moved that Bill C-380, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (plastic manufactured items), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, soggy, limp, wet and utterly useless: we are not talking about the Liberals. We are talking about paper straws. The only people who like to suck on these paper straws are Liberal and NDP MPs. New research shows them to be harmful to our health because they are coated in truly toxic, forever chemicals. The Liberal replacements are four times as expensive.

Just in case the Liberals in the chamber have not knocked on any doors lately or talked to Canadians, which we know is true, Canadians are suffering in the worst inflationary crisis in my lifetime. Two million Canadians are using a food bank. One in four Canadians are skipping meals because of the cost of living crisis caused by the Liberal government.

The Liberal government is hell-bent on making everything more expensive. Banning plastic is bad for people's health. It is bad for their pocketbooks, and it is bad, actually, for the environment. Take a look around. People are listening to this speech, maybe in the chamber, maybe at home on their laptops or cellphones, which are all made of plastic. Many of the items we see in the rooms we are sitting in have plastic components. What the Liberals are trying to do is replace those components with more expensive materials. If people think they cannot afford their bills now, wait until the Liberals fully enact their plastic ban. Start with six items, then 16 and then 60. After that, the cost of living quadruples again.

The plastic straw ban is a fantasy. It is not based on reality. The reality is that the science backs up my position. Later today, I will be attempting to table the documents that I am referencing here to help people understand the science behind this ridiculous ban that does not make sense.

First up is that eco-friendly paper straws may be worse. According to this peer-reviewed article, it was reported in 2023 that many of the paper straws on the market have toxic forever chemicals like PFAS, which are associated with health problems like low birth weight, cancer, low response to vaccines and more. That is the first report that I will be tabling later on.

Another one is a regulatory impact analysis statement that members of the government should know about very well because it is from the Department of Health. The government's own regulation analysis shows an increase in costs, GHG emissions and also tonnes of waste as a result of this ban. This means there will be increased emissions and increased costs for consumers. Their own report shows that.

The third report that I will be tabling later today is a comparative study of a life-cycle assessment of bio-plastic straws and paper straws. This is a peer-reviewed article demonstrating that plastic straws have a lower environmental impact than paper straws.

Paper straws are terrible. No one likes them. They suck. Now the science shows that they are actually bad for people's health, bad for the environment and bad for our pocketbooks.

We have a waste management issue, not a plastics issue, so we do have issues. The poster child of this is garbage in the ocean. We should never use our waterways as a dump. We should never transport waste through our waterways, but that is exactly what is causing the garbage in the ocean. There are 10 rivers in the world that cause 95% of the garbage that is found in oceans. Eight of those rivers are in Asia and two in Africa. Banning more and more plastics in Canada will not stop this problem.

Banning plastic straws will hurt the most vulnerable: the disability community. This ban is cruel and heartless for people who rely on safe plastic straws. If people cared and listened to Canadians, they would hear from nurses and care aids about how people with physical and mental health challenges are suffering with this ban. I have a friend who just got shoulder surgery done. He is in a sling and having difficulties drinking and carrying on. It would be nice to have one of those plastic straws that bend to be able to take sips of water as casually as can be. We are hearing from many medical professionals about how this ban has impacted their ability to care for seniors and people with disabilities. It is cruel that the Liberal government is banning one of the tools they use to make sure that people are hydrated.

It is not just the straws the Liberals are banning that makes things more expensive. It is also grocery bags. Grocery stores are making a killing selling reusable plastic bags. They come with massive margins that are supposedly good for the environment. If we look in the trunk of our cars or at home, everyone has bags stuffed with other bags and stuffed with other bags on top, because every time we go to a store and forget to bring them or whatnot, we buy another reusable bag. It is the margins on these bags that are very impressive for the grocery stores.

My NDP colleagues always want to bring up Galen Weston, and I am sure they receive a huge card of thanks for supporting the Liberals. Maybe the Liberals themselves will get a big card thanking them for banning plastic bags because now they get to sell reusable bags over and over again, which is maximizing profits for grocery stores. Long suffering Canadians pay the price for this ill-thought-out and illogical argument.

Depending on the bag, if one buys one of the reusable ones, one might need to use it over a thousand times before it equals the environmental footprint of a plastic bag. This is unrealistic and ultimately worse for the consumer and the environment. On these reusable bags, we often see organic cotton bags, which are popular with the woke crowd. Those organic cotton bags are worse for the environment than the regular cotton bags, because they need to be used weekly for years to match the environmental footprint.

The problem with organic farming is the yield is not as much off the acre of land and the inputs are different and cost more, so the organic material the stores are selling has a larger footprint than just regular cotton.

It is not that long ago and we remember what it was like before we had the Prime Minister, and it will not be like this when he is gone. We used to be able to receive complimentary bags for our groceries, and we could reuse them for multiple purposes. For example, for a pet, a garbage can in the house or to store anything. There was no cost to us and we had these bags. We could save our money to pay for other items. However, the Liberals, in the charade of belief that this is for environmental reasons, banned this and are making us buy replacement bags, which are usually plastic and have an even larger environmental footprint than the original plastic bag.

There is technology that can help. Governments should be working with provinces and companies, and the Calgary Co-op is a great example. After it heard of the silly idea to ban plastic bags, it tasked its supplier to come up with a biodegradable bag, which it did. It found a bag that performed much like the old plastic bags and in 10 years' time in a landfill it composts to nothing. It is a great idea. It is great for the environment. It is great Canadian technology and it is something the government, after review, said no to. It said that if they were to be sold, they needed to be sold in bulk and at a distance away from the till, making it inconvenient for consumers and ultimately inconvenient for the country.

This is not about science. It is about government controlling our lives. If the government really cared about Canadians and the planet, it would cancel next week's radical international plastics banning meeting. There is a delegation of people flying from all corners of the world to Ottawa to discuss what plastic item they will ban next. They will be burning all that jet fuel and driving those emissions into the atmosphere, and while they are here I am sure they will be hosted with galas, food and fine wine.

I propose we take the millions that are going to be blown next week on nothing and a whole bunch of hot air and invest them in waste management in the countries that have those 10 rivers that are causing 95% of the garbage in our oceans.

That would be a concrete, common-sense Conservative solution. Spike the meetings, take the money and invest in waste management in countries that need it. If we do that, we actually have an impact on the environment versus the virtue signalling these guys are so good at. However, the idea is too practical for the Liberals, who are not about solutions but feelings, emotions and tag lines.

On the plastics in the ocean, which is a problem that we need to address, when we faced environmental problems in the past, we used technology, not government's heavy hand, to fix it.

I have done some research: What is that plastic? Where is it coming from? The majority of plastics are from commercial fishermen. They call it “ghost gear”. When fishermen are done with the gear, which is made out of plastic, be it nets or fishing lines, the practice that takes place is that they throw it overboard. These nets float with the ocean currents, collecting debris and making a bigger problem.

What I am proposing here as a common-sense solution is that we have a deposit placed on the commercial equipment that usually gets tossed overboard. Instead of tossing it overboard, the fishermen would take it back to the supplier, get their money back from the refund and the net will never get into the ocean. That is a common-sense solution that I plead with some of the MPs here who might be at this elitist, fancy gathering next week to propose. Steal the idea. It costs nothing for consumers. It costs nothing for the taxpayer, but it is a concrete solution to go after the majority of plastic that we find in the oceans.

Common-sense Conservatives will fix what this Liberal government has broken. Canada should be a superpower in recycling plastics. If this government would just meet with the first ministers, it would learn the solution is plastic recycling, not the heavy hand of government. Like many issues we face in Canada, the federal Liberal government ignores the provinces. To improve plastic recycling in our country, it starts with meeting with the premiers. It is real Canadians, such as from the premiers, that this government needs to listen to. It is not cheap slogans and bans that will make a difference in our environment.

Why the Prime Minister needs to meet with the ministers was proven in court. The federal Liberals broke the law. They went around the Constitution and meddled in provincial business. If the Prime Minister would just meet with the premiers, whom he brags about not having met with since 2016, he may find out about some of the great work they are doing on recycling.

With this recycling of plastic molecules, we can do it over and over again, which can become the building blocks for the next consumer good. It would drive down the cost of goods, which is a good thing in a cost of living crisis. Any consumer goods that we can lower the cost on is a good thing, and I encourage, once again, this government to pick up on that idea.

Canada should be that superpower in plastic recycling. If we had a competent government, we would be investing in technology, not bans, and this technology already exists. If there were a federal government willing to partner with provinces and private entities to increase and scale up that recycling, we could be that powerhouse and reuse that molecule over and over again.

However, the Prime Minister will not listen to the courts, will not listen to Canadians and will not listen to the experts that are in these studies. There is another study I will table after my speech about the Calgary Co-op shopping bag ban, which shows that it is scientific, it is biodegradable and it can work within our system.

However, for this government to admit its errors, backtrack and be transparent, I will not hold my breath. The Prime Minister will not listen to anybody, but soon enough, he will hear from voters.

Corey Tochor

$464,685.00