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The first step to saving the plastic bag bylaw is fixing the semantics.

It's not a plastic bag "fee", it's DEFINITELY not a plastic bag "tax". Both of these suggest that the government is gaining revenue from this bylaw, which is not true. The Sun has been deliberately spreading this falsehood.

It's a rule that says you can't give them away for free, so a better name would be something like "free plastic bag bylaw", as in "Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wants to scrap free plastic bag bylaw".
 
I work as a cashier in Richmond Hill, and the ignorance behind us charging 5 cents for a bag from customers is staggering. Whenever this comes up in the media, I hear customers claiming they cannot wait for "the government to ban businesses from charging for plastic bags." Keep in mind here it is a private business decision to charge for the bags, the government has no say in it whatsoever. Why these people, who I assume vote Conservative, want the government telling businesses what they can and can't charge for strikes me as ironic. Why do these conservatives hate capitalism?

Ignoring the fact that a plastic bag costs only the smallest denomination of currency in production in Canada today, before we started charging for bags I would go through 3 sets of bags an hour. Now because of people bringing their own bags or opting to carry out small orders without any bags, I go through about 3 sets of bags in a 5 hour shift.
 
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Electrify said:
I work as a cashier in Richmond Hill, and the ignorance behind us charging 5 cents for a bag from customers is staggering. Whenever this comes up in the media, I hear customers claiming they cannot wait for "the government to ban businesses from charging for plastic bags." Keep in mind here it is a private business decision to charge for the bags, the government has no say in it whatsoever. Why these people, who I assume vote Conservative, want the government telling businesses what they can and can't charge for strikes me as ironic. Why do these conservatives hate capitalism?

Ignoring the fact that a plastic bag costs only the smallest denomination of currency in production in Canada today, before we started charging for bags I would go through 3 sets of bags an hour. Now because of people bringing their own bags or opting to carry out small orders without any bags, I go through about 3 sets of bags in a 5 hour shift.
Click to expand...

That's very interesting about the attitudes.

When I worked as a cashier even though the routine was to bag everything, if a customer purchased a single, easy-to-carry item (like a loaf of bread) I would ask if they wanted a bag. The majority of the time they would say no.

Five cents is a tiny amount of money. It's a fraction of the sales tax on a small purchase such as bag of chips. But the ability of that charge to make people change their habits (and to bellyache) is truly remarkable.
 
I can't believe Ford is still going after the 5 cent bag fee again.

Despite the executive committee voting 10-3 to keep the fee on Feb. 13, 2012 he's going to try again? Even if it goes to a vote on council, there's no way council will get rid of it. I would suspect even some of Ford's allies would vote for keeping the fee. Even if for some bizarre reason, council does vote to scrap it, most retailers aren't going to stop charging.

After reading some comments on the Sun, right wing Facebook groups and AM radio fan pages, people seem to think the bag fee falls under one of the following categories:
- socialist-engineered cash grab,
- Miller was behind it so naturally it's bad,
- it hasn't made a difference,
- it has made a difference so we can stop charging,
- go Rob go.

It just begs the the question - why force an issue you know you can't win?
 
Electrify said:
I work as a cashier in Richmond Hill, and the ignorance behind us charging 5 cents for a bag from customers is staggering. Whenever this comes up in the media, I hear customers claiming they cannot wait for "the government to ban businesses from charging for plastic bags." Keep in mind here it is a private business decision to charge for the bags, the government has no say in it whatsoever. Why these people, who I assume vote Conservative, want the government telling businesses what they can and can't charge for strikes me as ironic. Why do these conservatives hate capitalism?
Click to expand...

The complaint I hear it that the government is forcing retailers to charge the fee. Before, some stores charged a fee and others did not. If the (city) government is forcing a fee to be charged, they should collect a portion of the money, since they are already interfering with the capitalistic system.
 
My understanding was that it would cost as much or more to administer the collection of the funds than it was worth so they just let the companies keep it. I wonder how many will be open to the donation proposal that has just come out.
 
nfitz said:
Ford made his weight an issue, the media is supposed to ignore it?
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Get your facts straight. NOW magazine and others were making Ford's weight a major issue (naked picture of him on the cover) long before he did the weigh in thing. Ford didn't make it an issue other people did.
 
hawc said:
Get your facts straight. NOW magazine and others were making Ford's weight a major issue (naked picture of him on the cover) long before he did the weigh in thing. Ford didn't make it an issue other people did.
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Get your facts straight. Ford was talking about his weight to the media, before he was elected, during the campaign. Other people didn't make it an issue, Ford did.
 
Can't wait for Ford to get rid of another nussiance fee that Miller put in (the 5 cent bag fee.) So good to see him undoing all the mistakes Miller made.

I know people on here love paying as many user fees, taxes, levies, tolls as possible but the rest of Toronto (the majority of Toronto) will be glad when it's gone.

And it's not a lost revenue stream because the money never came into the city.
 
nfitz said:
Get your facts straight. Ford was talking about his weight to the media, before he was elected, during the campaign. Other people didn't make it an issue, Ford did.
Click to expand...

Wrong again, but anyway, so you're defending people that make fun of people based solely on their looks?
 
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