You hit on two things there. The plastic bag is a good example of how important the consumers' role is. You saw a tremendous consumer behaviour change in terms of their being incentivized to not take a plastic bag.
To your question specifically about resistance to reducing packaging. I don't think there is resistance. I do know that we have seen changes in packaging over the years. Manufacturers have worked quite hard to reduce package size, change the way packages are formulated so you don't have an extra liner bag where you don't need it, making sure you are still complying with different regulations. While we represent consumer product manufacturers, the majority of our members are food manufacturers. There are federal laws with regard to ingredients and nutrition facts tables, so sometimes that size has to stay.
We are seeing a lot of examples of them reducing packaging. In terms of extended producer responsibility often there has been a link made: if you do have legislated programs you are going to incent yourself to reduce your packaging. We haven't seen that happen. It's very difficult to do that if some provinces are recycling some materials and some aren't. How do you make a packaging decision if you want to make it smaller or lighter, but there is inconsistent information depending where it is collected, processed, and recycled in Canada?