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.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
British Columbia is a very good example of a program where the municipalities are not paying for the program, and it's 100% funded by stewards.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Yes, it's 100%. Well, that cost goes back to the consumer. Somebody is paying for it, but the property taxpayer isn't paying it.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
Then it becomes a consumption tax. If they don't buy it, they don't pay for it.
5:15 p.m.
Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario supports an extended producer responsibility. I don't know if they have been before this committee or not, but Ontario is in the process of making that transition from a system half paid by producers and half paid by the municipalities to one that is fully paid by producers, and we hope that transition continues. AMO and the municipalities here in Ontario are very supportive of an approach to EPR.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I have a statement to make. I live in a rural area. Some of the people who live in the area I represent I've known for a long time, and they would be referred to as Amish or Mennonite people. If they were at this committee today, they'd be blown away. They'd ask what this big problem is. Basically, we live in a throwaway society today, where everything is bought and sold and thrown away, and these people don't know what that's about. I know that you guys are making the best of what you can do with it, but the only people we can look at in the mirror is ourselves in terms of what's going on.
I grew up in the auction business. We did a lot of business with people who grew up through the Depression. They didn't throw anything out. They didn't waste anything. Everything they bought was solid wood, or it was a real shovel, a real axe or a real axe-handle.
Today, it's a throwaway society and, really, we can ask you guys to split the atom 10 times but until we take care of our own behaviour, we're our own problem. I'll take you around and show you all the Mennonite people. They don't have a recycling problem. They don't have a plastics problem. They don't have even a problem with changing the oil on their car, because they don't have one. They have steel and wood, and they get along in their lives just fine—and I don't think they're on the Internet either.
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, PAC Packaging Consortium
I think that's a wonderful story—
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, PAC Packaging Consortium
—and I totally agree with it. I absolutely agree with it. We are a consumption society, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for that. We absolutely don't.
We talk about what the federal government can do. There is a solution out there and it's a big, big idea. It's a big, big picture and it's going to take a long time, but we need to get behind the circular economy concept. If you can understand that and learn about that, then you can potentially regulate against that somehow, but do some research on it. It's powerful, it's meaningful and organizations are adopting it.
In terms of those big organizations—you talked about Unilever and Procter and Gamble—there are a lot of them that are adopting those principles. There's Ikea. The Circular Economy Leadership Coalition has been formed in Canada, and that's where they're trying to take it. We need to support them and we need to get behind this. I really think that's something that the federal government can support and help with to change us culturally from a consumption society to a circular society.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Yes, I absolutely agree that education and changing our behaviour are the key in the long run.
I just want to get back quickly to importing plastics. I think I heard you say that currently we don't know what percentage of the plastics we deal with in Canada is imported, versus what percentage is local and made in Canada. Are you aware of any Canadian regulations for any aspect of the plastics coming into the country? Is this an area we should be looking at if we're actually going to try to get a handle on plastics?
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, PAC Packaging Consortium
Probably at Health Canada, maybe something to do with food safety...?
5:20 p.m.
Director, Eco-conception, Circular Economy, Éco Entreprises Québec
Yes, there's the one with BPA.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
What kinds of things should we be looking at in terms of our trade agreements around plastics?
5:20 p.m.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
Minimum recycled content limits: if you want to bring a plastic into Canada, it has to be 25% recycled content.
It's the same as what the EU just passed on March 29, right? I think that's 35%. You have to hit a target, and if you want to put plastic in our marketplace, it has to be 35% recycled content by 2030. It's post-consumer recycled....
5:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, PAC Packaging Consortium
Yes. That's called PCR, post-consumer resins.
Again, in terms of one of the speakers we're going to have on May 30, they're taking polypropylene.
There's a great story in Quebec. It's a Canadian story that this government should be behind. They're going to scale with a full-blown industrial operation and they're putting it into South Carolina because we don't have the scale here. This was created in Canada. It's all about PET recovery and how to separate that and get it back into good flake.
5:20 p.m.
Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada
I think you could make imported products subject to the same standards that Canadian products are subject to. Again, going back to the example of microbeads, we didn't just ban the manufacture and sale of products with microbeads. We also banned the import of those products. That has to be part of the strategy.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I can't remember whether it was the renewable fuels industry or a witness we had, but in Quebec there was a ban on recyclables going into landfills. I'm not sure whether that was a municipal ban or a provincial ban in general, but—
5:20 p.m.
Director, Eco-conception, Circular Economy, Éco Entreprises Québec
Was it fibres? Packaging fibres? Paper?
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I'm trying to remember. It seemed to have led to a plant right next door to the landfill where they were creating fuels out of material that otherwise would have gone into the landfill. I'm just wondering whether Quebec has a law around plastics recycling.
5:20 p.m.
Senior Director, Circular Economy and Sustainable Innovation, Montreal Office, Retail Council of Canada
I don't think it was related to legislation. I think it was the business model of that recycler to be next to the landfill, right?
5:20 p.m.
Director, Sustainability, PAC Packaging Consortium
It's in Chester, Nova Scotia, where they put in the new Renewlogy facility for plastic to keep the plastic out of the landfill site in Nova Scotia.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
But there are some jurisdictions that already have.... I know that at least one or two of you said that we need to ban recyclables' going into landfills. Is that already in place in some locations?
