Juno News - Feds plan to fight ruling on single-use plastics ban

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 catherine swift is the president of the coalition of concerned manufacturers and businesses of

00:00:13.880 canada and joins me now it's always good to talk to her catherine thanks for coming on today

00:00:18.200 my pleasure andrew so obviously i mean industry in canada was harmed by the plastic span in the

00:00:25.880 first place you have some companies where uh literally products they made were effectively

00:00:30.660 outlawed overnight or made so prohibitive for uh people to get in canada and and now even with the

00:00:36.140 court ruling i think on one hand it's easy to say it's a bit of a win but it hasn't changed the

00:00:40.680 precariousness which is that you have a government declaring war on on plastic and i think for

00:00:46.380 starters it's based on a very false premise the the plastics that are ending up in turtles noses

00:00:52.080 in asia and africa are not coming from canada and the united states which have uh very good

00:00:57.560 waste management systems but it's companies in canada that pay the price for these things so

00:01:03.040 what has the impact been of this ban in the first place on canadian industry

00:01:07.000 and it's definitely companies pay but companies also pass the increased costs on to consumers let's

00:01:13.020 face it people at a time when an awful lot of small hospitality businesses for example restaurants

00:01:18.940 to hotels and so on um are already are still struggling to get out of the their pandemic

00:01:25.040 uh you know depression uh that this increased cost because they had to replace all this stuff

00:01:31.340 the alternatives are invariably more expensive and they're often worse for the environment that was

00:01:37.820 that was one of the classic uh elements of it that was utterly ridiculous but uh it just it's just

00:01:45.360 another hit on business the other thing and and anybody that knows anything about plastics knew

00:01:50.200 this from the get-go they outlawed things like straws as you say and apparently that one picture

00:01:55.940 of the one turtle and i love turtles so you know i i would sympathize with the turtle but that one

00:02:01.460 picture of the poor turtle precipitated a ban on the entire and the straws the paper straws that

00:02:09.180 replaced it were found to have toxic materials in them i mean i shouldn't be laughing it's utterly

00:02:14.140 ludicrous but but it is almost comedic if it weren't so serious uh we have thousands of jobs

00:02:20.360 in the plastics industry in canada the the things they banned were mere virtue signaling they're not

00:02:26.240 the worst sources of plastic waste for example water bottles are and i guess if we were all using

00:02:32.300 paper box water bottle thingies or whatever um then then you know we should be worrying about that

00:02:39.660 but i think they thought they'd get too much blowback from consumers but frankly i think water

00:02:43.860 bottles are ridiculous to have you know to to use at all because they're unnecessary we have good

00:02:48.100 water in this country but anyway the the things that they banned were virtue signaling they weren't

00:02:54.000 realistic at all calling them toxic and this of course is where the where the the judge's decision

00:02:59.000 came in and they had the bad luck of getting a judge that actually had some science background

00:03:03.620 she she had a master's degree in biology so she actually knew some of this stuff a lot better than

00:03:09.440 seemingly uh minister guiveau did so it was it was merely a virtue signaling exercise that hurt

00:03:16.080 business at a bad time not that it's ever a good time but hurt consumers naturally drove up prices

00:03:22.580 therefore fed inflation yet again and did nothing for the environment uh but added all kinds of costs to

00:03:28.840 to our economy and on very false premises as well and yeah canada isn't an offender on this front

00:03:34.440 uh plastics are eminently recyclable many many types of plastics are infinitely recyclable you can

00:03:41.320 cycle recycle recycle them and granted we'd have to have better facilities we already do some of that

00:03:46.300 but you know we need to have better facilities in the future to do that but to to um call this whole

00:03:52.220 area which is so incredibly helpful to our society we would never have gotten through the pandemic

00:03:57.460 without plastics they're sanitary they're sterile they're something that in in the medical profession

00:04:02.900 they can shape them into all kinds of interesting shapes that suit the you know suit the purpose

00:04:08.020 uh they're they actually use less heat and energy to create than a lot of metals do so they're

00:04:14.340 actually better for the environment in that respect uh and and there's in in the automobile industry

00:04:20.140 for example having plastic parts body you know auto body and so on means they're lighter and

00:04:25.940 therefore more fuel efficiency well and a couple of years ago we were just trumpeting the innovation

00:04:30.040 of 3d printers and now you know it's oh well plastics are terrible no one should should do

00:04:35.180 anything with plastic and you you mentioned earlier and i i had alluded to this and i don't have the

00:04:39.840 numbers handy but there was a massive study a few years back on plastic in the ocean and it was

00:04:46.420 literally the entirety of it was from uh africa and asia i think it was like eight eight rivers in asia

00:04:53.140 that contributed to almost all of it and then two rivers in africa and a lot of it is discarded

00:04:57.560 fishing gear it's not even trash that's thrown in in the water but but similar to with emissions

00:05:02.680 and emissions and plastics are the same thing we get virtue signaling western politicians that force

00:05:08.740 canadians in our context to pay for problems that if they are problems are being caused by the china's

00:05:16.340 and the indias of the world and it's the same as emissions you know canada is what two percent of

00:05:20.720 global emissions if you think emissions are the bad guy it's 1.5 yeah there we go so uh but but we're

00:05:26.700 the ones that have to deal with the carbon tax while china is opening new coal plants

00:05:30.720 and the carbon tax is damaging our economy so badly i can't tell you how many of our business

00:05:36.780 members are leaving the country or they're maybe leaving a little bit of a facility here but they're

00:05:41.700 going south of the border for example i know it's anecdotal but that's overseas that that you you swear

00:05:46.580 by that that companies in canada are reducing their footprint or leaving altogether because of it

00:05:51.080 totally totally and it's been going on for a number of years so you know the notion this is badly harming

00:05:58.040 the canadian economy imports are and the the farce of it is imports are coming in from the abusers the

00:06:04.440 china's the you know the the thailand's the malaysia indonesia these are all the countries that are the

00:06:10.440 main causes as you mentioned of of the plastic waste in the ocean and and they're doing absolutely nothing but our

00:06:16.280 businesses are having to leave because they're no longer competitive and it's just the carbon tax

00:06:21.160 that's one big factor because the other countries don't have one but it's also you know we have we

00:06:25.800 have pretty good environmental rules in canada and we have had for a very long time liberals can't take

00:06:30.520 credit for that but these other countries don't they abuse the environment like crazy so our businesses

00:06:35.640 who are following all the rules paying gobs of taxes following stringent environmental procedures

00:06:41.080 and so on they have to leave because they can't they won't be able to do business anymore what a 0.98

00:06:45.960 stupid policy well one of the challenges too is that on one hand and look i i'm a big free trade fan 0.99

00:06:52.120 and i i believe that free trade has come with some costs globalization has come with some costs but 0.99

00:06:56.760 but generally speaking we have a government that is very pro globalization a government that says we need

00:07:01.400 to be connected with the world but doesn't want to compete against other countries because that's the

00:07:06.200 reality businesses can are very mobile now more so in 2023 than ever before they can do exactly what

00:07:11.800 you just described they can pick up stakes and go elsewhere which means we need to compete on

00:07:16.040 regulations and on taxes with all of these other countries and it's it's so ridiculous that the

00:07:21.320 government has failed to realize that or realize that but is putting that virtue signaling above the

00:07:26.920 national economic interests of canada and i don't care i've concluded andrew they just don't care

00:07:32.680 because they're so focused on their ideological you know narrow ideological cause which is the climate

00:07:39.880 well yeah stephen gilbo is they don't really seem to care yeah it yeah it varies although although it's

00:07:45.480 quite hilarious when they saw that it was costing them gobs of votes in a liberal rich boat area of the

00:07:51.080 country atlantic canada they they suddenly all their principles went out the window and they gave them

00:07:57.240 a break on heating oil so let's face it the the hypocrisy is overwhelming uh but it's doing real

00:08:05.560 damage and no i don't think they even understand or care how many businesses and jobs and whatnot are

00:08:10.760 being driven out of the country we've seen by by a number of recent studies we've seen that our gdp

00:08:15.880 per capita which is which is a source of it's a very good indicator of standard living it's been dropping

00:08:21.800 precipitously we've always been lower than the us but now we're over 30 percent lower than the us

00:08:28.280 and it continues to decline that that kind of indicator is not good for canadians and and if

00:08:33.640 we want to enjoy the kind of lifestyle we you know we've gotten accustomed to uh something's got to

00:08:38.840 change fast and and if business can't compete in canada and we got government growing like crazy and

00:08:43.800 that's not a something that adds to our productivity at all quite the contrary it's a drag on productivity

00:08:49.320 then we got a lot of problems to deal with i mentioned earlier that even with the federal

00:08:54.280 court decision last week striking down the plastic span we have a federal government that's going to

00:08:59.160 appeal it we have a federal government that is probably going to try to put some modified version

00:09:04.120 in place and then we go back to square one and we have to restart the court process so i'm not convinced

00:09:10.200 it's a win and i i don't want to take that away from it but i'm not convinced it puts businesses that

00:09:14.760 are concerned about this or people that are concerned about this in the clear so there still is this

00:09:18.680 precariousness and i wanted to ask about that because you know it's one thing for a company

00:09:23.320 or a corporation to say uh we're leaving canada because xyz whatever those things are it's another

00:09:29.000 thing for a company to say you know we just have no idea what the future is going to hold and it's

00:09:34.520 safer to go elsewhere and i i think that must be happening as well oh very much so uh you can see how

00:09:40.840 bad investment uh non-residential investment because we know our housing markets out of control price-wise

00:09:46.040 but non-residential investment which is a source again of of wealth that promotes our our standard

00:09:51.720 of living uh that's been declining for years under the trudeau government and a lot of it is

00:09:56.040 uncertainty there's a lot of uncertainties in the world of business no matter what we don't need the

00:10:01.080 government to add more and more and more and yet that's what they've done and the supreme court as you

00:10:05.720 may recall just about a month ago struck down the bill c69 the so-called no more pipelines bill

00:10:11.560 and that had introduced all kinds of uncertainty for large projects in canada yeah and and that

00:10:18.440 was again one where you've had a couple of major projects that have just said you know it's not

00:10:22.760 worth it and and then it was particularly bad when you had trudeau on this side of the border and biden

00:10:27.400 on the other side of the border and you know the long uh long long anticipated keystone project just

00:10:32.520 became dead on arrival so uh you know obviously uh you've had the opportunity to speak to a number of

00:10:37.880 political leaders i know premier danielle smith in alberta and uh pierre pauliev the the conservative

00:10:43.320 leader i mean are you optimistic that that if i mean in alberta's case where she's in government or

00:10:48.760 at the the national level where pauliev wants to form government that they can turn this around or are

00:10:53.320 the problems too great right now for a government to really solve in a four-year term well they're going

00:10:59.880 to be hamstrung by our debt for sure not so much alberta alberta the energy industry you know the

00:11:04.760 fossil fuel industry has been doing quite well and that's really helped their their bottom line

00:11:08.280 as well as canada's i found it so ironic uh laughably ironic that the liberals were celebrating

00:11:14.440 that they had greater revenues than they had forecast it's all because of the oil and gas

00:11:18.840 industry which they hate so i mean talk about hypocrisy but i mean of course things can be turned around

00:11:25.320 and and we showed it back in the 90s and that was a liberal government that the largest cuts in

00:11:30.680 government and the left loves to say oh the conservatives will cut cut cut it was liberals

00:11:34.600 that did it and they did it because we were we had they had to do it whoever was in government at the

00:11:38.280 time would have had to do it because we were up against it financially big time but um that's going

00:11:43.560 to happen again i'm afraid because our debt is so high so yes things can be reversed but not quickly

00:11:49.160 it's going to take time and it's going to hurt all right catherine swift always good to talk to you

00:11:54.360 president of the coalition of concern manufacturing businesses of canada uh thank you so much for coming on

00:12:00.680 thanks andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true

00:12:06.120 north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - November 27, 2023

Feds plan to fight ruling on single-use plastics ban

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