moved for leave to introduce Bill C-429, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (packaging).
Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to introduce another winner of our Create Your Canada competition, for which people from across the northwest of British Columbia enter ideas that they think would make Canada a better place. An independent committee picks the winner, and this year, it is Ben Korving, from Terrace, B.C., who is here in Ottawa today with his son, Aidan.
Ben's idea was to have a zero-waste packaging act that would prescribe that all consumer packaging in Canada either be recyclable or compostable, by law, because as we know, right now, when we put things in the blue box, only about 11%, on average, actually is recycled. The rest ends up in landfills and in our oceans.
This is building on the work by my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni and his Motion No. 151. More than 170,000 Canadians signed the petition asking us to do something about ocean plastics. This bill would move this to enforcement. This takes the promise into action.
Ben's idea, and it is a great one, is to make good on the promise Canada has made to the world that we will now recycle or compost all consumer packaging. I thank Ben and his son Aidan for coming all this way from the northwest of British Columbia, and especially for his idea to make Canada a better place.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)