HEJSupport and the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) sent a joint submission to Environment and Climate Change Canada regarding the proposed amendments to the Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Prohibition Regulations, as published in the Canada Gazette, Part I, on December 20, 2025.
In December 2025, Canada opened public comments on proposed amendments to the Single-Use Plastics Prohibition Regulations (https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2025/2025-12-20/html/reg1-eng.html) that would lift the export prohibition on certain single-use plastic items. This would allow the continued manufacture and export of products that Canada has already identified as environmentally harmful under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).
On January 30, 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal delivered major news in Canada’s fight against plastic pollution: it confirmed that the federal government can list manufactured plastic items as “toxic” under CEPA (https://www.fca-caf.ca/en/pages/decisions/plain-language-decision-summaries/2026-fca-17 ). The Court affirmed that plastic pollution is not merely a waste issue — it is a health and environmental protection issue. It upheld the government’s authority to regulate plastics through a lifecycle-based, preventive approach grounded in risk and cumulative harm. The decision strengthened the legal foundation for ambitious plastics regulation in Canada.
Against this backdrop, lifting the export ban is a form of deregulation. If plastic-manufactured items are recognized as toxic — and the Court has affirmed a preventive lifecycle approach — narrowing an existing control measure sends a contradictory signal.
Export does not eliminate harm. Manufacturing impacts occur domestically. Plastic pollution is inherently transboundary. Allowing SUP export shifts — rather than reduces — environmental and health burdens.
Section 2 of CEPA (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-15.31/FullText.html) recognizes the right to a healthy environment and requires precaution and environmental justice in administering the Act. Weakening an established prohibition after environmental harm has been identified raises serious questions about consistency with those principles.
Canada now has clear judicial confirmation of its authority to regulate plastics upstream. The question is whether it will use that authority to strengthen protections or retreat from them.
