Environment Committee on April 12th, 2021

[Elena Mantagaris]

Before responding about the specific job losses, I'm concerned that we're creating this [Technical difficulty—Editor] caught here between single-use plastics and other plastics. If we were to invest in a circular economy, we would no longer have this notion of a single-use plastic. I'd urge us to think about the implications of this trajectory of banning things when the right investment would actually change the entire frame of reference.

Specifically, when we look at what it means to jobs in the economy, if we were to look at all single-use plastics and if there were bans in this country on single-use plastics writ large, we would probably be talking nationally of something between $6 and $7 billion in annual sales being at risk.

Those sales represent anywhere from 13,000 to 20,000 direct Canadian jobs. Indirect jobs are two for one, so you're looking at about 26,000 to 40,000 more jobs that would be at risk in introducing bans on single-use plastics. However, if we turned that around and invested in the circular economy, which you're hearing from everyone around the table, we would no longer have this debate and this risk introduced economically.

To answer Mr. Albas' question specifically, those jobs are across the country. Almost 2,000 companies are in almost every single riding in this country, roughly 60% of them in Ontario and another 25%-30% in Quebec, and the rest are scattered in Alberta and British Columbia, with a little bit in some of the other provinces. Every single riding has some of these small and medium-sized enterprises making these plastic products that we benefit from, that we have used extensively for decades.

The issue is not the use of the plastics; it's the waste management around them, or, quite frankly, redesigning all of this so that it's a resource and reused. If we were to focus on that problem rather than on banning the product, we would not be having this debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mrs. McLeod, please go ahead.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you. This has been a really interesting panel.

In many ways, in terms of recognizing the importance of plastics in our lives, we have more in common than we have in our opposition. Quite frankly, we'll have some challenging economic times, and we need to look at the solutions that both maintain the jobs and our economy and also protect the environment. We can't afford to head too far in one direction. It can be done, and it's really important.

I am a former nurse. We had protective equipment and we had syringes that changed from glass to plastic. That was important for us. It was important for infection control. I am concerned as I hear about [Technical difficulty—Editor] in terms of what it will do for other products [Technical difficulty—Editor]. The low-carbon economy will demand more and more plastics.

Can you talk a bit more about that particular aspect?

[Bob Masterson]

Look at the automotive sector. If we want to lighten our vehicles and make them more fuel efficient, if we want to electrify them, they need to be lightweight, and that means more plastics.

In any car on the road today, there's a lot more plastic than there was in the vintage you were speaking of earlier with regard to the nursing sector. In the automotive sector, you're seeing the same transformation you saw there. You're seeing it in the aerospace sector.

Why are you seeing it? You're seeing it because they want to lighten the weight. Companies like Air Canada, prior to the pandemic, phased out all of the glass on the airplanes and put in plastic, because by losing even that little bit of extra weight on every flight, they had lighter aircraft with lower emissions.

There's no question I could go on and talk about the penetration of plastics as a lightweight energy-efficient material in all sectors of the economy. There is none, believe it or not, more important than the food and beverage industry, because the packaging often is much more valuable than the product itself, and can often weigh more if you choose the wrong materials. Absolutely, plastics are, for most sectors, a key contributor to the low-carbon economy.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

We talk about the circular [Technical difficulty—Editor] Tell me what this will look like. Take us through the recycle process in Germany, as an example, and how it actually works. I don't know if it's Mr. Galt or Mr. Masterson.

[Bob Masterson]

I wouldn't go that far, Mrs. McLeod; I'd look in your own province of British Columbia. It is the North American leader in extended producer responsibility, and it is driving much farther ahead. That's the model that Quebec, Ontario and the other jurisdictions need to go to. We could talk separately about all the advantages of the B.C. approach to recycling and the circular economy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Excellent.

We go now to Mr. Baker, who's batting cleanup. Mr. Baker, you're the last questioner today.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks very much.

I'm going to ask somebody to bat cleanup for the cleanup hitter, so I'm going to ask one question to Dr. Rochman and then I'm going to pass it on to my colleague Mr. Longfield, who will use the remainder of my time, if that's all right, Chair.

Dr. Rochman, I wanted to ask a question about the ban on single-use plastics. I think many of my constituents in Etobicoke Centre understand some of the harms that plastics can cause to the environment and human health, but could you articulate what you believe the benefits are of the government's proposed ban on single-use plastics?

We have probably about a minute and a half or two minutes max for your answer; I'll say a minute and a half.

[Dr. Chelsea M. Rochman]

Sure.

As I said before, there's no doubt that plastics big and small bring measurable risks in the environment, and from that, we know we have to do something now. We've done assessments to try to estimate how much plastic is going into the environment every year, and from that we have a number of about 20 million to 30 million metric tonnes. We know that if we continue business as usual, it may as much as triple.

In order to reduce it, we've done exercises to figure out how hard we need to pull on just the waste management scheme, just the reducing plastic scheme or just the cleanup scheme. If we do just one thing, we have to do an immense amount of work, and that includes in all economies across the world, which is why I think reducing plastic waste is a big part of it. I understand that if we switch to a circular economy, we are also reducing plastic waste, but we need to act quickly. We have been talking about recycling for decades, and it hasn't worked yet. I like recycling, but it hasn't worked yet to the extent that we need it to work.

I do think, based on what I see in the environment, that reducing single-use plastic products on the market will reduce what we see in the environment, will reduce the amount of microplastics we see in the environment, which will protect wildlife and then eventually human health, once we better understand those risks. It worked with microbeads, and I feel that this is another next step in order to reduce more of what's out there before we take another step.

I don't know if that answers your question.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

It does. Thanks, Dr. Rochman.

I'll pass the rest of my time to Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Great. Thank you. Thanks for sharing time.

I had two follow-up questions for Mr. Masterson.

We have received incredible briefing notes from the Library of Parliament. They always do an amazing job, but this briefing note in particular was just gold star. In our briefing notes, they talked about the opportunity for chemical recycling versus mechanical recycling and how early-stage that is. From the chemical industry, it seems like there's a large opportunity for us if we look at the circular economy to be implementing things like chemical recycling.

Maybe the second piece for me, coming from Guelph, is that the University of Guelph is working on bioplastics and the use of bioplastics instead of petroleum-based plastics as another opportunity. Maybe you could speak to either one of those for our study.

[Bob Masterson]

Sure. On the first one, I'm going to defer to Ms. Mantagaris. She's even more passionate about the issue of advanced recycling than I am.

[Elena Mantagaris]

I think the opportunity for investment in advanced recycling is tremendous. Getting plastic back to its molecular level so it can be reused indefinitely in the economy is essentially the Holy Grail that we're all aiming for, but we have work to do in this country to actually achieve that goal, and it's not about more ingenuity, because we have lots of innovators in this country. The gap we're facing is that all of these pilots and innovation activities happening have a challenge in getting to commercialization, and they need to go elsewhere, outside the country, to actually help realize that goal. That's what we're seeing happening.

If I can almost tie in a response to you with Madame Pauzé's question earlier, we need to see more investment by industry and governments to help realize these types of solutions. Quite frankly, every government, federally and provincially, has identified recycling as a priority. We should be seeing this as essential infrastructure across the country and making the appropriate investments in these technologies.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you. I think you'll see that Industry Canada, through our government, has been investing in this area in Alberta, as an example, where there could be a centre of excellence that could really take us to the next level. It's the scale-up opportunity on either of those technologies that really is where we need to get provincial, industry and international capital working on this for Canada.

[Elena Mantagaris]

Absolutely. I would just add that industry is here to be a partner with government in helping realize that goal. We're not objecting to a circular economy. In fact, we're at the forefront of investing in it and want to do so with governments.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

There are exciting opportunities.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

That takes us to 5:30 and the end of our round.

Thank you to all the witnesses for a very interesting discussion from different points of view, in many cases. We have all come out with an understanding of this issue.

Colleagues, as you know, we have a meeting on Thursday. It will start a bit later because of all the votes. We'll be using that meeting to launch our study of Bill C-230. On Monday, April 19, we don't have a meeting. That's because of the budget. We will get back to things on the 21st.

Thank you again to our witnesses and thank you, members, for your excellent questions.

Thank you to the analysts for putting this together and to the clerk for managing this process.

Have a good evening, all. I'm sure we'll see each other at some point to discuss the different kinds of issues that come out of this. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.