Thank you, Minister, but I would argue, through you, Chair, that Canadians need to eat. While we all care about the fish and we care about the environment, we all need to eat.
Minister, the single-use packaging ban will stop perishables and limit the exports into Canada. I would suggest that perhaps, last week, when the Prime Minister was in California and met with produce growers, the Americans and Canadians brought this issue up to the Prime Minister.
We are part of a global supply chain in this country, Minister, so as of right now there is no large-scale option or alternative to plastic packaging. Given that our food supply chain is global, what are you going to do to protect fruit and vegetable growers' ability to get their product to market without actually increasing food costs, which could be as dramatic as 25% or even 30%? Canadians are struggling right now to afford groceries, so an extra 30% on produce and fresh food would be catastrophic to a lot of Canadians' ability to buy food.