Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s environment minister, said the government was “strongly considering” an appeal of the federal court’s ruling.
By Vjosa Isai • New York Times
Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s environment minister, said the government was “strongly considering” an appeal of the federal court’s ruling.
By Vjosa Isai • New York Times
She has a masters in fucking biochemistry! There is no way that she does not understand how important it is to restrict the absolutely frivolous use of plastic in disposable products. I don’t know if this is corruption or just the ultimate in stubborn pedantry.
Manufacturing plastic involves toxic precursor chemicals, waste gasses and waste particulates. End of life plastics erode into micro and nano particles that can now be found in a significant portion of human’s blood! But no, in the form in which it is sold, not every plastic product can be considered toxic so I guess she’s right, we should all go back to plastic straws and bags.
You can agree with the premise from a biological and chemistry standpoint while disagreeing with a policy from a legal one.
The feds will simply need to redraft the legislation and word it better.
Or pass new legislation. The government tried to use existing environment legislation to ban single use plastics by listing them among other toxic substances. That that didn’t pass judicial review isn’t actually that surprising (depending on how the original law was drafted).
The alternative is just to amend that law to add additional powers to ban bioaccumulating and/or biomagnifying substances, of which microplastics are just one example.
It’s just more work, obviously, than using an existing legislative tool.
Hopefully. The trick is that waste management is traditionally provincial jurisdiction, and there would be a fight if they try to change that.
More like legalism. It sounds like the registry is for things that can directly poison you, which finished plastics cannot, so (IANAL) it was legal fuckery to introduce federal authority that way. What happens when it’s being manufactured or after it’s processed as waste is beyond the purview of this specific instrument.