Go Ahead...Make My Day

I think that Mayor Miller has finally found the proverbial straw that will break the camel's back and get him removed from office. What could possibly be this bad that even his left-leaning voters would get rid of him?

Did he get caught misappropriating funds? Well no, although some may argue his budgeting skills would technically qualify.

Was he caught in a sex scandal? Nope, although quite frankly that might at least make him seem human instead of a robotic tax & spending machine.

Was he caught shoplifting? Parking illegally? Scaring small children? Nope.

He is now proposing something so universally horrifying that everyone in the city would be affected. David Miller and his gang of left-wing cohorts (led my Councillor Howard Moscoe) are proposing a ban (or tax) on the ubiquitous paper coffee cup. It matters not if you wear a Jack Layton t-shirt to bed or you're a Bay Street banker, everyone loves their coffee and the vast majority enjoy it in a paper cup.

I realize that we all have the option to bring our own mug to be filled, but it usually ends up being a giant hassle. People forget them at home or work. They forget to wash them. And what do you do with your mug when you're done with it at the Saturday morning kids hockey game? Throw it at the ref?

Miller and company realize that an outright ban is probably not going to fly, so their "deposit" tax is their next best thing. The idea is that people would pay a deposit on these cups (as well as takeout food containers), which would be returned to the retailer when you're done with them. Great idea - we really need huge mountains of used (and smelly) coffee cups gathering in the hopefully sanitary environment of your local Tim's or Starbucks.

And what are the retailers supposed to do with them? Well they should recycle them of course. That would be fine, except that the City of Toronto does not allow these cups in their recycling program. So now what are the retailers to do with them?

The third option is just an outright tax on these cups, which would give the City the money needed to deal with the issue properly. Of course in David Miller's world, that plan would include 15 years of studies culminating with no plan, all the while pissing the new tax money away on foreign junkets.

One option I didn't see proposed would probably make the most sense - start accepting these cups and containers into the recycling program. They can be recycled - they certainly do in other cities. That of course is far too simple - no program that doesn't offer the opportunity for publicity and additional management overhead would ever be approved.

The only good thing that would come out of this entire mess is a certainty that the citizens of Toronto would finally be fed up with our wavy-haired golden boy. So go ahead David...make my day.