Robert's Rants
Robert's Rants
A personal blog on the Canadian pesticide industry and other pet peeves and interests

5 New Products this Year! Is someone working in PMRA?

You read it here first, there is someone actually working at the PMRA and approving new products! Maybe the cleaning staff stole a rubber stamp and is having some fun?  Or they finally figured the best way to get something off their desk is to approve it? No matter the reason, it’s a welcome breath […]

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PMRA Tank Inspections: Zero Tolerance

If your not aware or haven’t had the good fortune of a visit, the Regional PMRA enforcement officers are doing on-site inspections at each PCO place of business. This isn’t really a bad thing, hell we get inspected by 5 or 6 different gun-toting, ticket writing folk all the time.  Keeps everyone on our toes […]

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Neonics and pest control…is there an effect?

Okay what brought that on was reading all the posts following a story I read on CBC.ca concerning the PMRA and a just published commentary doc.  Not many times you see the PMRA in the news, surprisingly. The document highlights further restrictions on neonics and allows for a 90 day comment. To be honest I […]

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Demand CS. You need to take action!

If you’ve read through my last rant (okay I deleted the last one) PMRA is planning on eliminating one of the best tools we’ve had in this industry for quite some time…Demand CS. “Potential of risks of concern” What kind of political mumbo jumbo BS is that?  ANYTHING has a potential of risk of concern!!! […]

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Hands tied, but still doing the best we can! Part 2

So in my previous Rant I touched on the fact that Canadian Invasive Species Experts are really restricted in what tools they have available.  And does that restriction of available products make us work smarter or just make us work twice as hard to get the same thing done?  Keep in mind I’m only doing […]

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Does our lack of products make us work smarter? Or just harder? Part 1 of 2

I was looking at my latest version of PCT and was marveling at the number of products they have available to them for invasive species management (okay…pest control).  It would sure be nice to have half of the products they use.  Efficacy, bait shyness, resistance management and rotation would be words we could add to […]

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A REAL RANT FOR ONCE…DOES LOGIC CONTINUE TO EVADE OUR FELLOWS IN OTTAWA??? WE REALLY WANT TO REDUCE THE GRAIN INDUSTRY?

I haven’t picked on Ottawa lately…creating some resistant super bugs by reducing classes of chemistry, allowing the consumer to buy whatever they want off a shelf, increase allergies and illness and downtime at work to keep the weeds happy.  Ahhh…those were some rants! All for the sake of keeping everyone 100% “unexposed”. Ideological…but have they […]

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Changing Your Customers’ Expectations…there is no “Silver Bullet”

I had a new customer in last week, a start up company actually, that was facing a tough problem with a roach cleanout.  Huge populations. The property manager wanted them gone…now (the roaches, not the PCO’s).   A simple matter of coming in and spraying and killing everything! Sure… Not…. So here’s the situation: Apartment building […]

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Pushing GRAS(s)

I’ve got an idea….first one this month… So let’s say for the hell of it there are 1000 Pest Control Companies in Canada, and maybe 3000 technicians working for those companies… And if each technician does 5 jobs a day that’s about 15,000 potential contacts. That’s a lot of folks. Granted many are contract work […]

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So there ain’t no GRASs in Canada????

I can’t believe all these rumors I hear about the availability of GRASs in Canada, but none exists? Was I lied to when moving here 12 years ago??? But…. By GRAS I mean the connotation given to products as Generally Regarded as Safe. So if you live down in the States there’s a well known […]

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