44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2022 11:00AM
- Oct/31/22 1:12:49 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Red Deer—Mountain View's words of wisdom. The great orator Paul Harvey said, “Self-government won't work without self-discipline.”
The plastics industry has been a regulator for many years and has done tremendous work on regulating its industry. The member talked about the issues of toxic substances, etc. I wonder if he would agree that part of what is missing in this legislation is the fact that, while we put toxic products on schedule 1, part 1 or part 2, we do not have any mechanism in the legislation that would take them off it, the steps to take them off the schedule if it were found out scientifically that the products were not toxic. I wonder if the member would have any comments on that.
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- Oct/31/22 1:13:40 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, that gives me an opportunity to deal with the rest of the story. That, of course, has to do with the significance of our plastics industry.
I was at a school not that long ago and a student said, “What are you going to do about plastic straws?” I said that we can make that decision as to whether we want it that way or if we want to have the paper straws. At least, we should understand that it takes three times as much energy to produce the paper straw as it does to produce the plastic straw, so we need to understand that there are going to be trade-offs. That is really the critical point.
One of the main things that I was speaking about was that we have to make sure that we measure all things that are done, and then we make wise decisions. We can tell people that a decision has been made for this purpose, and we do not have to be always in this battle of one against the other.
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- Oct/31/22 1:58:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, this debate should have been settled a long time ago. What I find deeply concerning is that the Conservatives continually raise questions about a fundamental part of the bill, which is a right to a clean environment. I would think we would agree across all party lines to a clean environment, but apparently not the Conservatives. Also, I am very concerned about their promotion of single-use plastics and toxic chemicals, and not getting a bill through the House that would protect and keep the environment safe.
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- Oct/31/22 5:27:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I have a couple of numbers for my colleague opposite and the other members who continue to debate this bill past the number of hours typically spent on a budget implementation act.
The first number is zero. That is the number of people in the House or really anywhere who have talked about banning single-use plastics from the health care sector. The number is zero because that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about things where there is a viable alternative, such as when something can be made out of paper instead. Somebody earlier said that paper straws are worse for the environment than plastic straws. We all know that is not correct. Zero people are talking about banning single-use plastics in the health care sector.
The other number that I have for my colleague is 338. That is how many members in the House of Commons went door to door in the last election and ran on a platform including carbon pricing. We should get over the fact that pricing carbon is one of the foundations for an important environmental platform because we all ran on it in the last election.
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- Oct/31/22 5:45:33 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
In principle, I agree with the idea of a right to a healthy environment.
I also mentioned the problem with the designation of plastics as toxic in general. That is not something that is changed by the bill. It is a pre-existing problem regarding the intentions of the current government. As the member suggested, that is both a positive and a negative.
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