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Trudeau gov’t to appeal federal court ruling that overturned ban on single-use plastics

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1 year ago

5 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky 

‘Our government intends to appeal the Federal Court’s decision and we are exploring all options to continue leading the fight against plastic pollution,’ Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced

The Trudeau government is set to appeal the recent decision which ruled the plastics ban to be “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

On November 20, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced that the Liberal government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will appeal the Federal Court’s ruling which overturned its ban on various plastics.

“Our government intends to appeal the Federal Court’s decision and we are exploring all options to continue leading the fight against plastic pollution,” Guilbeault said in a joint statement with Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani.

“We will continue working with provinces, territories, civil society, and industry to tackle this growing problem,” the statement continued.

Guilbeault’s comments come in response to a November 16 ruling by the Federal Court that determined that the Trudeau government overstepped its authority by classifying plastic as “toxic” and banning all single-use plastic items, like straws.

The decision came after a lawsuit filed a little over a year ago by Alberta and Saskatchewan. The ruling declared that listing all plastics on the List of Toxic Substances was too broad and “poses a threat to the balance of federalism as it does not restrict regulation to only those (plastics) that truly have the potential to cause harm to the environment.”

The court further reminded the Trudeau federal government of the autonomy of the provinces, saying, “Cooperative federalism recognizes that the provincial government and federal government are coordinate – the provinces are not subordinate to the federal government. A federal head of power cannot be given a scope that would eviscerate a provincial legislative competence.”

Essentially, the ruling overturned Trudeau’s 2022 law which outlawed manufacturing or importing plastic straws, cutlery, and checkout bags on the grounds of government claims that plastic was having a negative effect on the oceans. In reality, most plastic pollution in the oceans comes from a few countries, like India and China, which dump waste directly on beaches or rivers.

If not for the Federal Court’s ruling, the sale of these plastic products would have also been illegal by the end of this year.

“Canadians are rightly calling for action, because the rate of plastic pollution is unsustainable, threatening irreversible harm to the health of our natural world and humanity,” the memo claimed. “The accumulation of plastic pollution worldwide is nothing short of a crisis that has brought countries together to propose ambitious global solutions to this problem.

While Guilbeault claims to be responding to Canadians’ desire to reduce pollution, his statement, posted to X (formerly Twitter), has been received with ridicule from Canadians.

“Cope harder, Steven. Your air travel alone causes more pollution than plastic straws,” a Canadian Armed Forces combat veteran wrote.

“Hypocrites! Trudeau is responsible for the lions share of this [pollution],” another declared.

Another pointed out that banning plastics, such as plastic grocery bags may not actually reduce pollution, saying, “I think plastic bags are quite useful. I carry stuff home in them, then I am able to use them as garbage bags, saving me from buying bags to do so. Also, they stop us from needing to chop down trees to make paper bags. Now I have to buy Glad kitchen catcher garbage bags. How does this help the environment again?”

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Why living in Canada has become impossible

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Trudeau government wants to give CBC more money

Published on December 30, 2024

By

From the Canadian Taxpayers Association

By Kris Sims

The CBC used to air The Simpsons after school.

One of the best episodes was the Cape Fear homage where an FBI agent is trying to change Homer’s last name to Thompson.

After hours of explanation, the kids have fallen asleep, Marge has given up and the agent says, “When I step on your foot and say: ‘Hello Mr. Thompson,’ you nod your head! Got it?!”

Homer did not get it.

The Liberal members of Parliament on the heritage committee still don’t get it either.

The committee has sent a report to the House of Commons urging the government to give the CBC even more money.

“That the Government of Canada provide a substantial and lasting increase in the parliamentary appropriations for CBC/Radio-Canada, allowing it to eliminate its paid subscription services and gradually end its reliance on commercial advertising revenues,” reads the report.

Really? More money? The CBC already takes $1.4 billion year from taxpayers. And that’s not enough?

That amount of money could already cover the salaries of about 7,000 police officers and 7,000 paramedics.

If Trudeau’s MPs want to give the CBC more money so that it can get rid of its advertising and subscription funding, that means a huge cost for taxpayers.

According it’s latest annual report, the CBC collected about $493 million in revenue other than government funding in 2023-24, the bulk being subscription fees and advertising.

This means these Trudeau government MPs want taxpayers to fund the CBC to the tune of about $2 billion per year.

This is the opposite of what needs to happen.

The CBC should be defunded for three key reasons.

The CBC is a huge waste of money, nearly nobody is watching it and journalists should not be paid by the government.

The committee knows this.

And we know they know because the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told them to their faces in testimony before the committee.

CBC CEO Catherine Tait repeatedly testified at the committee and each time she inadvertently made a stronger case to defund the CBC, due to her entitlement and lack of accountability.

Tait refused to say if she will take a severance when she leaves the CBC next year, claiming it’s a personal matter.

It’s not personal if it’s taxpayers’ money.

Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show Tait is paid between $460,000 and $551,000 this year, with a bonus of up to 28 per cent.

That’s a bonus of up to $154,448. That’s more than the average Canadian family earns in a year.

Just before Christmas last year, Tait cried broke to the committee and afterwards the CBC announced lay offs in its newsrooms.

Documents obtained by the CTF show the CBC handed out big bonuses that year anyway, costing taxpayers $18 million.

As the CBC fan group Friends of Canadian Media put it: “This decision is deeply out of touch and unbefitting of our national public broadcaster.”

It gets worse because the state broadcaster isn’t even doing a good job.

According to the CBC’s latest quarterly report, CBC News Network’s national audience share is 1.7 per cent.

Documents obtained by the CTF show the CBC’s supper hour newscast drawing microscopic audiences, with 0.7 per cent of Toronto watching the six o’clock news on CBC.

Journalists should not be paid by the government because it’s an obvious conflict of interest.

You can’t hold the powerful government to account if you’re counting on that government for your paycheque.

Such government funding of media has contributed to the rapid erosion of trust in the news media, with 61 per cent of Canadians saying they think journalists are “purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”

CBC’s entertainment programming barely fares better. The Murdoch Mysteries, which is not produced by the CBC, pulls in its biggest audience with about 1.9 per cent of the population watching.

The politicians on the committee know all of this, and yet, like Homer Simpson, they are not getting the message.

If the CBC needs money, it should earn that money itself.

Taxpayers can’t afford the state broadcast’s bill now, let alone hundreds of millions more.

It’s time to defund the CBC.

Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a former member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

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Why living in Canada has become impossible

Published on December 30, 2024

By

From Hindsight

There is a housing crisis, cost-of-living crisis, and now even an immigration crisis. What’s happening to Canada?

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