Environment Committee on March 17th, 2021

[Nathalie Perron]

We know that the landfill capacity in Canada is put through a stretch in some areas. Currently, if waste exported to the U.S. contains some plastics that are listed in the proposed schedule 7, that would mean it could no longer travel to the U.S. That would probably put a stretch on some provinces' capacity to manage it.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

How long does it take to create a landfill site?

[Helen Ryan]

I'm not in a position to give you the specifics, as the approval and licensing of landfill sites are not done by the federal government for domestic material. We do know that these things can take many years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, you have two and a half minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Ryan, earlier we talked about reducing plastic consumption and about biosourced products. If we went in that direction, we wouldn't be talking about waste; we'd be talking about resources. The department addressed the integrated management approach in a publication.

Given that waste management is under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, can you tell us if the department has partnership programs to support the circular use of plastics?

[Helen Ryan]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for her question.

That's part of the zero plastic waste initiative that we launched with the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. In fact, we are aiming much higher.

I will ask Mr. Drouin to elaborate on that.

[Dany Drouin]

Thank you.

We have partnerships with some provinces. For example, we have pilot projects in Ontario on the compostability of [Inaudible—Editor].

In Quebec, there is the Circular Plastics Taskforce, the work done with Danone and Éco Entreprises Québec. We are trying to find the best means of optimizing the value of certain waste not made of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, so it can be recovered and then directed somewhere.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

There have been breakthroughs in research at Natural Resources Canada. I will compare the subsidies. I believe that the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, or CNRS, received $150 million for one project while the petrochemical industry collected hundreds of millions of dollars.

Does Environment and Climate Change Canada intend to increase the subsidy for bioplastics, for example?

[Helen Ryan]

The zero plastic waste initiative has a component called

“innovation challenges”.

This component provides subsidies to industry. We could send you the list of funds that have been disbursed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Excellent, thank you.

Ms. Collins, you have the floor.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Ryan, I want to go back to the question around hazardous waste and waste for special consideration, especially the question around waste for special consideration. You seemed to be kind of alluding to the fact that we have regulations that cover this already. We haven't signed on to that Basel ban amendment, just to the plastic waste amendments.

What has changed for the pieces around waste for special consideration since some of those high-profile cases in the Philippines, etc.?

[Helen Ryan]

There was an important amendment made to our regulations. I'll let Nathalie Perron speak to the specifics of that.

[Nathalie Perron]

I hope I understood the question correctly.

In 2016 the regulations were amended to include, within the definition of hazardous waste, a clause that describes where, if an importing country controls or prohibits a waste, then it becomes automatically, under our regulation, hazardous and is controlled. In effect, it has the same outcome as the ban amendment, because any countries who signed on to the ban amendment—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I only have two and a half minutes. A 2019 report showed that 150,000 shipping containers of U.S. plastic waste were exported to countries with poor waste management in 2018.

Given the kinds of loopholes that exist, I'm curious about our shipping to the U.S. this waste for special consideration, and it then ending up in landfills even if our regulations might have changed since then.

[Helen Ryan]

It's important to remember that if waste is transiting through the United States but destined for final disposal elsewhere, it is subject to our regulations and is subject to a permit. We need the prior, informed consent of the country to which it's destined. If they're doing something to the contrary, that would be a violation of our regulations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Redekopp for five minutes.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Ryan, in your answer to Madam Pauzé you indicated that the government was following a multi-faceted approach to reduce plastic waste.

Your department imposes Bill C-204 and the alternative is to reduce plastic waste. Some of the ideas the government is imposing are to declare plastics a toxic substance under CEPA and to ban plastics for certain end uses. For example, a lot of plastic waste comes from food packaging. You'll recall in 2008, 22 people died from a listeriosis outbreak in Canada. There were also E. coli outbreaks. Recommendations coming from reports of those outbreaks included strengthening food safety measures, such as inner packaging, i.e., plastic.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently put into effect the safe food for Canadians regulations. Have the CFIA, Agriculture Canada and Health Canada been consulted on the plastics ban?

[Helen Ryan]

As part of our comprehensive approach to zero plastic waste, we issued a discussion paper for public comment. One of the elements of that is the approach to banning problematic single-use plastics. We worked jointly with our colleagues at Health Canada in the drafting of that and have also consulted with other federal departments.

In addition, in conducting our science assessment on plastic waste, we worked jointly with Health Canada but also consulted broadly with other government agencies, research institutes and others with respect to the issues in terms of the concerns from a science perspective on this—

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Ms. Ryan, can you confirm that you did talk to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture Canada?

[Helen Ryan]

Yes, we can confirm.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay.

It took six years for this legislation to come into effect after Gerry Ritz, a great Saskatchewan man, by the way, in the Harper government, implemented these regulations.

What time frame will Canadian agricultural processors, food processors, grocery stores, consumers, etc., have to adapt to a plastic ban?

[Helen Ryan]

We issued a discussion paper. As well, we put forward a proposal for public comment on adding plastic manufactured items to schedule 1 of CEPA. These are the first steps in our regulatory process. We're currently assessing the comments with respect to the discussion paper. Decisions will be forthcoming in terms of the next steps.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Chair, I'll pass the rest of my time to Mr. Albas.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

On Monday there was disagreement over the definition of “final disposal”.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act refers to the Basel Convention on this topic. The convention says that the following operations are not final disposal: “Operations which may lead to resource recovery, recycling reclamation, direct re-use or alternative uses.”

Is this your understanding of the Basel Convention and rules?

[Helen Ryan]

I will turn to my colleague, Nathalie Perron, to speak to the Basel Convention.