The ONDP has sent out a release calling Eco Fees a “fiasco”. It isn’t. It’s not perfect and their are some real issues to address, but its a baby step in the right direction towards taxing “bads” instead of income. A while back I differentiated the Green Party of Ontario stance on the HST from the ONDP and the PCs by putting forward the idea that we provide thoughtful opposition, I think this falls into the same category.

It isn’t that the ONDP is against fees being charged to recycle and deal with the effects of hazardous products. Its just that the ONDP thinks that the businesses who create and sell these products should be required to absorb the cost of these fees or to put it another way these business should be prohibited from passing this fee on to their customers.

At first glance this might seem reasonable (who likes paying more?) but taking a deeper look, it really isn’t. The first problem is realistically how do you stop companies from passing the fee on to customers? Either the aerosol can of non-stick spray goes up by a dollar because of the Eco Fee or it goes up by a dollar because of the Eco Fee and they blame the increase on something else.

The only way I see the government of Ontario being able to force companies to eat this fee would be to cap the cost of all products where the fee would apply. This is an unreasonable and outrageous proposition. It is naive of the ONDP to think that this fee would not be passed on to consumers in some way.

My second issue is that by paying the fee we are encouraged to move to more sustainable products. If Ontarians can see the fee we can decided for ourselves whether the product is worth purchasing (with the fee) or if finding a sustainable alternative is a better option.

The Eco Fees program doesn’t “nail consumers” as we can decide how much Eco Fee we want to pay when making purchasing decisions.

I certainly hope that come 2011 the ONDP doesn’t try to paint themselves green.

Tim Hudak called it a sneaky tax grab. He calls everything a tax grab. No one was surprised.

The GPO, the ONDP and the PCs each disagree with the Liberals on a variety of issues, however only the Green Party of Ontario is putting forward real solutions and providing a realistic alternative.