The provincial government isn't going to be pushing back the May 19 rollout of the Multi-Material B.C.-led recycling program, despite calls from the Opposition and industry critics.
"We're not considering delaying it," Premier Christy Clark told reporters Wednesday afternoon in Victoria. "The minister worked very, very hard with small businesses to increase the threshold at which it would apply, recognizing a lot of those small businesses would have trouble complying with it."
The changes they announced in early February exempt businesses with annual revenues of less than $1 million, produce less than one tonne of packaging and printed paper annually; or operate from a single point of retail sale.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, NDP critic for small business, tourism, arts and culture Lana Popham used her member statement to call attention to the impact the stewardship plan is slated to have on the newspaper industry.
"This is outrageous, because the sector already recycles 85 per cent of the newsprint it uses. MMBC is currently demanding $10 million in annual fees from the newspaper sector to pay for the recycling that is already happening," Popham said, before being asked by the Speaker to bring her statement in line with a rule about not using her statement to comment on aspects of government policy.
MMBC managing director Allen Langdon, in a previous interview with The Citizen, said newspapers in other jurisdictions - such as Ontario or Manitoba - have had someone else subsidize their participation in stewardship programs.
"In B.C. they wanted other MMBC members to subsidize their participation and pay their fees. We were quite conscious that our members would not be in favour of paying for the fees for another sector as well as their own," Langdon said. "When you talk to our members - we've got over 800 members right now - they feel comfortable and understand the need to pay their obligations under the regulation but I think they would be very uncomfortable, in fact I'm pretty sure they would not want to pay for another sector's obligations. It wouldn't be fair."
The B.C. and Yukon Community Newspapers Association and Newspapers Canada - both of which the Citizen is a member - are part of the stakeholder coalition behind the Rethink It B.C. campaign, calling on residents to lobby the premier to delay the new recycling program.
The other half of the argument, said Clark, is that nearly 80 communities have signed on to the MMBC plan and that "many of those communities are passing on those savings in tax savings to citizens who will no longer bear the burden of that cost... And in those 79 communities, I know many of them are passing along those savings from this program directly to taxpayers in terms of cuts to taxes."
The effects of curbside collection in Prince George, where it didn't previously exist, has yet to be determined. Recycling is currently handled by the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, which joined the city in turning down MMBC's offer to act as a collector.
-- with files from Rob Shaw, Vancouver Sun
