Ottawa Launches Consultation for Federal Plastics Registry

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, accompanied by Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, announces a ban on single-use plastics and items at a beach in Quebec City, on June 20, 2022. (The Canadian Press /Jacques Boissinot)

Ottawa has announced plans for a national registry that would require companies to report their plastic production in a bid to reach the federal government’s goal of zero plastic waste by 2030.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the government has launched consultations to gather feedback until Feb. 13 on how the inventory of data should be run.

“Canadians are demanding action to tackle the plastic waste and pollution crisis, and the federal government will continue to act,” Mr. Guilbeault said in a Jan. 2 news release. “The federal plastics registry is an important tool that will help track and manage plastics across the economy.”

The federal plastics registry aims to hold companies accountable by compelling them to report annually the quantity and types of plastic they are putting on the Canadian marketing, how it moves through the economy, and how it’s managed when no longer in use.

The proposed registry would enable the government to track its progress toward reducing waste by collecting and reporting data on a wide range of plastics, the news release said. Single-use and disposable items as well as plastics used in packaging will be monitored. Also on the list are the plastics used in home appliances, electronics, construction, transportation, tires, textiles, fishing and aquaculture, and agriculture and horticulture.

The move is also a bid to improve on the programs provinces and territories already have in place. The national registry would “standardize” data collection across all jurisdictions, according to an Environment Canada technical paper published in April 2023.

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“Provincial and territorial jurisdictions have different requirements for how performance should be measured, as well as inconsistent tracking and reporting processes,” the paper reads. “This means EPR [extended producer responsibility] programs cannot be compared or verified between jurisdictions or product categories, limiting the ability to measure the performance of EPR across the country.”

Provincial Pushback

Not all of the provinces are onboard with Canada’s plan, however.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been critical of Ottawa’s plan to ban plastics, saying it “would destroy our petrochemical industry, driving away tens of billions of dollars in investments and eliminating tens of thousands of jobs.”

She also took to social media early in the new year to have her say on the proposed registry.

“A national plastics registry … like for handguns but … run by Minister Steven Guilbeault,” she wrote in a Jan. 2 post on X, accompanied by a perplexed-face emoji.

The registry is just one part of the Liberal’s overall push to achieve zero plastic waste in Canada by 2030. Plastic-manufactured items were added to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in 2021. Once a material is labelled as toxic under the act, it allows Ottawa to control how that substance is manufactured, sold, and disposed of.

As part of this objective, Ottawa in 2022 banned the manufacture and import of single-use plastics—including checkout bags, stir sticks, straws, cutlery, and foodservice ware.

However, the government’s plan has had more than a few stumbling blocks over the past year.

The Federal Court of Canada ruled on Nov. 16 that Ottawa’s order classifying manufactured plastic items as “toxic” was “unreasonable” and “unconstitutional.” The court further said the order was unconstitutional because it exceeded Ottawa’s ability to make criminal law.

Mr. Guilbeault announced on Nov. 20 that the government would appeal the ruling.

Ms. Smith says by appealing the decision, Ottawa is “ignoring” both the law and “reality” and that her government will intervene in the appeal in order to defend the province’s constitutional jurisdiction and economy.

Alberta and Saskatchewan both joined a case before the courts to evaluate the legality of the policy in 2022. The case was brought forward by the Responsible Plastic Users Coalition, made up of the companies Dow Chemical, Imperial Oil, and Nova Chemicals. They argued that the federal government had failed to provide enough scientific evidence to justify the regulations.

Although the judge ruled in their favour, calling the government’s order “invalid and unlawful,” Ms. Smith said there are no guarantees the appeal won’t go Ottawa’s way. Should the feds win, she said, having plastics classified as toxic would be “a disaster for Alberta’s and Canada’s economies.”

Mr. Guilbeault maintains that the government is following the directive of Canadians.

“The body of scientific evidence showing the impacts on human health, on the environment of plastic pollution, is undebatable,” he told reporters on Nov. 20. “And the Canadian public has been asking us to do this.”

He told reporters in August that Canadians are “tired of seeing plastic pollution in their neighbourhood and in our streets, in our environment, clogging our waterways, polluting our oceans.”