Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to be rising today in the home of the Nuu-chah-nulth people on the unceded traditional territory of the Hupacasath and shíshálh people.
I am here, rising again to talk about plastics and the impact of plastics choking our ocean and the species that live in our marine economy. As someone from a coastal community, I can tell the House first-hand the impact it is having on our coastlines, and we have the longest coastline in the world.
This is an urgent issue that the Government of Canada needs to take even more seriously, and its obligation to the environment needs to be backed up with the words that were used at the United Nations in its commitments there, and also at the G7. When the government hosted the G7, it had a commitment for an ocean plastics strategy in the G7, a commitment around eliminating and reducing plastic pollution.
Bill C-204 is presented by the member for York—Simcoe, and I really appreciate his efforts on this bill and his enthusiasm. The House certainly knows the position of the NDP on plastics. In fact, this is my 87th time rising on the issue related to plastics. It is because it is an urgent issue, and we cannot take half measures to tackle this issue.
Back in 2017, I presented Motion No. 151 to the House. The motion was to develop a national strategy to combat plastic pollution. Thousands of Canadians reached out to their MPs to support this motion. We had many stakeholders from my riding and other coastal communities who rallied together to support the motion, which received unanimous support in the House, and I appreciate all members from all parties for supporting it.
I certainly want to highlight the work of my former colleagues Murray Rankin, Nathan Cullen and, of course, Megan Leslie, who have done really important work in relation to plastics. I want to thank the current members for Victoria, Vancouver Kingsway and Windsor West for their tireless efforts and work to protect our coastal communities from plastics.
It is because of this work that the government has made some efforts and steps in terms of banning certain types of plastics, such as grocery bags, straws and plastic cutlery. Those measures will come into effect this year. The government made commitments around derelict and abandoned fishing gear. This is a start.
However, we have a ton of work to do. When it comes to this issue being a priority for Canadians, a release that came out the other day from Oceana showed that a poll commissioned from Abacus Data found that 95% of Canadians are concerned about the impact plastic pollution has on our oceans. People across our country want to see real action when it comes to tackling this really important threat to our ecosystem.
When we go across the country, we hear concerns from people and hear stories about people seeing plastic washing up on their shores, but we do not have responsibility in place. There is still no extended producer responsibility.
The government is focused on a circular economy. The amount it is looking at reducing in its ban for this year of the six single-use plastics covers only a fraction of 1% of the amount of plastic that is currently being used. In fact, Canadians are laggards. In 2016, only 9% of plastics were recycled in Canada, while 86% ended up in the landfill, 4% was incarcerated and 1% was actually released directly into the environment, so we are not doing enough. We need to do a lot more here in Canada.
As well, we obviously need to stop the export of plastics abroad. The importance of today's bill is real, but it is also a half step. Honestly, we need to realize that we have signed on to the Basel convention, and we need to actually honour our agreement and commitment there.
In terms of this bill, in 2018 Canada shipped more than 44,000 tonnes of plastic waste to other countries because of our inability to recycle that plastic ourselves. Much of that plastic ended up in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia. We certainly know it ended up in the Philippines. As members know, I rose in the House back in 2018 on what became an international embarrassment, as our waste was sitting in Manila in the Philippines. They wanted it sent back to Canada, and for good reason. A lot of these developing nations do not have the capacity and the infrastructure to recycle and dispose of the plastic we have been sending there.
We have children living in plastic slums on the other side of the world because of plastic being shipped by Canada. We can find Canadian labels in most of these plastic slums, and in their rivers and waterways. It is something we should all be embarrassed about as Canadians. We need to take this very seriously.
We know that the Liberals have dismissed the idea of banning plastic waste exports. They have again signed onto the Basel Convention, but we know that there are loopholes and ways that plastic is escaping through the United States and other countries we are still shipping it to, so their strategy is not enough. The Liberals need to adhere to their international commitments.
We know that if we take action now, we are going to see results. This is what Ashley Wallis from Oceana had to say:
Canada has an opportunity to lead in the fight to end the global plastic disaster. There is public appetite for stronger federal action. Now is the time to meaningfully reduce plastic pollution production and use, including banning more of the unnecessary and harmful single-use plastics that are choking our life-sustaining oceans.
I could not agree more. I know that we are talking about banning the shipment of plastics, but we actually need to eliminate the unnecessary use of single-use plastics in our country. We need to, of course, stop shipping our plastics to other countries.
When it comes to the Basel Convention, clearly our country is not following through with our commitments. We need the government to listen to this. We would not be talking about this bill if Canada was actually honouring its commitment. We are a signatory to the original Basel Convention, which sets restrictions on shipping waste to the developing world, but we refuse to ratify parts of that agreement of stopping the plastic waste exports, because the government knows that it would not be in compliance of it. We want the Liberals to stop offering just words that they are committed and actually take real action on this.
Again, we have not heard the Government of Canada talk about extended producer responsibility and work with the companies that are creating plastics and redesigning it. I think of Nathan Cullen, who is now a B.C. cabinet minister. When he was the member of Parliament for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, he tabled a bill that would redesign packaging and ban the design of plastics that could not be recycled and reused.
The article on the Oceana release also cites:
Two-thirds of Canadians polled support expanding the ban to other harmful plastic products, including hot and cold drink cups, cigarette filters, and all forms of polystyrene.... These items—and many others—are commonly found littered in the environment...[including] our waterways, yet they are missing from the proposed ban list. This is despite recent scientific modelling confirming we need to significantly reduce plastic waste generation—not just increase recycling—if we want to have a fighting chance of curbing the fatal blow of plastic into our waterways.
We need to do this. I could speak all day on plastics, as members can imagine. Again, I see it first-hand.
I appreciate my colleague bringing the bill forward as his private member's bill. The more we talk about this issue the better, but we do need the government to stop talking on their end and take greater action. These lofty goals of banning six single-use plastics is going to make a difference of 1%. We are laggards.
We use more plastic per capita than any other developed country in the world, and that has to change. I know the government wants to create this circular economy idea, but that still means we will be doubling plastic use by 2035 if we continue on this trajectory. We need to reduce and eliminate our use of plastics. We need to obviously recycle what we have here in Canada, instead of shipping it overseas, and we need to honour the Basel Convention.
I want to thank my colleague. We will be supporting the bill to get to committee where we will be bringing forward amendments to improve this legislation. I hope the changes we will be bringing forward will be welcome.
Again, I want to thank him for bringing the bill forward, and I want to thank all of my colleagues in the House for talking about this very important issue, but let us take some action. Let us make some changes, so that children abroad are not living in plastic slums, because the plastic waste coming from Canada is choking out their waterways and their environment. They deserve better. The earth and the future deserve better.