Evidence of meeting #154 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was packaging.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada
We don't sell them or distribute them either. The City of Toronto is in a fight with those guys, who are selling the pods in Toronto. The City of Toronto is saying to them that the city can't compost them, so what they're doing there is false advertising. They're butting heads on this.
Conservative
Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada
It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to know whether the thing is recyclable. That's why we need the harmonized standards across jurisdictions. We need extended producer responsibility so that it's not up to municipalities to put the infrastructure in place and it's not up to consumers to have the right thing. It's up to producers who want to sell the products and make the money from them to make sure that systems are in place to capture, recycle and deal with their product's end of life.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
This has been a great panel. I've been trying to encapsulate everything that's been said here today. There have been great questions all the way around, by all parties.
I guess what I'm trying to figure out is this. We've been trying to explore the federal level's ability to regulate different aspects of this—regulate the recyclability and the harmonization piece; regulate that everything must be recyclable; regulate the harmonization of those recyclables; regulate the level of collection of those recyclables; put enforcement around all of those; and finally, regulate with regard to the particular bans around the toxicity of certain plastics. Would you agree that in each one of those areas, the federal level of government would have the ability to regulate that, and then it would be up to the provinces and the producers? As you just said, it would be up to the provinces to implement and the producers to find a path forward to achieve those regulated targets.
I would ask Mr. Brooks to answer first, and then I'd like to see the others jump in with their thoughts as well.
Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada
We'd have to figure out exactly all of the details. In our declaration that I spoke of in our submission, we've been breaking down all the different pathways the Canadian government can take and the powers that government has. We think the government does need to regulate some aspects of that, but again, there are people who have greater expertise on constitutional law and the powers of the federal government to regulate.
We could figure out—and you could figure out, or people could figure out—what the role of the federal government is and what powers it has to regulate to and bring out these different outcomes that we need. Yes, provinces and producers have to get on side as well.
Liberal
Senior Director, Circular Economy and Sustainable Innovation, Montreal Office, Retail Council of Canada
I think all of the different action items you mentioned are definitely in the scope of the federal government, except maybe for level of collection rates and setting up, say, EPR structures. Those are really provincial regulations. I think—
Liberal
Senior Director, Circular Economy and Sustainable Innovation, Montreal Office, Retail Council of Canada
Correct.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
—then could we not regulate, at some level, the methods to deal with that national problem?
Senior Director, Circular Economy and Sustainable Innovation, Montreal Office, Retail Council of Canada
Yes, absolutely. I think when it comes to looking at the material—you mentioned recyclability, recycled content, toxicity, even education and awareness about the material, about plastics, R and D, upgrading the facilities—all of these are areas where the federal government definitely would be doing a better job through the harmonization lens that we've been talking about. This would definitely be a great opportunity for everyone if the federal government jumped on that aspect.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
There are a couple things.
If you put policies in place just for plastics, you might run into something with trade, because now you're setting an uneven playing field for packaging within the country. What you're saying is, “Okay, plastics are bad, and I'm going to make sure you get X'ed”, whereas paper might be good. You're going to have—
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I think under EPR, though, you would be regulating all packaging. Right?
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
You'd have to regulate all packaging. That's what we started with. This is not just a plastic issue. It's a garbage issue. It's a waste issue.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
There are a few things I think that the federal government could do. First of all, landfill is way too cheap in this country.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
It has been for years. If you look anywhere—whether it's Germany, or anywhere else in the EU, the U.K.—you're looking at a hundred-dollar tax on landfilling that we don't have here. Whereas recycling's $200 to $250 a tonne, landfilling is $100 a tonne.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
You can ship from Toronto down to Michigan for 51 bucks.
Unless we start levelling that playing field.... You can control that, because that's the transportation of materials across a border. That's the transportation of waste. If you created for that the same idea that carbon's an issue, solve the carbon problem—
