Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I'm actually going to move a motion. This motion was distributed previously, I believe. The clerk could resend it so everyone would have a copy of it. I tabled the motion on May 1, 2024. I'm going to proceed to read the motion right now.
That, given that the recently proposed regulations on recycled content and labelling rules for plastic have raised concerns with Canada's largest bilateral trading partner, the United States, and that the Canadian Produce Marketing Association has flagged serious concerns about the risk of the proposed regulations impacting economic competitiveness and raising food prices by over 30%, the committee hold no less than 3 meetings on this topic; that the Minister of International Trade appear for at least 1 hour; and that the committee hear from other concerned stakeholders to ensure Parliamentarians are informed about the risks to Canadian trade the proposed regulations present; and that the committee report back to the House.
This motion is very important for a number of reasons. The current government has managed to do a number of own goals in our trading relationship with the United States, causing trade irritants, especially as we move forward on a study on the review of CUSMA. This is an irritant that is already being raised by the United States.
In fact, on March 21, Congressman Sessions wrote to Ambassador Hillman and said the following:
I write today to express concerns from Texas plastic manufacturers and supply chain affiliates regarding Canada's proposed Canadian Plastics Registry, directed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Environment Canada. The registry mandates exhaustive tracking and reporting of plastics, which raises several issues: 1. Violation of Trade Agreements: The “Canadian Plastics Registry” seems to violate USMCA's environmental and trade provisions, especially Chapter 24, sections 2, 4 and 5, potentially undermining established trade agreements.
2. Disclosure of Proprietary Information. The registry requires revealing mostly proprietary information, increasing antitrust risks and vulnerability to lawsuits, especially during data standardization across various government levels.
3. Vagueness in Chain of Custody.
4. International System Discrepancies.
Congressman Sessions has written to Ambassador Hillman and suggested that you promptly engage with Canadian officials for adjustments.
This is now being raised as a trade irritant within the existing relationship between Canada and the United States, but it's actually more serious than that. The Chemistry Industry Association gave testimony at Canada's environmental committee about how a single-use plastics ban impacted 13,000 to 20,000 direct jobs and as many as 26,000 to 40,000 indirect jobs.
Now, this is where it gets very concerning. The Canadian Produce Marketing Association report says that the premature withdrawal of current plastic packaging could have far-reaching unintended consequences: The cost of food loss and alternative packaging will be $6 billion. There will be a half-million metric tonne increase in food losses and a loss of access to imported fruit and produce. It will increase food inflation, possibly to a very high degree. As well, emissions will likely increase the cost more, by up to 150%.
At a time when Canadians are suffering from some of the worst food inflation in 40 years, the current Liberal government has decided that they're going to make it even more expensive for Canadians to have access to fresh fruit and vegetables with this ill-conceived plastics ban they're seeking to put forward.
There are significant consequences to this. An in-depth Deloitte report on the Liberals' P2 plastic ban and its impact on the fresh fruit and vegetable sector has revealed that the policy could do exactly the following: increase the cost of fresh produce by 35%; reduce fresh produce availability to Canadians by over 50%; cost the industry $5.6 billion; increase fresh produce waste by more than 50%; increase greenhouse gases from the produce supply chain by more than 50%; increase health care costs by over $1 billion per year because of lower availability of fresh produce, and disproportionately impact the cost of food for rural and remote regions and, of course, for people who are already struggling to afford food.
I think this is a very relevant study for us to undertake for two reasons.
First of all, we now have a long list of trade irritants that the Liberal government is causing just as we're moving into the review of the CUSMA.
We can talk about the digital services tax. When I was down in the United States meeting with representatives, they told me that the threat to unilaterally impose the digital services tax will actually.... They considered it an eight out of 10 on a scale of serious impact to the Canadian trading relationship. We now have the proposed plastics ban, and there have been many others that we have talked about at this committee.
Madam Chair, I believe that this motion is in order. It's an urgent issue and one that the committee should study.
Thank you very much.