This is very concerning, and I appreciate your bringing this up on committee.
Ninety per cent of what packaging does, it does before the consumer sees it. If this moves forward, the notice will remove all bagged salads. It will remove all value-added...so all of the clamshells of fresh-cut blueberries and strawberries, all of the products that you would get out of California—or shipped from Mexico when we're not in season—would be removed from the market, just because they wouldn't be able to make the journey. We wouldn't have bananas in Canada, because bananas are shipped in a plastic bag to Canada to control ripening and damage.
You would basically take out a significant portion of the market. You would add an over 20% cost to produce that is available to the market. You would change the dynamic. Even a locally grown product coming out of the fields in Quebec, shipped to local retailers, would have a reduced shelf life.
We would also see waste increase by 50%. We would see GHG emissions double by another 22 million....
It's would be a dramatic impact to the industry and to the consumer.