specifically referenced Quebec’s provincial law as granting authority to municipalities, all but
one province had similar legislation. Katrina Miller, a toxics campaigner for the Toronto
Environmental Alliance, said that the Hudson decision was critical in getting larger cities like
Toronto to consider bylaws (phone interview, 2005). Kathleen Cooper, of the Canadian Law
Association, claims they were “bombarded” by phone calls in the spring of 2001 after the
Supreme Court decision: “Everybody was waiting for that decision…People all over the country
were pushing [for bylaws] but were waiting because they were afraid of being sued” (Cooper,
phone interview, 2005). As of spring 2005, about seventy municipalities had passed various
forms of municipal pesticide bylaws. According to one estimation, when these bylaws come into
full effect close to thirty-six percent of the Canadian population will be covered by the laws.
Explaining Local Action and the Diffusion of Pesticides Bylaws
While the court cases went a long way toward giving municipalities permission to pass
anti-pesticide bylaws, the judicial decisions themselves cannot explain why municipalities
considered adopting bylaws in the first place. What accounts for the emergence and successful
passage of local anti-pesticide bylaws? How can we explain the extensive local mobilization
around this issue? One vein of scholarship in environmental politics and federalism predicts a
dearth of progressive environmental policies at the local level. “Race to the bottom” theories
suggest that sub-national jurisdictions will avoid policies that impose costs on businesses for fear
that they will lose capital investment to competing municipalities and states. Destructive
competition for capital thus puts a general downward pressure of environmental regulations that
are construed as creating an “unfriendly” business environment (see, for example, Markusen,
Morey, and Olewiler 1993, 1995). Baumgartner and Jones (1993, 221) argue along these same
17
See Michael Christie, “Private Property Pesticide Bylaws in Canada: Population Statistics by Municipality,”
available at http://www.flora.org/healthyottawa/BylawList.pdf. The list includes all the towns and cities which have
adopted or drafted municipal bylaws restricting or banning the use of pesticides for cosmetic reasons.
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Convention