by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
april 22, 2004
The Ontario government has been floating a trial balloon, dropping hints that they will begin to tax prepared meals and foods that cost under $4. Currently those meals are exempt from the eight per cent provincial sales tax.
During the last provincial election campaign, we all remember Dalton McGuinty looking in the camera and saying "I won’t lower your taxes, but I won’t raise them either". Residents of Ontario have since learned that any similarity to what Dalton says and what he does is purely coincidental. In a culture where many people think that "all politicians lie", Uncle Dalty stands out.
We didn’t lie, cry the Fiberals. McGuinty now says that when he promised not to increase taxes he was only talking about income taxes. Silly us for not understanding that. Guess he left the word "income" out. and Finance Minister Greg Sorbara, often referred to as the real premier, in the greatest exercise in parsing since Bill Clinton pondered what "is" is, said that the tax on cheap meals is not a tax; it is merely a tax exemption that is now being done away with. Guess in the province of Ontario, there is nothing that isn’t taxed--there are only goods and services whose tax exemptions have yet to be lifted.
The Liberals project that there will be a $5.6 billion dollar deficit because of the big bad Tories and since the tax-and-spend Libs haven’t got the heart to cut spending, they can only raise more revenue. and the projected tax on cheap meals is estimated to bring the government $200 million a year.
The tax is being touted, not as the cash grab that it is, but as the government’s help to reduce obesity and make us all healthier. This tax will be good for you. The NDP, who have no compunction about the state regulating not only what you eat but where you can have lunch and with whom, are the proposed tax’s greatest critics. They correctly point out that it is a tax on the poor--on those who cannot afford to buy expensive meals. People who eat in school or hospital cafeterias where a lot of the meals are priced at $3.99 or less, will be hit hard. Young people will be hit twice; once by paying more for their meals and twice by the reduction of entry level and part time jobs in fast food restaurants whose business will suffer because of the higher cost of food. The NDP also pointed out that not all food that costs less than $4 is bad for you. Soup and a salad or a muffin and a glass of milk are but two examples. Like the proverbial monkeys who will eventually type Hamlet, the N 'Dippers occasionally come up with something sensible to say.
Canadians’ reliance on the government to provide one-tier medicine where taxpayers never have to pay for medical services, allows governments like the Ontario Liberals to sell tax increases as long as they can tie it into a health issue. The government has to fight obesity because it will cost them more in health care if they don’t. as long as the Liberals can argue that all the tax will do is lessen the consumption of super-sized hamburger combos, they can get away with their tax increase.
The concept of state funded medical care has come along way from what the founders envisioned. When the socialist CCF/NDP first proposed it (and it was their idea - not Paul Martin Sr.’s as Junior often claims) medicare was meant to be a form of insurance. People were expected to work hard, save money and accumulate assets and government-provided medical insurance was meant to protect them from catastrophic medical events that would wipe their savings out and leave their families destitute. The founders never envisaged a situation where someone could drink 24 bottles of beer, eat a pizza with double hot Italian sausage and then be able to go to the doctor the next morning without having to pay because somehow they didn’t feel well. Taxes were a lot lower in those days. The government taxed individuals and corporations to provide essential services such as roads and defense (yep, defense was an essential service in the olden days). People were happy to make the trade-off; higher taxes for insurance against paying high medical bills. But now taxes are used to fund everything from aboriginal lesbian art displays to protecting endangered mosquitoes and the government can’t stop spending. and they can increase taxes with impunity as long as the tax can be said to have a health component.
This is why the Liberals are selling it as a "fat tax" and ignoring the adverse results of forcing the price of meals up. Is the provincial government right in taxing meals and prepared foods under $4? Guess it depends on what "is" is.