The city is taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to banning single-use plastics.
In June, acting manager of long-range planning, Chris Osborne, said council asked staff to look at what other municipalities are doing and report back to them.
A similar ban in Victoria was struck down by the BC Court of Appeal after an appeal was filed by the Canadian Plastic Bag Association.
For a link to the judge’s decision, click here.
Osborne said the City of Victoria is now appealing the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
He said “everyone is kind of watching and waiting to see what will happen there.”
Locally, Osborne said there isn’t even a draft bylaw on the table at the moment.
“Last year they (council) asked staff to look at what other communities are doing and report back, and I think it was just before we reported back that the B.C. Court of Appeal ruling came out, so on the basis of that, council decided to take no further action,” he said.
Meanwhile, council has lobbied that this kind of regulation would be far more effective coming either provincially and federally.
“So we did engage with the Clean BC Plastics Consultation that came out last year and issued a full response to that,” he said.
He said by the time the Supreme Court decision comes out, we might see provincial-level regulation anyway.
“So there’s no action on the part of the city at this time,” he said. “(It’s) wait-and-see.”
