Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
More than two dozen plastic makers are asking the Federal Court to put an end to Ottawa's plan to ban several single-use plastic items but Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he's confident the attempt will fail.
Under regulations Guilbeault finalized in June, the ban is set to be phased in starting this December with an end to the manufacture, sale and import of takeout containers, stir sticks, retail carry-out bags, cutlery and most straws.
The six-pack rings used to package beverage cans and bottles together will be added to the ban for manufacturing and import in June 2023, and their sale banned in June 2024. Exports of all the products have to end in December 2025.
In a court filing July 15, a group of plastic makers calling itself the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition asked the Federal Court for a judicial review of the ban. It hopes to tear up the regulations enacting the ban and prevent the government from further regulating single-use plastics through the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA.
It is the second lawsuit brought by the coalition related to the government's plastics ban. The first, filed in 2021, sought to overturn the government's decision to list plastic pollution as "toxic" under CEPA. That lawsuit remains before the courts.
The toxic designation, which came in May 2021 after a scientific assessment of plastic waste, is needed for the government to ban substances believed to be harmful to human, animal or environmental health.
CEPA defines a substance as "toxic" if it can have "immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity."
In its legal filing in the latest case, the coalition argues the government doesn't have real evidence plastics are toxic.
"In fact there is no credible evidence that any of the (single-use plastics) are 'toxic,"' the court document reads.
"Accordingly the ban cannot be justified as an exercise of the criminal law power conferred upon Parliament."
The coalition asked the court to put the brakes on implementing any parts of the ban until the decision is made whether or not to kill it completely.
In a written statement, Guilbeault said the plastics coalition can do whatever it wants in court but that he thinks they're going to lose.
"We're going to stick to the facts, which show very clearly that plastic pollution is harming our environment and we need to act," he said.
"And we're confident the courts will agree with our position."
The government's scientific assessment published in 2020 concluded that plastic is "ubiquitous" in the environment, estimating about 29,000 tonnes of plastic waste ended up in the environment in 2016 alone.
"Since plastics degrade very slowly and are persistent in the environment, the frequency of occurrence of plastic pollution in the environment is expected to increase," the assessment concluded.
The assessment said macroplastics, which are pieces bigger than five millimetres, can cause physical harm to natural areas. Animals frequently eat or become entangled in plastic waste, causing injury and death.
Turtles, whales and seabirds are among the most commonly affected. A dead baby turtle in Florida in 2019 was found to have more than 100 pieces of plastic in its stomach. In 2018 a dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had six kilograms of plastic garbage in its belly, including two flip-flops, plastic ropes, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags and 115 plastic cups.
However, the assessment said the impact of microplastics, pieces of broken down plastic items that are smaller than five millimetres, was less clear, with scientists divided about whether microplastics can kill people or animals, or cause developmental or reproductive problems.
"The current literature on the human health effects of microplastics is limited, although a concern for human health has not been identified at this time," the assessment said.
It called for further research.
A 2019 Deloitte study found less than one-tenth of the plastic waste Canadians produce is recycled. That meant 3.3 million tonnes of plastic was being thrown out annually, almost half of it plastic packaging.
Federal data show that in 2019, 15.5 billion plastic grocery bags, 4.5 billion pieces of plastic cutlery, three billion stir sticks, 5.8 billion straws, 183 million six-pack rings and 805 million takeout containers were sold in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2022.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
The CFL suspended Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly for at least nine regular-season games Tuesday following its investigation into a lawsuit filed by a former strength-and-conditioning coach against both the player and club.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
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.
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.