Environment Committee on April 10th, 2019

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I appreciate that, and I think the point of the Environment Canada officials was that the percentage of single-use plastics in relation to the broader plastics industry output is small. I totally appreciate that. I also appreciate that in order to get to a low-carbon economy, we're going to need plastics. They're in fact a key part of the innovations that we're going to need. In no way should my comments on your industry be perceived as anti-plastics.

Wouldn't you agree that the public opinion right now, which you yourself have measured, not only wants a circular economy approach but also wants very concrete measures that express society's values around the creation of single-use plastics that inevitably find their way into ecosystems?

[Bob Masterson]

We surveyed Canadians, and I think you have a copy of our more detailed report. You'll see some of the numbers in there. The majority of Canadians, when asked the question in isolation—“Do you support a ban on certain single-use plastics?”—said yes. When you ask that same question on how we should best manage single-use plastics and you give them five choices, number five out of five is the ban. The first thing is better recycling, and then better education to know what they should do. Yes, they will support a ban in isolation, but Canadians themselves understand that it is not a sufficient answer to the challenge they face.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

You've mentioned long-term aspirational targets. What specific policy measures would you support in order to achieve those targets?

[Bob Masterson]

I think we've set aspirational targets for ourselves. I wouldn't say that, for any industry, including ours, to undergo the type of transformation that's required a mere 10 years from now is the “long term”. The year 2030 is tomorrow, in an industry of this scale and the number of products we produce. This is incredibly ambitious. If governments and industry get there, which they should, it will be nothing short of what we've accomplished in going to the moon. This is no long-term undertaking.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I've asked a specific question, though, about what specific policies you're willing to endorse to get to those aspirational targets. If you could respond in writing, that would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Fast, you have six minutes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you very much to all of you for appearing.

I'm going to go to Mr. Masterson as well, at least for now.

I'm glad to hear you say that you support the full circular economy, but when we have a discussion like this, we have to place it in context. We have a federal sustainability act that calls on government to take three things into consideration: the environment, the economy and the social environment.

Could you tell us what the size of your industry is? What does it contribute to our economy?

[Isabelle Des Chênes, Executive Vice-President, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada]

Our 2018 data was just recently released. We are a $55-billion industry.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Did you say five-five?

[Isabelle Des Chênes]

Yes. We have $40 billion in exports and $20 billion in industrial chemical exports. We employ over 600,000 Canadians directly and indirectly. Directly, it's close to 92,000 Canadians.

We also work under the ethic and principles of responsible care. It's something that we introduced as an association over 30 years ago. It is recognized by the UN Environment Programme and practised in 67 countries around the world. It ensures that all of our companies and their operations operate to ensure a healthy environment for their employees, for the communities and for the economic sustainability of their operations.

As a result of that, we've reduced our emissions by almost 70% since 1992, but we continue to work on a continuous basis for continual improvement of that environmental footprint. That means working on things like product design, building markets and, in some cases, with some of our members, introducing new ways to collect difficult-to-recycle plastics to ensure they are captured within that circular economy.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

We have this very significant contributor to economic health and prosperity in Canada, yet you said that you support a full circular economy. I think we can draw from this that you don't believe that a circular economy would undermine the profitability of your industry. Am I correct in saying that?

[Isabelle Des Chênes]

That's correct.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Do you want to comment on that?

[Isabelle Des Chênes]

Absolutely. One of the key elements of the sustainability strategies for all of our companies is really looking at the circular economy. We work very closely with our friends in the United States, the American Chemistry Council. Our industries are very much integrated and the members cross borders. It is clear that every CEO, whether in Canada or in the U.S., is keenly aware of the issue related to plastics and what that means in terms of their reputation, but also in terms of the trust of global consumers. They have really put their money where their mouth is in providing billions of dollars to help support that circular economy.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

My time is short, unfortunately.

You have heard the testimony of Mr. Cullen, whom I have the highest respect for, by the way. I think he's worth listening to. He has said—and I'm paraphrasing here—that we need to understand what is truly recyclable and reusable, and then produce only that which is truly recyclable and reusable. He referenced a portion of the plastics that are produced today that may not be truly recyclable and reusable.

What is your response?

[Isabelle Des Chênes]

Absolutely. He is correct. There are portions of those plastics that aren't. Our companies have this window and this commitment to ensure that all their products are recyclable and recoverable by 2030. We have a 10-year window. It takes time for the R and D. They are working diligently at it and already have introduced a number of products that previously weren't recycled—things like stand-up pouches for food—that are now becoming inherently more recyclable. That's their commitment in terms of ensuring we arrive at that by 2030 so that any new product that comes on the market has a recovery strategy attached to it.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

So it's worthwhile listening to Mr. Cullen.

[Isabelle Des Chênes]

It's totally worthwhile. He has it straight.

[Bob Masterson]

I think it's important for this committee to understand that, yes, the most important driver for that change in the industry is the consumer at the end of the day, but it comes from the companies that are in Jim's membership, the brand owners, the Procter & Gambles, the Unilevers. They are telling our plastics industry how the world has to change, and they want it to change very quickly.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Ross, you talked very broadly about the problem. I didn't hear a lot about what your solutions might be. I'm going to ask you a more targeted question. What is the biggest challenge facing the plastics pollution industry, so to speak?

[Peter Ross]

That's a great question.

As a scientist, I'm trained to identify problems and inform solutions. In my view, the solutions come from the private sector that designs and produces products and looks at the life cycle of that product, at the procurement and design of that product. Our intended target is also the general public: to improve consumer education and look at better recycling. I think an EPR national recycling framework would go a long way to reducing the complexity, and we heard about that from other witnesses today.

It's not our intent to preach. We're looking at the ocean and we're identifying issues in the ocean. We're identifying problems pertaining to microplastics and plastics. We're trying to use the best available science and innovation to track that back to source.

I think the basic discovery or curiosity that's driving our understanding of the problem is contributing to that team effort and allowing multiple players. I would point to our microfibre partnership with apparel retailers that we're working very closely with. They are very supportive of understanding the nature and scale of this problem. They were not aware of the issue in the past, and they would like to use a better awareness of that problem to inform their material design, procurement, life-cycle analysis, etc.

I'll simply end by saying that recycling must improve and can improve. There is an issue, because we always face leakage. We want to improve recycling, improve recyclability, but we always face a leakage.

I look at our great Canadian shoreline data from a couple of years ago, and 17,654 straws were found on Canadian beaches. That's a tiny amount of what actually went into the environment. There were 50,285 plastic beverage bottles, and 22,724 plastic bags. This is not done by people deliberately throwing these things out.

We need better recycling and more informed consumers. There is always going to be leakage, and that's a big concern of ours. At the end of the day, those seals, sea lions, turtles, albatross, baby salmon, zooplankton and beluga whales, and the traditional food for indigenous communities, are the things we have to use as a metric. That's not just semantic or goal-oriented. We need positive metrics.

We have to use those numbers and those risks to inform and strengthen our solutions—as I put it to you earlier—as a team. Plastics are in every one of our lives.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Stetski.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here.

I'd like to thank Mr. Cullen in particular: past vice-chair of this committee, past environment critic for the NDP and long-time environmental and indigenous champion. We're certainly going to miss you.

I know that, as part of your bill, you looked around the world to see what other countries were doing. I wonder if you could take a minute to tell us some of the great things going on in other countries that we might want to achieve, hopefully in the short term.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let's start with the latest Conference Board of Canada research on Canada's waste management system. As a whole, we ranked 17th, which is pretty bad, but it's really bad when you realize there were only 17 countries ranked in that study.

We've talked a lot about the manufacturing system and the recycling system, and one of the gaps we have is in Canadians' lack of self-awareness about where we stand in the world and how we're doing.

I want to get back to Mr. Fast's comment about the economy, because I think that's an important piece. I'll take Ontario again as an example, because it's relevant to a number of members here. If the 25% that is diverted from the waste stream right now moved up to, say, 65%—which is achieved in many other OECD countries and some European countries we're familiar with—it would add $1.5 billion to the Ontario GDP. It would create upwards of 13,000 jobs. That's a number that most of us, as elected people, can really understand and appreciate the significance of.

Oftentimes we see this in terms of the cost and the impact on industry as it currently stands. I would argue that we also need to flip that around and say, “What is the current cost of inaction or of the status quo?” I'm not saying we are not acting, but are we acting aggressively enough? Are we making all of the smart moves? This is just from the economic lens, never mind the other two lenses. It also costs our fishing industry something in the order of $1 trillion a year. To a west coast MP, that matters.

You asked about other jurisdictions. The European Union certainly has been in the lead. We have also seen...not just on the producing side but on the receiving side. As I mentioned before, it's not just China. There are a number of other developing nations that traditionally received recycled materials from the west but are no longer receiving them and are changing their own standards.

You can look around globally. There are seven major rivers in the world that contribute most of the waste we see in the Pacific Ocean. We can say that this is a China problem or a Sri Lanka problem. Well, they didn't create the plastic, necessarily. They received it from us. Some of it was recycled, but a bunch of it wasn't. A bunch of it ended up in the streams that end up in the ocean, and we look at the gyre in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as a problem.

Getting back to Mr. Amos's question, the U.K. government has been very aggressive around banning single-use plastics. I've had drinks out of non-plastic straws. They worked fine. Ed and I will have to compare notes. You're not meant to reuse them over and over again. That might be too aggressive a Conservative position.