JAY GOLDBERG: Carney should end Trudeau’s war on plastics

Plastics are at times part of the solution, not the problem, when it comes to pursuing environmental goals

Published Aug 13, 2026  •  Last updated 6 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

A collection of plastic straws. Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia Network

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Mark Carney has had no problem dispensing with bad Justin Trudeau-era policies in his first 18 months as prime minister.

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Whether it’s the consumer carbon tax or the so-called Netflix tax, Carney hasn’t been afraid to undo policies that hurt consumers, businesses and Canada’s trade relationships, even though his Liberal predecessor imposed them.

Yet another Trudeau-era policy that deserves to be put on the chopping block is the federal government’s war on plastics.

From ending the use of single-use plastic bags to banning plastic straws to creating a Federal Plastics Registry, the Trudeau government launched an all-out assault on the plastics industry in Canada, supposedly in the pursuit of environmental goals.

But a key problem with that approach is that plastics are at times part of the solution, not the problem, when it comes to pursuing environmental goals. And they help lower costs for both businesses and consumers.

For example, Danish research shows that, to have the same life-cycle effect on the environment as a single-use plastic bag, a paper bag would have to be used no less than 43 times. Does anyone really believe that folks who are picking up paper bags at the grocery store intend to keep them and use them dozens of times, assuming they even last that long?

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Cotton bags, which many of us now use for grocery shopping because of the elimination of single-use plastic bags, must be used some 7,100 times to be environmentally worthwhile. Again, does anyone realistically think this is happening?

And alternatives like paper bags are much more expensive. In fact, they cost 2.6 times more than single-use plastic bags. Moreover, paper straws, which have replaced single-use plastic straws since they were banned by the Trudeau regime, are three times more expensive.

The federal government’s war on plastics, at least in these instances, has had a negative effect on the environment, all the while increasing costs for businesses and consumers.

How about the Trudeau government’s supposed crowning achievement, the Federal Plastics Registry?

The registry was created under the 1999 Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Final notice of its creation was announced in the spring of 2024. This registry wasn’t created by legislation of its own; rather, it was created by the federal cabinet.

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The registry forces companies that have anything to do with plastics to report annually to Environment Canada. They need to report the quantity and types of plastics they produce, import, and release into the marketplace, as well as how much plastic is collected, diverted, reused, or sent to landfills, among others.

All of this was supposedly meant to feed into Canada’s Zero Plastic Waste agenda, which is a federal strategy to eliminate plastic waste by 2030.

Here’s the thing: Eliminating all plastic waste isn’t a workable or sensible environmental goal. Using plastic goods in many cases makes sense, as the single-use plastic bag example illustrates. Trying to end all plastic waste completely is foolhardy. And this registry is simply a make-work project for businesses that increases compliance costs, which in turn increases costs for consumers.

The Federal Plastics Registry was largely created because the federal government declared plastics to be a toxic substance under Canada’s Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). This was controversial, to say the least. A lower court had ruled in 2023 that the federal government’s designation was “unreasonable and unconstitutional,” but this was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal earlier this year.

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Any sensible person could see that designating plastic manufactured items as “toxic” was a dubious move by the federal government. But declaring plastics as “toxic” has allowed the federal government to bring in all kinds of sweeping regulations and new compliance costs.

Instead of pursuing bans and making life more expensive, the federal government should be backing many of the innovations the Canadian plastics industry is making right now, including making new products that are biodegradable or otherwise recyclable through advanced recycling. Through innovation, industry can help reduce plastic waste while at the same time ensuring that affordability remains top of mind. Innovation beats bans. It’s as simple as that.

It’s time for the Carney government to undo the Trudeau government’s decision to designate plastics as a “toxic” substance, scrap the Federal Plastics Registry and stand foursquare behind innovation as the answer to sustainability as Canada moves forward.

Jay Goldberg is the North American affairs manager at the Consumer Choice Center, which receives funding from chemical, energy, manufacturing and consumer goods industries

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