Okay. I'm sorry.
We need to impose recycled content in packaging on the Canadian market. We need a packaging standard, and we need to define corresponding eco-fees. We need to ban certain products and expand deposit systems, and we must implement extended producer responsibility nationwide in a coherent and harmonized fashion.
In order to create a viable market for recycled content, for recycled plastics, the federal government must impose mandatory and incrementally increased recycled content in plastics on the Canadian market. This legislation must rapidly be put in place in order for Canada to reach its target of 50% recycled content by 2030. The European Union and California have already voted for these recycled content laws, and Montreal just joined the Canada Plastics Pact, which aims to impose 30% recycled content in Canadian packaging. It is the most important legislation that must be put in place as fast as possible. It alone can kick-start a circular economy in the plastic industry.
Why do we need to impose recycled content? It's because virgin plastics are inexpensive, thanks to oil and very cheap shale gas in Canada. Billons of dollars of investments from our governments, both federal and provincial, into the virgin plastic industry contribute to keeping those prices very low, and this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for recycled plastic, which gets 1,000 times less money, to be anywhere as competitive.
Of the various plastic objects we see around us, as I'm sure you already know, only 9% are recycled, and they're mostly downcycled, which means recycled into lower-quality resins. We need courageous legislation and equivalent funding from the federal government to bring post-consumer plastics back into the loop.
How do we bring them back into the loop? We need to influence the market, because in a market economy it is consumer decision that influences the industry, and the experience in other countries demonstrates that adding visible eco-fees on problematic, non-recyclable and single-use items is the most effective means of reducing those wastes.
I'm proud to say that our Canadian packaging industry, PAC, is currently working to define a national standard to rate packaging based on its recycled content and environmental impact, and I'm working with them on that. This standard will allow our government to set appropriate eco-fees that will encourage good packaging.
I would like you now to imagine if you could see an eco-fee on the label of a product. Let's take a water bottle, for example, and on its label, you see that 10 cents is added for an eco-fee because it is made exclusively from virgin plastic and it is for, let's say, type 5 plastic, which is very difficult to recycle in our country. Next to it, you see a product that has zero cents in eco-fees and is made with 30% recycled content and type 1 or 2 plastic, which is recycled in your community. Then you could ask yourself, do I pay 10 cents for this non-recyclable product, or do I not pay a fee because it is a good product? That would curb the market.
Producers already pay a recycling fee across Canada on all products, but that fee is not visible. It is combined in the total product cost and it does not reflect the true recyclability of the product—not enough, anyway, to make a real difference for the market. Labelling would enable the consumer to make an informed choice and shape the market in the needed direction. Knowing as a consumer that you are buying a certified good package is the best way for efficient EPR.
EPR makes producers responsible for their product to the very end of life, and producers are very important municipal partners, because when they become responsible for financing, managing and operating a full recycling system, they can contribute positively to the community, the environment and our economy. When the producers become financially responsible for the end of life of their product, they gain the incentive to design and operate systems most efficiently.
A few years ago, B.C. implemented a comprehensive EPR, the extended producer responsibility program. Now it has the highest recycling rates in Canada.