Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault stated Thursday night that the cabinet will likely appeal a Federal Court ruling regarding plastics regulations.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the court supported the manufacturers' complaint, ruling that blacklisting all plastic-manufactured items as toxic was "unreasonable."“The Government of Canada is carefully reviewing the Federal Court judgment and is strongly considering an appeal,” Guilbeault said in a statement. “We will have more to say on next steps soon.”The Responsible Public Use Coalition filed the successful court challenge, along with companies Imperial Oil Limited, Dow Chemical Canada, and Nova Chemicals Corporation.Lawyers representing the industry successfully argued that categorizing plastic in the same category as substances like mercury and asbestos as "toxic" under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act was excessive.“Plastic manufactured items leapfrogged from political commitment to a toxic designation without any testing or risk-based assessment,” lawyers wrote the Court. “This is precisely the mischief the Environmental Protection Act’s rigorous, science-based scheme was intended to avoid.”On May 12, 2021, the cabinet included "all plastic manufactured items," such as toys, textiles, kitchen appliances, carpets, bottling, and packaging, in the list of items considered toxic under the Act. Manufacturers filed a legal challenge against this decision a week later.“The definition of ‘plastic manufactured items’ is an impossibly broad term that captures thousands of products essential to modern living from medical equipment to food packaging to personal protective equipment,” wrote lawyers.“There is no question that littering occurs or that some items that are littered are plastic. However, this is not sufficient to ground federal regulatory jurisdiction over plastic manufactured items as a toxic substance.”“The existence of a threat of serious or irreversible damage must be evidenced by a credible body of sound scientific evidence,” read the plaintiffs’ statement of claim. “The order does not rest on scientific data evaluated through sound, credible and transparent analysis.”Plastic items are made of resins “which are both safe and legal to use in Canada,” wrote lawyers. “The test for toxicity is not satisfied by proving a single bottle cap, if littered, may pose a risk to the biota that ingests it.”“Litter can be problematic, but that does not satisfy the threshold of ‘toxicity’ under the Act,” said the submission. Lawyers argued the listing also breached provincial jurisdiction of waste management, citing Section 92 of the Constitution Act that states local authorities are responsible for “local works and undertaking,” property rights and “matters of a merely local or private nature.”After being labelled as "toxic," there were Single Use Plastic Prohibition Restrictions introduced, which are set to come into effect in 2024. These restrictions will prohibit the sale of six common plastic items such as straws, grocery bags, six-pack rings, stir sticks, plastic cutlery, and disposable polystyrene food containers.In a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement last December 31, the cabinet said the ban would cost consumers. “The proposed regulations are expected to result in $205 million in costs in the first year of full policy stringency, 2024,” it said. “These costs are significant.”
