Poilievre promises to scrap single-use plastics ban and bring back the plastic straw

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to scrap the federal government’s ban on single-use plastics and bring back plastic straws and disposable grocery bags. 

“The Liberals’ plastics ban is not about the environment, it’s about cost and control,” Poilievre said during a campaign stop in Montreal Friday. 

“This isn’t about science, it’s about symbolism,” he added. “They are not about saving the planet, they’re about punishing all of us to make themselves feel good.”   

In 2022, the Liberal government announced it was going to ban some single-use plastic items in an effort to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030. 

The six categories of single-use plastics that were banned — checkout bags, cutlery, take-out containers, stir sticks, plastic aluminum can ring carriers and plastic straws — account for about three per cent of the plastic waste Canada generates annually.

That Liberal ban was overturned in November 2023 by the Federal Court, which said listing plastic items as toxic was “unreasonable and unconstitutional.” 

On appeal in 2024, the federal government got a stay from the Federal Court of Appeal on the November ruling, allowing the ban to continue while the federal government continues its appeal. 

That appeal was heard in June, but a decision has not yet been handed down by the court. 

Proposed packaging rules

The Liberal government has also proposed further changes to regulations for the plastic packaging used for grocery items that include five key objectives, including:

• Eliminating unnecessary packaging by a 2035.
• Ensure plastic-free packaging for 75 per cent fresh fruits and vegetables sold in bulk by 2026, and 95 per cent sold in bulk by 2028.
• Making sure all “primary food packaging” — plastic that comes into direct contact with fresh food —  is recyclable by 2028.
• Companies must increase the use of refillable plastics, reduce disposable plastics and concentrated plastics over time.  
• Increasing the use of recyclable content in food packaging to 10 per cent by 2028, 20 per cent by 2030 and 30 per cent by 2035.

Poilievre says making those changes will cost Canadian households an additional $400 each year on the groceries they buy.

“The Liberals’ ideological crusade against convenience has already driven up food prices and the last thing Canadians need is Mark Carney’s new food tax added directly to your grocery bill,” said Poilievre.

The Conservative leader says that only one per cent of single-use plastics find their way into the environment every year, with the rest being recycled. 

According to Statistics Canada, more than 40,000 tonnes of plastic leak into the Canada’s physical environment every year. 

The plastic straw culture war

Poilievre’s pledge follows U.S. President Donald Trump signing of an executive order in February that banned paper straws, rolling back former president  Joe Biden’s plan to phase out single-use plastics. 

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the order. “I don’t think plastic is going to affect a shark very much, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,” he added. 

Paper straws have already been a culture war flashpoint in the United States and Canada for some time now. 

In 2019, Trump’s presidential campaign sold Trump-branded plastic straws as an alternative to “liberal” paper straws (and reportedly raised half a million dollars for Trump’s re-election effort in the process).

Last year, Lianne Rood, the Conservative MP for the Ontario riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, said she would no longer buy coffee from Tim Hortons until it discontinued its use of paper lids. 

Conservative MP Corey Tochor’s private member’s bill, C-380, was a legislative effort to overturn the Liberal ban because of his opposition to the paper straw, which he described as “soggy, limp, wet and utterly useless.”

Liberal Leader Mark Carney defended the Liberal ban, saying all of the items being banned all have readily available and affordable substitutes that people can buy instead. 

“I don’t see the need to follow the U.S. either in terms of the respect for judgments of judges, U.S. firearm policy or with respect to plastics, we make our own decisions here in Canada,” Carney said at a campaign stop Friday in Niagara Falls, Ont.