack of scientific certainty cannot
be an excuse to delay action to protect health and the environment … And that’s exactly
what Quebec, and now Ontario, have done” (Babbage, 2009).

A conspicuous exemption
It might be expected that the golf industry would mount a defense against the Cosmetic
Pesticides Ban Act, given their links to the chemical industry and their past rejoinders
against government regulation. Yet, in the time before the Act actually became law, golf
associations of various stripes outwardly supported it. As Ken Cousineau (2008),

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14 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

Executive Director of the Canadian Golf Superintendents’Association (CGSA), explained,

the support of groups like the CGSA, the National Golf Course Owners Association
(NGCOA), and the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA) was based on two factors.
First, the passage of municipal anti-pesticide bylaws in recent years, in their view, made
for “piecemeal” legislation, and in turn both engendered regional inconsistencies and
forced “the golf industry to utilize a significant volume of resources lobbying municipali-
ties” (Cousineau, 2008: 45). Overarching provincial legislation was deemed a remedy for
this problem. Second, and presumably more importantly, golf was to be exempted.
To be more specific, golf courses were and are conditionally exempted from the
Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act, provided they follow what the McGuinty government
described as “tough new rules” (Ontario Government, 2009). These include the need to
prepare an annual report on their pesticide usage and to convey this to the public at an
annual newspaper-advertised meeting. Perhaps more significantly, by 2012 golf courses
were required to receive accreditation in IPM, the aforementioned turf management sys-
tem that urges reduced chemical usage through a combination of targeted spraying and,
where possible, non-chemical alternatives (Boyd, 2003). IPM, it is worth stressing, is
perceived as deeply rooted in science and, increasingly, technological sophistication. For
example, in the view of the IPM Council of Canada – the body responsible for adminis-
tering IPM accreditation – “science has shown IPM ensures environmental sustainability
and minimizes the requirement for pesticides” (IPM Council of Canada, 2013b).
Likewise, writing in GreenMaster has underscored the technocratic basis for this turf
management system, while also noting that technological advances, such as computer
models for predicting turf disease and insect activity, lay ahead (Vittum, 2007: 25).2
MacDonald (2007) acknowledges that it is difficult to ascertain with complete cer-
tainty whether, and the extent to which, policy makers are swayed by lobbyists. It is note-
worthy nonetheless that the IPM provision was one clearly favored by industry in the
prelude to the Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act. As Cousineau wrote in 2008, the CGSA,
RCGA, NCGOA, and two Ontario-based turfgrass groups offered responses to the gov-
ernment’s initial proposals on the law. One shared element across their replies was that
municipalities indeed be prohibited from adopting more stringent laws – a caveat that was
ultimately adopted (see Ontario Ministry of the Environment, 2013). The other, wrote
Cousineau, was that “IPM certification be the requirement established by the legislation
and the standard to which all golf facilities in Ontario should be held in order to have full
access to the use of approved products” (2008: 45). After all, in the preceding decades,
IPM had already become an established “best practice” in environment management.

Discussion: pesticide regulation and its discontents

Government’s “dual mandate”
Taken together, a credible case can be made that Canada’s pesticide regulatory system has
moved along a progressive, linear trajectory in the post-war years. At the federal level,
pre-market oversight has ostensibly been strengthened through successive updates to the
PCPA. In terms of post-market controls, municipalities boldly advanced strict bylaws on
pesticide applications in the 1990s and 2000s, paving the way for provincial legislation in

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Millington and Wilson 15

more recent years. In both cases, regulation was said to be guided by sensible “best
practices” – the bulwark of dispassionate scientific analysis and honest transparency meas-
ures guarding against the advent of unnecessary risks. Moreover, in that IPM is deemed a
scientific enterprise, the exemption of golf from Ontario’s law can be interpreted as a case
of EM at work. The technocratic expertise of industry was leveraged towards improved
environmental outcomes in a way that would not unduly impact on profits.
Yet, as we have seen, Canada’s environmental regulatory system has been subject to
criticism in recent years, in large part for privileging corporate responsibility programs
that are commonly found to be ineffectual in hindsight (Boyd, 2003). The above-
described system of regulating pesticides has not been spared from such critiques. And
while it is mainly federal oversight that has been problematized in recent years, we sug-
gest that concerns pertaining to pre-market regulation have both direct and indirect
implications for Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act.
To outline concerns related to federal oversight and pre-market regulation requires
revisiting the report from 2000 put forward by the Standing Committee on Environment
and Sustainable Development, formed within the Canadian House of Commons. As
noted above, the report both clarified the operation of the PMRA and made suggestions
for change. Some of their recommendations – for example, for heightened transparency
in the chemical review process – were indeed taken on board in the mid-2000s. But the
Standing Committee’s main point was far more radical: it was to problematize the
PMRA’s very existence, as set out in 1995. The Committee Chair made this clear in his
preface to the report:

We looked at the current system of regulating pesticides in Canada and we asked ourselves
whether it is possible for one agency, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), to
perform two virtually conflicting tasks, namely that of approving chemical pesticides as
requested by industry while at the same time regulating them in order to protect human health.
We asked ourselves whether it is possible to strike a balance between economic and health
protection goals.

(Parliament of Canada, 2000: Chair’s Preface to the Report)

The answer in the Committee’s estimation was evidently “no” – it was not possible to
strike a satisfactory balance in this way. Ultimately, the PMRA’s Economic Management
Advisory Committee – composed as it was (and is) of industry representatives and tasked
with advising on “efficiency, cost-effectiveness and competitiveness” – “unduly tilts the
balance in favour of trade and economics” (Parliament of Canada, 2000, ch. 15,
Institutional Changes). Put simply, in the view of the Committee’s government officials,
“the PMRA should not be in the business of supporting industry competitiveness”
(Parliament of Canada, 2000, ch. 2, The Need for New Legislation). As such, they ulti-
mately recommended the dissolution of the Economic Management Advisory Committee
in the interest of public health (Parliament of Canada, 2000: Recommendations).
It is no stretch here to say that such a scenario aligns almost perfectly with Hannigan’s
understanding of government’s tendency towards “environmental managerialism.” The
Committee was pointing to a clear “dual mandate” in the PMRA, and by extension
Health Canada – the Ministry in which the PMRA is housed. In the end, radically

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16 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

restructuring the PMRA was not adopted as a course of action; at the time of this writing,
the Economic Management Advisory Committee evidently remains in place and flush
with representatives from companies like Syngenta, Monsanto Nufarm, and DuPont
Canada (Health Canada, 2012). It is of course possible that behind the scenes the author-
ity of this Advisory Committee has been hindered. But the point made in the government
review speaks to an apparent conflict of interest lying in the Economic Management
Advisory Committee’s very existence. This is in addition to the smaller-scale conflict –
also noted by the Standing Committee – lying in the PMRA’s exclusive reliance on
industry-supplied science in the registration procedure (also see Arya, 2005).
Voluntarism’s other arm – funding cuts – has also extended its reach to the PMRA.
Despite a promise in the early 1990s to add more than $81 million (CAD) in funding to
the pesticide regulatory system, by the end of the decade “a substantial portion of the
promised funds had evaporated” (Krupka, 2000: 255; cf. Pest Management Regulatory
Agency, 1997).
While the Standing Committee’s report deals with the PMRA, and thus pre-market
regulation, we argue that it is in turn relevant in at least two ways to Ontario’s (post-
market) Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act. In the most direct sense, the above-noted view of
CropLife Canada that Ontario’s legislation is superfluous because of the stringency of
the PMRA’s pre-market process can be questioned through the Standing Committee’s
report. If the PMRA was to a certain extent “a captive of the pesticide industry”
(Parliament of Canada, 2000, ch. 15, Institutional Changes), as the Standing Committee
said in 2000, and if the Committee’s recommendations for change have not fully been
addressed in the years since, it indeed seems entirely reasonable for provincial govern-
ments to pursue additional, more stringent pesticide laws. Following this logic, there also
remains reason for trepidation over the sustained use of chemicals through exemption
clauses – as in the case of golf.
In another sense, the basic idea that conflicting interests are found in pesticide over-
sight need be considered vis-à-vis Ontario’s new legislation as well. As noted, under the
Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act, IPM accreditation is now required of golf courses, the
ostensible goal being to ensure proper training for those wishing to use pesticides out-
lawed in other contexts in Ontario, and ideally then to foment reductions in pesticide
usage. Yet, just as the PMRA features strong industry representation, the IPM Council of
Canada – administrators of the IPM Accreditation Program – has a board of directors
containing representatives from the turfgrass and golf industries, among others (IPM
Council of Canada, 2013b). CropLife Canada’s presence on the board stands out in par-
ticular here, given their aforementioned lawsuit against Toronto’s pesticide ban and their
more recent problematizing of Ontario’s new law. In this latter act they were supported
by the Structural Pest Management Association of Ontario and Landscape Ontario (see
CropLife Canada, 2009) – both of whom are represented on the IPM Council as well. In
other words, then, those contesting cosmetic pesticide laws are now enlisted in the struc-
ture of industry oversight.
The point here is not to speculate as to the precise decisions that members of the IPM
Council make regarding golf course accreditation. Though intuitively it makes sense for
individuals from groups like CropLife Canada to favor the on-going use of chemicals on
golf courses, it is at least possible that in their role on the IPM board they act precisely as

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Millington and Wilson 17

any other observer would. The point is not even to criticize groups like CropLife Canada:
it is to be expected that they would desire influence in the pesticide regulatory system.
The point is that the principles of voluntarism have found their way into the process of
regulating pesticides on golf courses in Ontario, much as they have been throughout
other aspects of environmental regulation in Canada in recent years (MacDonald, 2007).
The IPM Council of Canada website itself describes the IPM Accreditation Program that
started in 2003 as a “voluntary, industry-led program” (IPM Council of Canada, 2013a).
Meanwhile, CropLife Canada lists IPM as one of the ways industry is indeed “protecting
people and the planet” (CropLife Canada, 2013b).
With this in mind, we would slightly revise Premier McGuinty’s statement upon pas-
sage of Ontario’s recent legislation: the government evidently listened to medical experts
like the Canadian Cancer Society to the extent that their recommendations did not unduly
impact on industry. Indeed, as said on their website, “The [Canadian Cancer] Society
wants the use of pesticides to be phased out at golf courses and sports facilities …”
(Canadian Cancer Society, 2013). It furthermore does not support IPM in cases of cos-
metic applications since, in theory, IPM pledges only to reduce and not eliminate pesti-
cide usage and “in practice [IPM] does not work as its principles are vague and open to
interpretation” (Kaminsky and Seely, 2011). The David Suzuki Foundation, another
environmental organization, has likewise urged that pesticides need be phased out on
golf courses (Bachand and Gue, 2011).

Conclusion: an unexceptional exception

It is worth re-stating in conclusion that for those expressing concern over the acute and
latent effects of chemicals, or for those seeking a fully precautionary approach to pesti-
cide usage, the Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act is certainly a step in the right direction. It
shows, as MacDonald (2007) avers, that environmental policies are not always made
with industry exclusively in mind. Moreover, the McGuinty government’s reference to
health organizations when introducing this new legislation is evidence of “multi-partite”
bargaining whereby various stakeholders have a say in policy outcomes.
Yet, reasons for cynicism remain when evaluating Canada’s system of pesticide regu-
lation in general and Ontario’s Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act in particular. Most of all, our
analysis shows the practical manifestation of “environmental managerialism.” Both the
federal and provincial governments, faced with a mandate to at once protect the environ-
ment and stimulate the economy, have instituted complex regulatory systems that take
steps towards environmental protectionism while also allowing for industry involvement
in and, in the eyes of some, undue influence on the regulatory process. Industry’s “green”
sensibilities – for example, the golf industry’s adoption of IPM as an environmental “best
practice” or their self-labeling as environmental stewards – are important in this regard,
as they make voluntarism a palatable approach to environmental management in the first
place. This is not neoliberal policy making tout court, but it bears the fingerprints of
neoliberal ideology through an emphasis on voluntarism – and, more specifically, volun-
tarism through EM. With this in mind, and given that, in general, the lines between
industry advocate and environmental regulator have grown more blurry in recent years
(see Swyngedouw, 2010), golf’s exception from Ontario’s recent legislation is – as stated

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18 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 

at the outset – unexceptional to behold. Indeed, golf has been exempted from cosmetic
pesticide legislation in several Canadian provinces to date (cf., Bachand and Gue, 2011).
We would add in closing that contemporary discourses surrounding sport are not irrel-
evant to the politico-economic arrangement described herein, and should be the subject of
further attention from researchers. While the assumed benefits of sport – for example, its
positive effects on health or the “trickle-down” benefits that allegedly follow from hosting
sport mega-events – did not seem to be a key rationale in the exemption of golf from the
Cosmetic Pesticides Ban Act, the health benefits of golf were in fact raised by representa-
tives of the National Allied Golf Association in consultations related to cosmetic pesticide
legislation in British Columbia (which, as noted, led to a recommendation against a ban
– see British Columbia Hansard Services, 2011). Furthermore, the golf exception exam-
ined here remains part of a broader trend whereby governments are commonly affording
“special status” to influential and industry-friendly sport groups that lead the organization
of environmentally impactful sporting mega-events like the Olympic Games (Karamichas,
2013). It is noteworthy here also that such sport mega-event promoters have also devel-
oped elegant public relations campaigns that highlight their claims to be leaders of a sport-
driven environmental movement and contributors to a sustainable future (Wilson, 2012a,
2012b; Wilson and Millington, 2013). Given the potentially severe environmental ramifi-
cations of commercialized sport in general, and sporting mega-events in particular, the
place of sport in environmental legislation merits further attention in the years ahead.

Funding
This work was supported through a Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
Standard Research Grant.

Notes
1. Pesticides are defined by the Canadian government as “Any product, device, organism or
substance that is manufactured, represented, sold or used as a means for directly or indirectly
controlling, preventing, destroying, mitigating, attracting or repelling a pest” (Health Canada,
2009a). They are sometimes called “pest control products” as well. In this paper we also use
“pesticides” and “chemicals” interchangeably.
2. Please see Millington and Wilson (2013) for further details on IPM. A full review of the estab-
lishment of IPM as a golf industry “best practice” is not possible in this space. The central
point here is that IPM is characterized as scientifically rigorous and is, in turn, mobilized in
support of industry self-regulation. This is despite criticisms from environmental groups over
the use and effectiveness of this system when it comes to cosmetic pesticide applications.

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