File this one under "C" for crazy.
The price of milk went up at the beginning of this month. Some stores are charging as much as 50 cents more for a two-litre carton.
Dairy farmers are getting an extra nickel per litre, as are processors. Not an unreasonable jump, given the ever-rising cost of everything.
So here's the crazy part. What if we started putting a tax on pop, and shifting that money directly to offset the cost of milk?
Governments know full well that a tax can influence how consumers behave. Remember the federal home renovation tax credit from a few years ago? People were running to home improvement stores to buy up Gyprock and insulation before the deadline.
With that tax break, consumers had to spend thousands of dollars to get a few hundred back. It benefited a very narrow group of retailers and skilled trades, as well as those who had enough money to spend on home renovations.
That's not to say it wasn't a good idea, but it certainly didn't help the average young family with small children. A pop tax, by comparison, would help just about anyone except the lactose intolerant.
Nobody needs pop. It is a luxury item. It's meant to be a treat. Milk on the other hand, is or should be a staple in any home with children.
Now the moment anyone mentions the "T" word – which really should be a four-letter word, not three – people get up in arms. So to combat that, we'll call it a "health deposit."
For the sake of argument, lets put the "deposit" at $1 per litre of pop, or 50 cents on any bottle or can under one litre. So that two-litre bottle of Pepsi you bought on sale for $1.49 last week would now be $3.49. Your two-litre carton of milk just dropped from $4.15 to $2.15.
Now the moment anyone mentions the "T" word – which really should be a four-letter word, not three – people get up in arms. So to combat that, we'll call it a "health deposit." For the sake of argument, lets put the "deposit" at $1 per litre of pop, or 50 cents on any bottle or can under one litre. So that two-litre bottle of Pepsi you bought on sale for $1.49 last week would now be $3.49. Your two-litre carton of milk just dropped from $4.15 to $2.15. -
This could all be managed at the store level. No need to create a bureaucracy with more and more employees to make sure the money is distributed properly. Cash registers can be programmed to calculate recycling deposits, so surely they could be programmed to calculate health deposits.
There are those who claim drinking milk causes its own health problems. They are on the fringes of health science, and they'd be hard pressed to argue that milk is worse than pop.
Sure there's fat in milk, but there's also nutrients. The human body needs some fat. You can't say the same for high-fructose corn syrup. At least if a 12-year-old reaches for the chocolate milk instead of the coke, he or she is getting some nutrients to go with those calories.
Naysayers would call this is crazy. They'd argue it just won't work. Is it any crazier than Prince Edward Island's ban on plastic pop bottles? Is it crazier than home heating rebates? Is it any crazier than building a giant dam in the Labrador wilderness on credit?
The only problem might be if it worked too well, and sales of milk outpaced sales of pop, which would lead to a deficit. Then again, I'm sure lots of provinces and states would love to have the problem of citizens buying too much of a good thing while ignoring the sugar water. Given the health savings, milk might be worth subsidizing.
Or you know, we could build that giant dam. Using proceeds from junk food to subsidize health food? That's just crazy.
Brodie Thomas
Brodie Thomas is editor of The Gulf News in Port aux Basques
