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Rob Ford's Toronto

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doug said:
Playing the dummy? Why don't you sdcroll back and have a look at your own posts?
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What do you mean, "sdcroll" back? This is getting awfully silly.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me if you like. You want to be doctrinaire about cars in the urban environment, have at it.
 
What do you mean, "sdcroll" back? This is getting awfully silly.
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you're right, someone who can't figure out a typo isn't really worth debating with.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me if you like. You want to be doctrinaire about cars in the urban environment, have at it.
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Thanks, although I don't relly need your permission to, but you have mine ;)

Please educate us all on the non pollution producing cars that you are a doctrinaire on.
 
Going to ignore the drollery for now; wish I had time.

There's nothing wrong with cars per se; take them away from the GTA and let's see what would happen to the day-to-day conducting of business. That said, I'm all for increasing the ratio of public transit in the GTA - in fact, it's high time we got back in gear on that front. Otherwise the city (and the province) is simply shooting itself in the foot. Being able to move goods and people in and out of Canada's largest city ought to be a bigger priority than it is, and we shouldn't have different regulating levels and bodies fighting turf battles and waging ideological warfare while gridlock simply intensifies.

Increasing public transit ridership would also help with air quality issues. Alas, wer'e still a long ways off from repairing the mess we've slid into over three decades of general neglect.
 
Lenser said:
That is indeed useful but it would be nice to tie it directly to a positive environmental cause. Otherwise it's just sloppy and the general lack of accountability irks me.... and, i suspect, a good many other taxpayers.

It matters where the money goes. It always matters. Especially when we're talking about the gubmint.
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but it's not a tax ! has nothing to do with gov't revenues, hence nothing to do with taxpayers.

it may affect them as consumers, and as a consumer you can bring your own bag and not pay the fee, or go to a merchant that does not charge extra for the bags if it ilks you so much.
 
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Sure thing... and I do bring my own bag, usually, unless I've forgotten. I'm just saying it ought to have been more directly tied to a working system, company or organization that's pro-environment/waste reduction/recycling - rather than merely being something dependent on any given merchant's good will to do the right thing with the proceeds. But as I was saying, regardless of what we want to call it, it's going away because the plastic bags themselves are going away.
 
Lenser said:
Sure thing... and I do bring my own bag, usually, unless I've forgotten. I'm just saying it ought to have been more directly tied to a working system, company or organization that's pro-environment/waste reduction/recycling - rather than merely being something dependent on any given merchant's good will to do the right thing with the proceeds. .
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Lenser,

The cost of administering a program that keeps track of how many bags were purchased and redirects it to environmental programs is much higher than what the bag fee takes in.

The purpose of the bag fee is to reduce the amount of plastic bags that go to landfills, and that's it. What merchants do with the fee is their own prerogative. If a Loblaws sells 1,000,000 bags a year, that still amounts to $50,000 before administrative costs and the price Loblaws pays to buy the bags themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the amount of money that finds its way into an environmental charity from selling 1,000,000 bags nets just $10,000, which is the cost of planting 3 trees or paying for half of a undergrad university scholarship. It really is chump change.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Lenser,

The cost of administering a program that keeps track of how many bags were purchased and redirects it to environmental programs is much higher than what the bag fee takes in.

The purpose of the bag fee is to reduce the amount of plastic bags that go to landfills, and that's it. What merchants do with the fee is their own prerogative. If a Loblaws sells 1,000,000 bags a year, that still amounts to $50,000 before administrative costs and the price Loblaws pays to buy the bags themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the amount of money that finds its way into an environmental charity from selling 1,000,000 bags nets just $10,000, which is the cost of planting 3 trees or paying for half of a undergrad university scholarship. It really is chump change.
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Exactly! This whole ordeal needs to be treated as a case study in pure symbolism. The amount of money involved is so small but people are completely fixated on it.

For the price of my Tim Hortons coffee this morning I could have bought 41 plastic bags. That's a 5-month supply for me.
 
Regarding the bag fee... This article from the National Post has one of my all time favourite quotes, ever.

Christy McCullen, Store Manager of Summerhill Market:
“It makes me sick that other stores are still charging.”
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Christy, you have no problem charing $7.99 for a pineapple but it sickens you that other stores charge 5 cents for a bag!?!?!

That pineapple is not organic and it's definitely not local. It's the same damn Dole pineapple sold everywhere else in the GTA for $2.99 - $3.99. That's just scratching the surface of their price gouging.

I noticed the Sweet Potato in the Junction also stopped charing for bags. You tout yourself as a healthy, organic grocery store and you're all too happy to give away bags again. They should've been using paper bags from day 1. As if saving 15 cents on bags is going to bring in all sorts of the No Frills shoppers from down the street.
 
Lenser said:
Not that I ever reflexively side with the Rob Ford, but isn't part of the problem that this is an involuntary yet supposedly feel-good measure which is, nonetheless, not directly tied to funding environmental concerns? As I understand it, there's no regulatory mechanism to ensure that each five cent collection goes toward waste reduction or recycling. Instead, we get stores that say the money goes toward a variety of charities chosen by each particular store chain. Smaller independent stores can do what they want with the money. It's not a direct and accountable revenue stream. It's just a wee bit loosey-goosey and it's open to abuses.


In any case, soon it'll all be moot. Banning the plastic bag altogether can hardly be what Ford envisioned. Amazing how many things have backfired on him, after that initial heady rush of power and apparent steamrolling invulnerability.
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Retailers were quick to implement the fee and the complete opposite now that they are no longer required to charge a fee. There is no way that money is going to charity (or very little) and their bogus "we are concerned about the environment". They are going to ride the last 6 months and collect as much money from this bag fee as they can. Pure and simple
 
But, isn't that their prerogative? If you don't like the fact they charge for plastic bags, you have two options: 1. Don't shop there 2. Bring your own bags. If the fee ends up reducing the amount of plastic bags used, we all win...
 
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