Environment Committee on April 1st, 2019

[Wayne Stetski, Kootenay—Columbia, NDP]

Thank you for being here, and thank you for the work you're doing on this very important topic.

Over the last five months, two of my colleagues in the NDP have introduced a motion and a bill. I won't go through them all, but on December 5, the House of Commons unanimously agreed to a motion by Mr. Gord Johns that “the government should work with the provinces, municipalities, and indigenous communities to develop a national strategy to combat plastic pollution”. It looked at two parts: regulations and “permanent, dedicated, and annual funding”. There was more breakdown below that.

Then, on February 20, 2019, MP Nathan Cullen introduced Bill C-429, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which was a private member's bill looking to reduce plastic waste entering the environment by requiring all packaging sold in Canada to be recyclable or compostable.

I was regional manager with the Ministry of Environment back in my home riding of Kootenay—Columbia, and one of the things we always wrestled with was the appropriate balance between regulations and voluntary best management practices by industries and companies. I see that the ocean plastics charter talks about recycling, reusing and recovering plastics. I'm wondering where you think regulation is most appropriate in any of those three elements, or just in general related to plastics, versus requiring or asking industry to follow some best management practices.

[Helen Ryan]

With respect to the role of regulations, as I mentioned at the outset, this area is a shared area with provinces and territories. Municipalities also play a role, as does the federal government. I would say, with respect to the actions that are going to be needed to help get us to our target, that it's going to take a mixture of all the tools we have to address things in a comprehensive way.

The question will be about the timing for that: who's best placed to do it and at what stage you employ the interventions. I don't think that you should regulate everything and leave nothing to collaboration or voluntary measures. I think that, as you work through the spectrum of it, you're going to look to define things. For instance, when we talk about extended producer responsibility, there are provinces doing work in that area. Some of them are doing it from a regulatory perspective; others are doing it from an MOU perspective with their industries. Both of those measures can be equally effective. It depends on the nature of the relationship with their industry.

Then we think about the role the federal government can play in that context. When you look at the overarching question of how we can move to harmonization, we can help through the development of standards, and then others can employ those standards through their means. So I think it's really a mixture of things.

As we go through, and as the science helps to inform things, we may find there are needs for certain targeted measures—for instance at a federal level, as we had with microbeads, in which case we put in place a targeted regulation to keep those out of cosmetics and toiletries. That's informed by the science and the assessment.

I think it's going to be a mixture of all the tools we have in our tool box.

[Wayne Stetski]

It is going to take all three levels of government—federal, provincial and municipal—to really make an effective system.

When you look at the federal level of responsibility, again, do you think federal regulations are most appropriate at the producer level, or for the reuse or recycling? Have you looked at that aspect of it, for federal regulations?

[Helen Ryan]

Those are the kinds of issues we're actually working through with our provincial and territorial colleagues in the development of the action plan: what kind of element makes sense and at what stage. We're working through that, engaging stakeholders and others to help inform the development of that action plan. That will then help inform the role we should play and where it's best to make use of federal actions.

I've talked about a number of things we're already doing with respect to that, including the development of standards and codes of practice, but there's also our purchasing power, the procurement we are doing and the support we're providing, for instance, for innovation. We're using federal actions in a variety of ways, including from a fiscal perspective, in terms of investing in innovation. We look at it in terms of the regulations we have for microbeads, for instance. Then we look at things like standards, which we develop jointly with others and have implemented through those kinds of means. Those are just illustrative.

[Wayne Stetski]

It's about scoping out our exercise, again, to make sure we're focusing on things on which the federal government can have the most impact or effectiveness. Any advice you can give us on that would be appreciated.

For the benefit of my colleagues, MP Cullen has asked to come and appear as a witness before the committee. I gave that request to our chair.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

Next up is Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Davenport, Lib.]

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the excellent presentation.

This is something on which, like Mr. Fast, I wish we could have a lot more time for questions.

One of the things that surprised me was that there are a number of products actually produced that are not recyclable. There's different recyclability of plastics, which surprised me. I guess I want to ask whether we're working with industry on a little bit of that consistency and whether we're doing our work here in Canada, as well as abroad.

The second part of that question, because it deals with industry, is this: What do we do in terms of making industry responsible for its own plastic packaging? Is there any work we're doing around that?

I'll pause, and then I will have some additional questions after that.

[Helen Ryan]

In terms of the work with industry around consistency, there is work going on with respect to that. Also, there are discussions and the development of an action plan about how much further we need to go with regard to that, to figure out how we can get at consistent contents and how they are able to produce things in that fashion, both in terms of the products they design and in terms of the packaging they use for those products—

[Julie Dzerowicz]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but am I right to believe that some of them are more recyclable than others, which is why we want to move to consistency?

[Helen Ryan]

Yes. For instance, if you have a plastic that's multi-layered, it's much more difficult to recycle than you might find with one of your clear plastic bottles where the label isn't affixed to it. That can be much easier to recycle, and it would be easier to reuse the plastic.

The idea of what you're using for your packaging and how it's made becomes important. There are conversations with respect to that, but also, I would say, information is needed in order to gain a better understanding of those important dimensions around the development of packaging, what it's used for and then how you can go about creating an alternate that still serves the same purpose. Those are important questions that need to be addressed as people think about how they put in place a requirement or work with industry for it to voluntarily look at that.

There are good initiatives going on with industry around that, where they are actually looking at their packaging requirements. They are thinking about it themselves and putting in place their own targets on how to reduce it.

You asked about industries being responsible for their own packaging. There are extended producer responsibility programs whereby they're actually involved in the funding and management of the programs, so that industry works to fund and put in place a program that allows the management of their product at the end.

Those are things that are also being looked at in terms of how to enhance that. When we think about extended producer responsibility, it wasn't developed with a single focus around plastics, so how does the plastic lens get taken into account? How can we go further with respect to that? A number of retailers are doing some voluntary measures with respect to that. There are things like Loblaws and Sobeys collecting their plastic bags for recycling—

[Julie Dzerowicz]

I'm sorry to interrupt. I don't have a lot of time, but I appreciate the examples.

I guess there's one more question that comes to mind as you're talking. Why can't we just say that you can't produce and sell plastic in this country unless it's recyclable? Why are we not able to do that? Why would any country in the world allow any of these companies to produce it unless it's recyclable? Why is it that they're producing plastic that is not recyclable?

[Helen Ryan]

That's like the million-dollar question, but when I talked about.... It's a system. The whole way in which we produce our products, and then how we dispose of the material and how it gets collected, managed and reused, is a system. To say that we want you to stop putting it out at the back end needs to be informed by what you're doing at the front end.

Today, to say to everyone to just stop doing that, you need to understand why they are doing it and what the nature of the issue is. You need to have commonality around what you can actually recycle, because you can say, “This is recyclable”, but you don't have a collection system that's robust enough to be able to draw that material in. You need to have a level of robustness there. You need to have the infrastructure in place around it in order to make use of it.

The answer is not a simplistic answer. It's to bring it into the circular economy perspective and work along the stream so that you can have that actually happening, and so that when you make the requirements, they're specific and they apply, and you know which content.... Think about your blue box and all the things you can put in it. Well, to be able to manage that properly, you need to be thinking it through so that you can then use the product at the front end and make use of the recovered material.

[The Chair]

You have about 20 seconds left.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

The other thing I'd love to know.... Nine per cent in terms of how many of us recycle our plastic sounds really low. Is this consistent with other G7 countries, the low recycling rate we have with plastics?

[Helen Ryan]

Yes, it is consistent. That's why we put in place a target to have 100% of it be recycled, reused or recovered by 2030.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

That is surprising and upsetting, actually. Thank you.

[The Chair]

That takes us to the end of the first round.

To Mr. Fast's point, we could do an abbreviated round, a couple of questions. It's probably going to take us five minutes to bring in the next panel and connect the person by phone. We had given our two panellists seven minutes each, so there will be 15 minutes for comments. If we went right into the second panel, just with the changeover of the witnesses, we'd be able to get through the first round of questions on that one. We can drop one of the sessions so that each side gets one question for the second panel.

[Ed Fast]

I'd like to give my colleague Monsieur Godin—

[The Chair]

Okay, so let's go with three minutes for Joël and three minutes for Darren.

[Ed Fast]

That's great.

[The Chair]

Then we'll stop and go into our second panel.

You have three minutes.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

I will get straight to the point.

My colleague Mr. Amos mentioned that we were being asked in our ridings about what concrete actions the government is taking to reduce the use of plastic and encourage its recovery. Mr. Fast asked what priorities should be established.

You see that Canadians are aware of the situation. They want us to take action. They are not currently seeing any changes. Canadians seem to be engaged in an emergency conversation, and we are not taking action.

I have a question for you. I know that there is $1 million in play, but you are specialists and are in contact with scientists. Ideally, everything would be done, but we know very well that is unrealistic. We understand that timelines are needed.

Can you tell us what we should do to make the process effective as quickly as possible?

[Helen Ryan]

The strategy that has been developed by the provinces and territories clearly outlines the 10 areas where action is needed. Action must be taken in those 10 areas.

As we were developing our action plan to that effect, we defined the five priority areas for action, which were established deliberately. It is truly a matter of looking at what we can do in terms designing those products and in terms of the use of single-use plastic products, as well as in terms of what we can do to encourage markets toward a circular economy to improve our waste collection management system and increase recycling capacity. Those are really the five priorities.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Ryan.

We are unanimously for virtue, but we don't know where to start. We are dealing with a mountain.

I have created a circular economy committee in my riding. It has been in the works for a year, and it is about to start operating. We understand that the process is long, but actions must be taken.

I will simply reuse the terms and verbs you used. It has been a matter of examining, measuring, increasing, eliminating and working on other measures.

We are all full of good intentions, but no concrete actions have been taken. That is why priorities must be well established. Your efforts are guiding us in our study.

[The Chair]

Thank you. That's the three minutes.

I'm going to have to jump over to Mr. Fisher.