Never let it be said that Coun. Stella Locker isn't willing to fight for what she believes in.
After voting against the city bylaw banning plastic bags on all three readings - and being the lone vote opposed on all occasions - Locker decided to try her luck with the newly-elected council, bringing forward a resolution at the Nov. 29 meeting of council which would start the ball rolling on an attempt to rescind the bylaw.
This resolution kick-started a 35-minute debate among council, touching on issues as diverse and tangential as the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources, the impact the bylaw could have on taxi drivers, and consumer culture.
Locker said that she decided to bring the resolution forward "after observing what is taking place downtown, and also with various citizens coming and complaining to me that the city is bringing in something which is going to cost them money." She pointed out that a five-cent bag tax in Winnipeg has been unpopular, and that multi-use bags offer more possibility for the spread of disease and bacteria.
"They are more than one-time use," said Coun. Luke Robinson. "They're used for smelly diapers, people use them to pick up their dog poop, people use them for garbage cans to put their refuse out." Robinson suggested that a small fee, such as the five-cent fee already in place at Extra Foods, would be "reasonable."
Several councillors, including Coun. Erin Stewart and Coun. Penny Byer, noted that the bylaw essentially would only impact people insofar as that it would get them to change their habits. Byer recalled that this was no different than when plastic bags were first introduced, forcing shoppers who were used to paper bags to change their habits to adjust for the new material.
Coun. Dennis Fenske raised the issue of non-decomposing plastic bags in the city's two landfills. "Because we don't see it, it's not front and centre. People need to step back and realize that," he said. Locker replied, citing a presentation by Karen Melnyshuk of industry lobbying group Multi-Material Stewardship Manitoba to council in July, that bags constitute less than one per cent of landfill waste by weight. "The proof was in the pudding for me, in what I saw," responded Fenske, who said he had recently visited both landfill sites.
Stewart also brought up the environmental impact of plastic bags, which do not decompose for decades. "We go on and on about this pristine Northern environment that we live in, and I think we really value that, but we need to respect the impact that our actions have on it," she said.
Leaf Rapids - one of two communities in Canada, along with Fort McMurray, to have similar bylaws on the books - was another topic of discussion. Robinson noted that Leaf Rapids retailers have had issues with customers taking carts home with them. Coun. Brad Evenson, who was previously the superintendent for Leaf Rapids, noted that disappearing carts were a problem long before the bylaw came into effect. "They're using that as a crutch," he said. Evenson also noted that the bylaw was only brought in after the community stopped receiving an annual grant from the province, to the tune of $35,000, to pick up loose bags.
In response to concerns that this change was now being forced on businesses with insufficient time for them to prepare - the bylaw comes into effect Jan. 1 - Evenson, who also chairs council's public works committee and thus acts as council's de facto spokesperson for the bylaw, noted that the city is willing to work with businesses to ensure they have time to prepare, and that they will delay beginning to enforce the bylaw if need be.
Locker's resolution was ultimately defeated by a measure of seven votes to two - with only Locker and Robinson voting in favour, although Coun. Judy Kolada said her vote was based on the premise that any conservation measures were better than no conservation measures, but that she may have voted differently had she believed it would make a difference in the final outcome.
Originally slated to come into effect in October when it was first introduced in the spring, the starting date was pushed back to 2011 due to a holdup caused by the bylaw being temporarily modified between second and third readings to include paper bags as well. The wording was originally reverted to the original intent of eliminating only the plastic bags, and the bylaw then passed.
Several types of bags will be exempt from the bylaw, including bags used within stores to package items such as fruit, nuts, candy and small hardware items, bags used to hold frozen foods, meat, flowers or potted plants, bags used to protect bakery items, bags used by pharmacists to hold prescription drugs, door-hanger bags, dry-cleaning bags, and bags sold to be used as garbage and waste bags.
