Science and Research Committee on Oct. 1st, 2024

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

I do know a little bit about that.

I also wrote the waste reduction strategy for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation. I was privileged to work with them in their communities to look at what is possible in the north, which is sort of exciting. Sometimes it's a negative, and it comes with negative serious conversations.

What's interesting and unique about the north is that these are small circular economies of their own. They can take self-care measures and actually take some control in terms of gatekeeping what comes into their community, how it's used in their community and what happens to all of these products at the end of their life. Moreover, they can have a different kind of relationship with the companies and retailers that bring products and packaging into their communities that ultimately could end up as waste materials.

There's no question that they have unique circumstances, but I think there is an opportunity to really leverage those unique circumstances. In NAN, by way of example, we actually looked at reuse as a community. We looked at what's consumed and where there are opportunities to supplant single-use anything with some reuse systems, given that they have this closed ecosystem. We really think that in a circular economy there's tremendous opportunity, not just to make them equal but to actually give them a leadership position and learn from them.

Also, I would say that culturally we have a lot to learn in terms of utilizing everything to its highest value and really doing a gut check in terms of the way we consume individually and what that means collectively to those communities.

There's a lot to learn from first nations communities as well. I think they're going to be a very important part of our transition towards a circular economy in Canada.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

That's great.

I'll just take the opportunity to thank Ms. St. Godard. It's not every day that you have a witness who has lived in your riding, especially with a particular experience in Churchill.

I appreciate what you've shared, and I hope the committee will take into consideration perhaps the consulting work you did along with NAN, given the first nations perspective and how critical it is to this discussion and to any discussion on sustainability.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

We'll now turn to MP Viersen for five minutes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Ms. Scaldwell, do you think Canada has the potential to be a plastics recycling superpower?

[Krista Scaldwell]

I think we have a long way to go before I would term us a “superpower”, but I do think that we have an opportunity to do much better than we're currently doing.

There is an opportunity when you look at the use of deposit-return systems, for example, province by province, for getting the products back. The commitment that my fellow witness spoke about was the extended producer responsibility. The producers are very committed to this. They want the materials back. I think there's a huge opportunity.

Things that prevent us from getting there quicker are things like how we do it province by province. It makes data collection very expensive. If you have a different deposit at a border, then you get border fraud. I think that a national framework could help us leap forward.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Would you recommend that the Government of Canada pursue that kind of goal?

[Krista Scaldwell]

Absolutely. I would recommend that the Government of Canada take an opportunity to develop a national framework. It's good for Canadians, and it's good for producers. It's good for the circular economy and, ultimately, the environment.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You mentioned a couple of things around nationalizing the recycling program and things like that. What would it take for Canada to be the benchmark in terms of plastic recycling? Who are we up against, and what kinds of measures are in that?

[Krista Scaldwell]

It's a tough question because it also depends on the retail market in different countries in terms of things like return to retail.

Canada, for example.... I'm told all the time that we're ahead of the U.S. That said, how do we get to be a leader? If we could take an opportunity to collaborate, we have recycling affiliates in each of the provinces. We could take a look at the data, look at what's working in the provinces and help the lagging provinces come along, as well as invest in public education. Right now we confuse Canadians because how you recycle something in Alberta is different from how you recycle something, potentially, in Quebec or in Ontario.

Our opportunity lies in setting up a framework that would help producers and also help the recycling affiliates. We collect data as producers by province. It's super inefficient, very expensive and duplicative. Where's that opportunity? Collect the data nationally. Look at what's working in what region, at what's not working in another region and bring that forward. It's only going to make us better.

Another thing would be a national education campaign, but we can only do that if we have national framework where it's the same across the country.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. St. Godard, I have a similar question for you, I guess.

Would you recommend that Canada pursue something like being a plastics recycler superpower? What would you set for benchmarks for that measure to be granted? Who are we up against in terms of competitive countries?

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

Yes, I think that in some cases we actually are already a superpower. It depends on the material you're speaking about. We lag in plastics. In other materials, we are actually doing quite well: paper, fibre, metals and glass. We actually have some great Canadian case studies and stories to tell, but there is a tremendous opportunity.

If we're going to really focus on plastics, which is the conversation today, to me it's nonsensical that we are spending now billions of dollars creating, using producer money and relying on average Canadians to collect, transport and clean, only to ship this material elsewhere for production into new products. Sometimes it's shipped loose, and other times it comes in the form of pellets. If we're talking about 9% recycling, we're only talking about collection, not actually recycling. There's a difference, so how much we are actually recycling in this province is probably even lower. There's a tremendous opportunity for us to keep the materials domestic and to redirect them to more domestic productions of other products right here as well.

Yes, I do think we could be a superpower.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You would recommend making sure that our recycling stays here.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

That would be my preference. I mean, if we were to just measure the carbon in transporting pellets, flakes or loose recycling to southeast Asia, if we actually priced that carbon and quantified that carbon, there is no question that it would incent us to keep materials here.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's right on time.

We'll now turn to MP Jaczek for five minutes.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both our witnesses. It's good to see points of agreement between both of you.

Ms. Scaldwell, we did have a previous witness here who alluded to European practice and a move towards standardizing beverage containers. Is this something that the Canadian Beverage Association is aware of? Is there any move to have a standardized type of plastic or aluminum container for your products?

[Krista Scaldwell]

That's a great question.

The aluminum is standardized. It's the same whether it's whatever brand—I have to be careful not to say the brand. That's already standardized, and it is beneficial. There's similar recycled content by the various brands as well. While they may not be standardized by size, they are standardized by what is in the plastic.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you for that clarification because that seems to be a fairly obvious thing that would enhance, perhaps, the deposit-return situation as well as recycling.

Ms. St. Godard, we have information from Oceana Canada that, between 2012 and 2019, the amount of plastic waste discarded in Canada rose by 13%, outpacing both economic and population growth—so disproportionately. Now I imagine that your organization has found this quite distressing.

Could you point to specific areas for why you think this is happening, why this out-of-proportion growth is going on?

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

I'd have to look at and start to unpack those numbers to attribute them to a single cause. I would imagine there are probably a number of causes for that. I imagine that, smack dab in the middle of it, might be the pandemic. I can't remember the years you cited.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

It's the pandemic, as a matter of fact, from the information we were given.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard]

There was a tremendous uptick in single-use plastic utilization during that period of time for a number of different reasons. In fact, supply chains—in terms of both recycling and production—were shut down, if not slowed. There was stockpiling of materials. It got to a point where there wasn't sufficient room and it wasn't cost-effective to stockpile them anymore, so they were landfilled. There may be some skewing of the numbers as a result of the pandemic, for sure.

I think single-use plastics are replacing some other types of packaging specific to the packaging portion of the plastics faction. I know there is more data that we're collecting from outside the home, that is, away-from-home consumption, on the go or in our parks. Litter is part of that as well.

It's also what's being consumed and eventually discarded in the commercial-institutional sector. Canada doesn't have very good data there. We have extraordinarily accurate data on residential because of producer responsibility and legislation. We have very poor data in the IC and I sector on waste in general and on plastics specifically. We are very much in favour of the registry the federal government is going to create, because it will tighten that data up and make it available to all Canadians, including in industry, so we get a better handle on what our performance is.

The IC and I data is being collected at some provincial levels. I imagine this also had an effect on the data you're speaking about.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Of course, unless you have data, you don't know what you want to achieve. Obviously, you won't want to measure progress towards improvement.

Ms. St. Godard is clearly talking about the federal plastics registry.

Ms. Scaldwell, could you comment on your industry's feelings about the registry that was announced a few weeks ago, in terms of the potential burden of reporting on a very regular basis? How does your association view that?

[Krista Scaldwell]

Thank you. It's a great question.

We support the concept of a national reporting mechanism like the plastics registry. However, as it's currently structured, it imposes a strong regulatory burden, and it's not harmonized with the data collected by the provincial and territorial organizations. It's asking for data not currently available or data under the purview of producers that may be...such as end-of-life fate. One of the issues we face is the cost of trying to figure out that data.

At the end of the day, anything that increases our cost of manufacturing and doing business is an increase in price for consumers. If we could see that data come to a place where it's harmonized with data collection by the provincial and territorial organizations that currently collect the data....

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's well over. Thank you.

Now we'll turn to MP Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. St. Godard, you know that Quebec is different for a number of reasons. The proof is that nearly 35 years ago, the Government of Quebec created Recyc‑Québec, an organization that prioritized the circular economy. We are aiming to move away from the current linear and extraction‑based economic model.

One could say that his model is held in great esteem by several parties. I think that's true for the party in power, but also for the Conservative Party. I have to say that it seems to suit them well. For our part, we value the principle of extended producer responsibility, whereby the responsibility for managing products at the end of life lies with the companies that put them on the market.

I would like you to tell us what you think about the rest of Canada, since we didn't wait for the federal government to help us with recycling.