PRESS Release: Red Tape Reduction Package Ignores Huge Increases in Ontario Government Regulatory Costs for Recycling

October 8, 2021, Ottawa, ONTARIO: Yesterday, the Ontario Government released its plan to reduce red tape in Ontario noting that: “Ontario’s Fall 2021 Red Tape Reduction Package to ease unnecessary burdens and stimulate economic activity and to demonstrate to people, businesses, investors and entrepreneurs that Ontario is open for business.” However, the ‘changes’ for waste recycling noted under the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks does not acknowledge the increased massive regulatory costs under this Government. Those regulatory costs continue to rise for Ontario businesses as they struggle to restore staffing to pre-pandemic levels, deal with excessive raw material costs for consumer products, limiting their margins, but still delivering strong results for waste recovery in the Province.

The new waste recycling approach in Ontario effectively adds new eco taxes for Ontario consumers when inflation is at an all-time high, increasing the costs for consumer products. The three items noted under the “Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA) Transparency Changes” have nothing to do with Red Tape reduction. The huge increase in regulatory costs are already transparent, making them more transparent does not address the lack of regard for both economy and efficiency, as currently experienced by the Ontario manufacturing industry for recycling. Two of the items under this heading say exactly the same thing, that is, RPRA will “ensure transparency and accountability” but does not say how ‘transparency’ will reduce red tape or growing regulatory costs. The other item states it has already changed the “Operating Agreement that outlines details of governance and operations,” but fails to note that changes to the Operating Agreement in 2020 completely ignored the views of the obligated manufacturing industry delivering waste recovery.

What the Red Tape Package also does not say is why the Ontario Government’s new recycling regulation imposes a 400% increase on paint recycling in Ontario. How can red tape reduction overlook such a massive regulatory increase? That is just for one program. Other recycling programs have also seen huge increases in regulatory costs. When the government announced the new HSP recycling regulation it stated that it would ‘moderately reduce recycling costs’ in Ontario. Instead those costs have skyrocketed.

Much of the increasing regulatory costs for recycling in Ontario, under the delegated Authority, is driven by high IT costs for a mandated registry, which duplicates information already provided by manufacturers via their program operators. It will only get worse, not better. These program operators already run efficient waste recycling programs and fulfill the manufacturers’ legislated obligations in Ontario for waste recycling. Oversight costs under the delegated Authority for waste recovery in Ontario has increased for staffing up from 10 to 50 staff in less than four years. New business plans reveal that staffing will approach close to 100 or more in 2024. At the same time annual operating costs rose 300% with increases in management salaries for 2020 alone averaging 6%, contrasted with just 1% for the capped salary increases of public servants.

It’s time for waste recycling programs to be put back under the Environmental Protection Act. All of this red tape is accumulating without any commitment to actual improvement in waste recycling or with due regard to economy and efficiency. It is time for arbitrary fee-setting approaches and complicated Government red tape to stop. The paint and coatings industry in Ontario continues to meet and exceed waste recovery targets as it has since the beginning of the program in Ontario. It continues to add $1.802 billion annually to Ontario’s GDP, pays more than $700 million in taxes and creates 46,615 direct and indirect jobs in the Province. They are trying to remain open for business and waiting for the Government to follow through on that commitment.

The only question is, when will Red Tape actually address those increasing and unnecessary costs for waste recycling in Ontario?