Environment Committee on March 15th, 2021

[Bob Masterson]

I'll defer again to my colleague Ms. Mantagaris.

[Elena Mantagaris]

I think we have several provinces that are already starting on the right path with extended producer responsibility. Referencing the B.C. model, we want to see, and we are pleased to see, that those measures are going to be moving forward in Ontario. Quebec has also signalled that they'll be moving forward with them, and Alberta has certainly signalled their keen interest. Each of those EPR programs has clear targets for recycling and defines what counts as diversion from landfill. These are the kinds of practices that we need to see strengthened in provinces across the country, and we certainly are very supportive of that as an industry.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay.

Ms. St. Godard, I referenced your earlier statement about how things had to go further. Given the fact that provinces are clearly moving in this direction and we want to have those that.... Again, I would point to companies like Merlin Plastics. They would simply say they look to the province to give them guidance to help create their market.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

I think extended producer responsibility certainly is the policy of choice at the provincial level to try to tackle plastic waste. There's no question about that. The issue is that the targets are systemically low in their regulations.

I'll cite Ontario as an example. After three decades of a blue box program that is world renowned, our recovery rates for plastic packaging as a stream have been stagnant at about 30% for some time, and the new proposal coming forward today is to keep them where they are.

EPR is only as good as the targets that are set.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I'll go to Mr. Masterson.

You said earlier that B.C. does well above that. Could you point out some of the strong points of my home province of British Columbia in regard to this?

I do think this is what Canadians would like to know. Quite honestly, until I became a member of Parliament, I thought the rules for recycling were the same across Canada, not just across British Columbia.

[Bob Masterson]

There are two key things. One is regulations, as Ms. St. Godard just said. The targets are regulated and you need to achieve them, and they're being raised as we speak.

The second is harmonization. One of the challenges in Ontario—you've heard me say this before—is that you have 256 different programs. None of this discussion today has come back and talked about the municipalities. When we think about these mixed bales and what needs to be done with them, the recycling industry—the Merlins and others—and the waste transporters are part of that discussion, but most of it in most parts of Canada is the responsibility of the municipal government, and they simply lack....

A small town can't process all the plastics it has, so what do they do? They bale them up into mixed bales. They all try to market to the same people, but there's no market for them, so they either put them in their own landfill or they give them to someone else and and ask them to please get rid of them. That's not an easy problem.

What British Columbia allows is for your coffee cup lids to be collected at the scale of a province of several million people. Now you can find a market for your used coffee cup lids for sure.

EPR-regulated targets and a harmonized system are key ingredients to succeed. If Ontario doesn't get those in place, it will not succeed, as Ms. St. Godard has said.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have no further questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

Mr. Masterson, that last answer clarified a lot of things for me and crystallized my understanding.

Last but not least, we have Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

You left off at a beautiful spot, Mr. Masterson.

I was on a waste management review committee at the City of Guelph. We looked at projects like the Partners in Project Green at Pearson airport, where an eco-industrial zone was set up. As a municipality, we were trying to increase our diversion from landfill. We got it up to 68% diversion from landfill for our waste streams.

A lot of this is really up to local municipalities, and how we support them through our legislation is really important. I'd like you to comment on how that squares with this type of a one-line private member's bill that could end up telling municipalities that they now have to accept all this waste that they were shipping to the United States.

[Bob Masterson]

I really don't have anything to add. I think you've answered your question.

Elena, I don't know if you have anything to add there.

[Elena Mantagaris]

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

What's being proposed is this punitive approach without any of the systems or infrastructure to support any kind of alternative. Part of what Bob and many here are saying is that this is a multi-faceted challenge and issue. We need multi-faceted responses. One line in a bill like this does not allow us to actually put the effort and investments into the things we need to support the goal that everyone is saying they have, which is a circular economy for plastics.

Quite frankly, I argue that this is the kind of bill that's actually going to hamper that circular economy. We already have businesses that have been investing in the infrastructure and the systems to enable that circular economy. This bill is proposing to put a halt to that, rather than supporting the future development of that sector.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you. I really appreciate your statement there.

To go over to Ms. St. Godard, when we reframe this as an opportunity for resource management rather than waste management, I think of the resources we can get from the next life of plastics. We have Hematite in Guelph, which relies on a North American supply chain to be able to draw in polymers they can use in automotive moulding or architectural moulding. Many of the businesses in Guelph are saying that it's less expensive for them to purchase plastics and extract resins from them than it is to create petroleum-based products or bio-based plastics.

Ms. St. Godard, this legislation seems to fly in the face of progress in terms of stopping what we all want to stop, which is plastics going into landfill.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

The amount of plastic materials we're generating and have to landfill—irrespective of whether it's domestic or foreign—is a market failure. It's an economic failure. In order for us to apply a value or increase the value of these plastic discards, we need to come at it from a variety of different angles.

Governments have a unique opportunity through their procurement power, which is $200 million in annual government spending in a year. To try to generate some of these plastic materials from recycled plastic is critical, but we need to make sure we have tracing and reporting in place so that we understand what we're measuring and what those impacts actually are.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Masterson, first of all, Canada was leading in the negotiation of these amendments with the Basel Convention—

[Bob Masterson]

That's correct.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

—and was really driving the discussions. We then had to put it into a lower gear while we waited for the American government to reconstitute itself and then have the Americans come into our agreement that we were working on globally. Hopefully, we'll have the Americans join the global community on this issue, as they did with the climate change agreements that we negotiated in Paris.

The Canadian government has actually taken a leadership role. Earlier comments made it sound as though we really didn't want this agreement.

You've been working with the Canadian government. Could you tell us how good we are?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I hate to say you have to be brief, but anyway....

[Bob Masterson]

All Canadian governments of all stripes have been fully committed to the Basel Convention since day one, including—and I think you folks are a little aggressive here—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Conservative governments.

[Bob Masterson]

—on our good neighbours to the south.

You know, we have an agreement with the United States, a treaty on the implementation of Basel. We've done the right thing here. We have an agreement to cover this extension of Basel, so let's just be cautious in the rhetoric we have with our neighbours to the south. It's an integrated economy, and we rely on each other very heavily.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Boy, do we ever.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

I want to thank the committee members, whose questions brought to light a great deal of information on the topic.

I want to thank the witnesses for sharing their knowledge with the committee. The discussion was extremely informative. I was able to fill in several gaps in my understanding of the topic. I want to thank them for coming and invite them to disconnect if they wish to do so.

I have a few announcements for the committee members.

On Wednesday, we'll continue our study of this bill. In the first part of the meeting, we'll hear from representatives of Environment and Climate Change Canada and Global Affairs Canada. In the second hour, we'll debate a number of amendments.

The March 22 meeting is reserved for committee business. We'll review the second draft of the report on the study on zero emission vehicles. We'll use this meeting to provide instructions to the analysts for the report on the enforcement of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

If all goes well, then ideally we would be able to launch the five-meeting study on plastics.

Does anyone want to move to adjourn today's meeting?

Ms. Pauzé is moving to adjourn and there seems to be a consensus.

The meeting is adjourned.