Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
A proposed federal plan to curb plastic packaging is on a timeline fruit and vegetable producers are calling “problematic” and “unrealistic.”
In August, consultations for the pollution prevention planning notice for primary food plastic packaging were launched as the federal government searches for ways to reduce the more than 4.4 million tonnes of plastic waste thrown away every year.
“We hear it from Canadian from coast to coast to coast, that they hate seeing so much plastic wrapping,” said Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault.
The produce sector is concerned about the timelines of some of the proposed targets.
“Fresh fruits and vegetables are distributed and sold in bulk and/or plastic-free packaging,” the Environment and Climate Change Canada website reads. “75 per cent by 2026 and 95 per cent by 2028.”
“It’s probably not realistic,” said Tilly Stewart, director of citrus at Star Produce in Calgary. “The way it’s currently written will change the entire global food system.”
Stewart’s company packages fresh cut fruit, in plastic packages, for sale at grocery stores.
She insists the industry is working on ways to reduce its use of plastics, but currently biodegradable alternatives are too expensive.
“The technology just isn’t there yet,” Steward said. “(The) biodegradable (plastic) industry is quite greenwashed right now.”
A study obtained by CTV News from the Canadian Produce Marketing Association said the proposed rules are expected to pass on a 30 per cent additional cost to the consumer.
The higher prices come from transition to more expensive packaging materials, inefficiencies in shipping and increased food waste.
“Everybody gets upset about the wrap on cucumbers,” said CPMA President Ron Lemaire. "The challenge you have is you have two days at home with your cucumber, as opposed to 15 days."
Karen Wirsig, the senior program manager for plastics at Environmental Defence, rejects the industry’s food loss projections.
“There is absolutely no evidence that we're seeing a reduction in food loss and waste through the whole supply chain, because of that single use packaging,” she said.
Lemaire says the industry wants to find ways to have plastic packaging reused and recycled within a contained supply chain.
"It's a complex food system,” Lemaire said. "One decision on packaging can influence a whole shift in how people behave and eat."
A roll of plastic bags is seen at a market in Montreal on Thursday, June 13, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
More than two-thirds of all produce consumed in Canada is imported, so there are concerns of a trade chill as well.
“You’re dealing with international trade partners, and manufactures that may just say ‘you know what, were not ready to shift our production lines,’” said Michael Zabaneh, Retail Council of Canada's vice-president of sustainability.
Kaitlin Power, Guilbeault's press secretary, said in a statement that the notice is “not a regulation.”
“The Government is committed to advancing solutions that avoid increasing the cost of food or food waste in collaboration with grocers, other businesses and stakeholders,” Power’s statement said. “We have been clear that we want to collaborate with producers and grocers on implementing solutions that exist, while avoiding negative consumer and environmental outcomes, and suggestions otherwise are inaccurate.”
A federal ban on the sale of plastic checkout bags, cutlery, stir sticks and other single-use plastics, comes into effect on Dec. 20, 2023.
The plan to reduce plastic packaging, is part of the government’s “zero plastic waste by 2030” strategy.
More than half of all the plastic waste thrown out in Canada is from packaging, according to Statistics Canada, and most of it ends up in a landfill, incinerators, or in the environment.
“We are over-wrapping products we have to stop,” Wirsig said. “And a great place to start is fruits and vegetables.”
The Environmental Defence plastic waste reduction expert says the government’s plan is aimed at the so-called “big five,” grocery store giants, Loblaw, Metro, Walmart, Costco and Sobeys owner Empire Co.
“The big five in Canada, that control a lot of their own supply chains,” Wirsig said. “Should be getting on re-usable (products) through their supply chain, and offering all of their fruits and vegetables in bulk where possible.”
Lemaire with CPMA warns, if some foods like blueberries are sold in bulk, there would be “astronomical food loss.”
Something even Wirsig agrees with.
“Obviously this doesn't work for berries,” she said. “So when we're going to 95% (plastic-free packaging) by 2028, we're probably not including raspberries, and maybe not cherries.”
“But almost everything else could be done without plastic.”
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.