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news

Newsstand: September 30, 2009

By Lori Dance

This summer’s garbage strike saved the city over thirty-three million dollars, but—wait for it—the cheque is not in the mail. Quelle surprise. Proceeds from the thirty-nine-day stinkfest will be lining the coffers of City Hall instead as Torontonians gear up for increased garbage fees. Shocker number two? City councillors don’t like it and have something to say! That, like, never happens! Ooh…ow. Is it possible to sprain your sarcasm?
No? Good. Let’s continue, then…

Councillor Michael Walker would like to know how the five-cent “bag tax” is reducing the estimated 460 million plastic bags used each year by Torontonians (at an annual cost of one million dollars to process). “Oh, we think this campaign has been an unrivalled success,” retailers everywhere are likely saying as they pocket an extra ten million dollars per year as a result of the eco-tastic cash grab (not collected by the city, by the way). What’s that, Marigold? Not many stores are being fined for non-compliance? The devil, you say.
The province of Ontario is suing the tobacco industry for fifty billion dollars to help recoup health costs. Because the taxes they’ve been collecting from consumers on every cigarette smoked is obviously not doing the trick.
Finally, a Toronto couple was detained in Dubai for twenty-eight days for drug possession because Celebrex, by name alone, is obviously a party drug. Their detention had nothing to do with the fact that they were gay in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death. And neither of these bits of info had anything to do with the fact that the story wasn’t picked up by any of the major news feeds.
Phew! At this point, gentle readers, we rest our sarcasm emphasis tags for yet another day. Go buy someone a coffee.

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Comments

  • http://undefined wesshepherd

    I know the flak I’m going to get for this.
    So when are the lawsuits going to be slapped on the manufacturers of Vachon Cakes, Doritos, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, New York Fries and Johnny Walker scotch, and all the other purveyors of high risk food-stuffs who have contributed to the increasing health costs associated with obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and liver disease?
    While we’re at it, let’s go machine-gun all the cows, because that red meat is killing our colons.
    Give me a break.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    Small typo – Ontario is suing big tobacco for $50 billion. The cig makers could pay off $50 million by passing around a hat at a board meeting.

  • http://undefined Padraic

    Since when did Torontoist become a platform for anti-tax zealotry? Raising the price of goods that have both financial and environmental externalities is good policy.

  • http://torontocopywriter.com Lori Dance

    Whoops! Fixed. With my pinky extended to the corner of my mouth, no less. :)

  • http://undefined Ben

    It probably has to do with the Ink Truck financier who is pushing Karen Stintz for mayor.

  • http://torontocopywriter.com Lori Dance

    Or the fact that the prices of goods have not lowered as a result of retailers no longer needing to build bag costs into said prices—coupled with the fact that Toronto isn’t even taking advantage of the resulting revenue—which makes this “bag tax” nothing more than a big ol’ cash grab.

  • http://undefined wesshepherd

    I wouldn’t mind the bag tax if the money were actually being used to clean oil-covered ducks or protect the forests, but it’s not. In my opinion (and it is just my opinion) the standard knee-jerk response to anything someone doesn’t want around any more is to tax it. History proves that this has a limited success rate, and results more often than not in a pissed off consumer.
    As a course of action it’s not very well thought out and does nothing to actually bring the attitude of the already over-taxed consumer in line with what it’s ostensibly trying to achieve–environmental cleanup.

  • http://undefined Ben

    Ridiculous. Do you suggest that retailers lower their prices based on their size and weight of their wares by between 1 and 5 cents?
    5 cents is far from big ol’, and you’ll save money if you invest $1 in a reusable bag.

  • http://torontocopywriter.com Lori Dance

    “…you’ll save money if you invest $1 in a reusable bag.”
    Hot dog! We have a wiener! :)

  • http://undefined panko

    The City could force the “bag tax” on the stores but it couldn’t collect the money. Further, even though a plastic bag now costs 5 cents, it is nowhere near the true cost to the store. When purchased in bulk, those bags are much, much cheaper so idea of passing savings onto shoppers is silly…we’d save 0.01 cents!?

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    “It probably has to do with the Ink Truck financier who is pushing Karen Stintz for mayor.”
    Absolutely, unequivocally, not, and I would hope that, as someone who’s been reading Torontoist for a long time, you’d have a lot more faith in our ethics than that. Rob Silver’s involvement with Stintz’s mayoral exploratory committee (which we continue to note at basically every mention of Stintz on Torontoist) has had and will continue to have no effect whatsover on the content or tone of Torontoist’s election coverage. If you read Torontoist regularly, you’d know that our contributors’ opinions on issues—they’re allowed to have their own opinions—rarely align with Stintz’s anyway. A month ago, for instance, another contributor, Steve Kupferman, argued for the virtues of the five cent bag fee.

  • http://torontocopywriter.com Lori Dance

    I’ve actually never met the guy, and I think that David can attest to the fact that I’m not one who likes to be told what to think. You might want to look elsewhere on the Interwebz for that kind of pandering. ;)
    I just worked for a supermarket for long enough to know that those nickels won’t be spearheading any environmental initiatives any time soon.

  • http://undefined Ben

    Sorry, my media paranoia is overpowering sometimes. You can never have too much paranoia about the media.
    It’s good that you’re admitting the association here. Most media companies probably don’t even bother mentioning who they are associated with.

  • http://undefined Sammy

    I didn’t realize the plastic bag money wasn’t being collected by the city. I can tell you that 5 cents a bag isn’t really discouraging me from buying them, as I like buying them for my dog walks. Maybe if they made plastic bags cost 50 cents I would stop buying them.

  • http://undefined wesshepherd

    Sammy–try the Pet Pickup bags that Walmart sells. They come in rolls of 15, 6 rolls to a pack, for about 4 bucks. The price works out almost the same as a grocery store bag, but they never have holes in them, which is a big big big plus, I think you will agree, and they are bio-degradeable.

  • http://undefined Green Sulfur

    You could also just take a few extra fruit/vegetable plastic bags from the grocery store. They’re free. I use them to bag my cat’s waste.

  • http://undefined Padraic

    The point of the bag tax isn’t to fund environmental initiatives, it’s to deter people using them, and in numerous jurisdictions the psychological difference between “free” and “non-free” has proven to be quite effective in reducing bag waste.
    As for the commenters complaining about the City not collecting the revenue — you don’t think the City wants that revenue? Write your MPP to change the City of Toronto Act so that would be legally possible.

  • TokyoTuds

    I think 90% of people have moved on with the bag tax thing. It reduces use and raises awareness which is good. I wish though, that the city was getting the collected nickel.