Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

On a trip to Home Depot last Friday to buy spray that will kill earwigs but save my hostas, I encountered Ontario's eco-levy-tax thingy.

The self-serve checkout screen told me to wait for the manual addition of the fee (read: Tax). I politely asked the clerk to void the purchase.

I figured my slow-boiling-anger-induced saliva could not only kill the earwigs out front, but make a good dent on my backyard weeds to boot since Mr. McGuinty took away my option to eradicate them a few years back.

This shut-up-and-pay-it eco-tax-sham-scam, loosely administered by an arms-length industry group called Stewardship Ontario, slipped onto many products on Canada Day in the shadow of the HST.

To be fair, Ottawa West- Nepean Liberal MPP Bob Chiarelli pointed out on these pages Tuesday the genesis of Stewardship Ontario started in the dying days of the Ernie Eves PC government. However, at the time, this initiative was designed for limited application for post-consumption disposal of tires and electronics, if I'm not mistaken.

'FIASCO'

But this new eco tax has finally awoken Ontario's sleepy opposition parties. PC Leader Tim Hudak -- who was bordering on being called Tim Who-dat? given his recent invisibility -- stated Tuesday he would cancel the tax if elected premier in 2011. And NDP Leader Andrea Horwath hit the nail on the head by calling this past fortnight of confusion a "fiasco."

In fact, fiasco is too timid a description. Unmitigated policy disaster is more apt.

Whether you pay an eco tax on certain products is so arbitrary it seems to depend on a number of factors, including the retailer, the product, the manufacturer, the number of clouds in the sky and if it is an even-or odd-numbered day.

If you haven't been dinged with this tax yet, just wait. Sunblock, vitamins, potting soil, grass seed, bath toys, fishbowls and keychains are all subject. So too are glucose monitors for diabetics, bug spray and even your next Christmas tree!

This is nuts.

Most of these products will still end up in the landfill, along with half the stuff folks put in their blue bins. And this year we learned that putting our used pizza boxes in the black bins for the past half-decade was wrong as it spoiled the newsprint.

My clan does its part. We are a one-vehicle family by choice, take public transit when we can, own a push mower and jam our green bin full of food scraps. Although putting the green bin in my blue bin could save a lot of plastic, but I digress.

We need a timeout from trying to save the planet via poor public policy. It's time to ask, what are we really accomplishing?

VERIFICATION

Governments at all levels need to subject their alleged environmental efforts to independent verification. Are we really diverting plastic from landfills? How much newsprint are we recycling? What will retailers and manufacturers do with these new fees in terms of post-consumption stewardship?

And give us a generational cost-benefit analysis of our efforts to date, please and thank you.

Is there a public official out there with the courage to take a pause and figure out what works and what doesn't? Don't we owe it to future generations and Mother Earth to find out?