moved for leave to introduce Bill C-684, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (microplastics).
Mr. Speaker, this bill would amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to prohibit the importation into Canada and the manufacture for use or sale in Canada of personal care products that contain pieces of plastic of up to five millimetres in size.
The bill had been ready to be tabled since the beginning of last fall, but due to some distractions, I decided it best to wait and table this bill today so that the focus could be on taking action in response to numerous recent studies that highlight the damage microbeads inflict on our marine ecosystem.
As a Montrealer, I am personally troubled that my city's main waterway, the St. Lawrence River, contains high levels of microbead contamination.
Even though this House unanimously passed the motion in March to deal with this problem, the government has yet to take action.
Seeing how little time is remaining in this session, and the fact that this bill is non-controversial, and that the House has already pronounced itself in favour of this matter, I was wondering if I can request unanimous consent to send this bill directly to the environment committee for study.
