Science and Research Committee on Sept. 26th, 2024

[Annie Levasseur]

In my opinion, from a climate impact perspective, it certainly isn't the way forward.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

From your scientific perspective, would you say that the decision was based on science or on an economic priority?

[Annie Levasseur]

We must reduce energy consumption across the board, throughout our economy. When we look at the curves, we can see that it's only increasing. We're indeed increasing renewable energy production. However, we aren't replacing fossil fuels, because the demand for energy keeps growing quickly. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, we must use energy more sparingly and make the transition to renewable energy.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I gather that the federal government is doing the opposite of what science has taught us.

[Annie Levasseur]

On that note—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's our time. He'll have another round.

MP Cannings, you have the final six minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks to all of you for being here today.

I'll start with you, Dr. Levasseur, just to try to get some concrete ideas here on what specific things governments, the federal government and provincial governments, need to do. We have a policy now or a target of eliminating 75% of our plastic waste by 2030, I think. We're a long way from that, and there are all sorts of problems. One is getting people to actually recycle the plastic. One is how we sort it when we get it. We have to create enough volume so that the companies that are recycling the plastic can be economical.

Where do we begin? I think Mr. Kelloway tried to get at this as well. We need specific ideas. Do we first have to tackle the harmonization across provinces? Would that be the first thing to do?

We hear that some provinces, I think B.C. and Quebec, are ahead of the game. What are they doing better that other provinces need to get on board with? How we get them on board?

[Annie Levasseur]

I'm not an expert on the plastics value chain. That said, I know that a number of technologies play a role in recycling plastics, but that barriers often come up in other places.

For example, transportation costs are prohibitive. The plants aren't located close to centres where the material can be recovered. The problem lies in having to opt for large plants for the sake of profitability, rather than for more local loops that prioritize the recovery of material. Moreover, as I said earlier, the lower cost of landfilling provides no incentive to set up more local loops. It would be a good idea to consider a policy that includes these costs in the price of the final disposal of waste material.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'll turn to you now, Mr. Gao, and perhaps ask you to reiterate, because you were speaking very quickly in your presentation. I know you had a lot to say. What exactly were the government's concerns about your product that led them to this decision? You obviously think they were in error. Mr. Morphew mentioned the BPI certification, and I was trying to look it up. I think the “P” in there means plastics. Is that a problem when you call something plastics even though it may not be?

Perhaps you could reiterate what the government's concerns are and why your product and the product that Mr. Morphew is using lie outside those concerns.

[Jerry Gao]

Thank you for the question, Dr. Cannings. I'm a huge fan, by the way.

I'm very glad you asked that question. I always try to keep my interactions positive, and I try to give information in a positive way. Objectively, we've had many meetings with ECCC, and in the beginning, I think they were quite friendly. ECCC was looking to collect information, so we provided information from peer-reviewed studies on how these products fared in different jurisdictions. We even gave ECCC the local jurisdiction, where the City of Calgary confirmed that these products do degrade and become compost in the facility.

Their first concern was that it doesn't work. It's not that we're claiming something that's not true. We went to the local facility, and we asked, “Why don't you test this?” We've tested it ourselves in independent labs under ISO 17088, which is ASTM D6400. That's the standard for the degradability of compostable plastics or compostable polymers. We proved that, and then they came back to say.... I believe the word they used was “optics”, because they told us they were still going to go ahead and do this.

I said, “I'm guessing you have a green bin at home. Do you line it with something?” The answer was, “Yes, I go to the shelf and I buy a compostable Glad bag from Safeway or a supermarket.” I said, “These are exactly the same thing. There's not any difference between them.” The only difference is that there are handles on ours, which make it easier for the consumer to put them in the little bins. That is why a lot of people in Calgary were quite upset when it was banned. It's because instead of paying 30¢ for a Glad bag off the shelf, people could pay 10¢ at Calgary Co-op or any of our partner stores and grab them for way less and then reuse them as a bin liner at home.

I then try to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I'm sorry. That's the time.

In the interest of being not overly late, because I know some of you have flights, I'm going to shorten the second round. We'll have the first two for three minutes and the second two for one minute.

We'll start with MP Lobb for three minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm going to give my time to Corey.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Jerry, I think the jig's up. I appreciate your comments to Mr. Cannings, but this is a plastic bag. It feels like a plastic bag. It has handles. It's stretchable. It can foreseeably take a lot of groceries.

You're lying, aren't you? This is plastic.

[Jerry Gao]

No. We have very conclusive evidence from when we've engaged third party labs to test for the presence of polyethylene in a spectrogram test, and we passed with flying colours.

This product is supported by our mayor, Jyoti Gondek, as well as our provincial minister of environment, Ms. Rebecca Schulz, because they use them at home.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Someone's misleading somebody then, because if the science proves it doesn't include plastics and you've jumped through every hoop this government has put in front of you, something smells here.

[Jerry Gao]

We're a very small company, Corey, so we don't have the lobbying power of a lot of these bigger organizations. When we try to do our work, I can only put my best foot forward and try to give answers that are backed by science.

In my brief, I'll include our reports about our own bags specifically, right here. It looks a little different from Calgary Co-op's bags, but in our bags, there's absolutely no polyethylene. There's no plastic in them whatsoever.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I know I can't apologize on behalf of Parliament, but on behalf of the Conservative caucus, I'll apologize to you, because this lacks common sense and it's a betrayal of the entrepreneurs and innovators of Canada. I'm really sorry that this is the experience you've had with the Government of Canada.

Moving on to the more formal questions I have had prepared for this meeting, you mentioned that the interactions with ECCC involved numerous references to visibility and optics. Even in your answer to the last question Mr. Cannings asked, you talked about optics.

What did you mean by that? What were the comments you heard?

[Jerry Gao]

I wasn't sure how to interpret it in a positive way, but I told them, “You guys realize the bin liners you use at home are exactly the same as these bags.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

We're not to use props. Actually, the first time it was carted out, it hurt the interpreters. It hit the mic. I think we've seen the bag.

[Jerry Gao]

Okay. I apologize.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

We still have another minute, though.

Mr. Gao, carry on.

[Jerry Gao]

I said, “These are the same.” They said they didn't like the optics of it. I'm just repeating what they said. It's very hard to take that in a positive light, under the circumstances. Again, we're a small company trying to make a change. That's why I'm here.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I'm sorry that was your experience dealing with this government. The next government will be much more open to innovators and entrepreneurs.

[A voice]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's your time.

Now we'll go to MP Chen for three minutes.