Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says he’s not prepared to push for an immediate ban of a controversial class of pesticides being blamed for mass bee deaths in Ontario and Quebec.

“Ultimately, we’re a party of evidence-based policy,” Trudeau said Wednesday during a question and answer session at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture meeting in Ottawa.

“We will be looking at ways to move forward that is going to support farmers based around science and research and not necessarily implement a ban on neonics despite the very clear will (of party members), which I take as a will to make sure we’re being smart about bee populations,” he said.

“Any convention things come forward. You listen to them. Whether or not they get implemented is based around what is good policy.”

Trudeau’s comments came just days after party members overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the immediate ban of neonicotinoid pesticides during their annual convention in Montreal.

Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides used to coat corn, soybean and canola seeds. The pesticides have been widely used since 2004. They were developed to replace older, war-era aerial sprays like agent orange.

In September, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) linked neonicotinoid-contaminated dust to mass deaths in bee populations in Ontario and Quebec. The agency is responsible for regulating and monitoring pesticide use in Canada.

The Liberal resolution, put forward by a delegate from the rural riding of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, is the latest development on the bee health file.

Beekeepers and grain farmers are immersed in a lengthy, complex debate on how to protect pollinators after the PMRA determined current agriculture practices were “unsustainable.”

The Ontario beekeepers Association and the Fédération des apiculteurs du Québec want the chemicals banned, at least temporarily. The two groups have been pushing provincially since July for a moratorium similar to a two-year ban currently in place in the European Union.

In 2013, a national survey by the Canadian Association for Professional Apiarists found colony mortality in Canada has nearly doubled from 15 per cent to 29 per cent. Bee mortality was even higher in Ontario and Manitoba, where millions of bees have died, with losses ranging from 38 to 46 per cent respectively.

Beekeepers have repeatedly said these losses are not sustainable.

Meanwhile, grain farmers and the biotech industry argue the pesticides are essential to modern agriculture. Grain farmers argue that, if the chemicals are pulled, yields in corn and soybeans could drop significantly.

“Neonicotinoids is a much-needed seed treatment across, Ontario, Quebec, and the West,” Leo Guilbeault, president of the Ontario-Quebec Grain Farmers Coalition, told Trudeau. “It treats millions of acres of corn, soybeans and canola.”

“If we lose this technology without replacing it with a plan B — which we don’t have right now — we’re looking at 20 per cent production losses across the country,” he said, adding those losses would render the industry non-competitive.

Scientists estimate one-third of all plants and plant products eaten by humans depend on bee pollination.

“The reality is that people are worried about bees because they understand that agriculture needs bees and declining bee populations are of concern to everyone, and we can all agree on that,” Trudeau said.