Media Clipping — Tuesday, April 09, 2002, The Daily News, Halifax

Try taxing what makes us ill

Money from a tax on junk food could go to health care

By David Swick

Nova Scotians, by and large, are lousy eaters. We guzzle pop by the gallon, are the king of donairs. Hundreds of thousands of us eat bad food a lot of the time. And this is a major factor in our health-care crisis.

The provincial government spends a whopping 44 cents of every dollar on health, but even this mammoth amount is not enough. We need more doctors, better facilities, newer equipment. Once someone is sick, health care is expensive.

The Hamm government is prepared to cut anything — even funding to women’s shelters — in order to balance the budget while paying for health care. Their dedication is almost admirable, except that the Conservative solution deals only with the symptoms of our health problem, not its heart.

At the heart of the matter, the best route to low health-care costs is a healthy population. Much of our illness is to a large degree self-inflicted.

Expensive fixes

We eat fat, sugar, and salt in such quantities that they destroy our bodies. Then we go to the medical system for expensive fixes.

Fully 38 per cent of Nova Scotians are overweight — and the number is increasing. These millions of extra pounds increase the likelihood of all kinds of health problems, including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and 30 to 40 per cent of cancers.

We are fatter than the national average, but obesity is a problem throughout the Western world. (One report suggests that there are now as many overweight people in the world as hungry, 1.1 billion.)

We are busy, we are out of the house, and the food industry spends $35 billion a year promoting high-fat, low-fibre, nutrient-poor food. It’s a deadly combination.

This Tory government is fond of user fees, but missed one in its recent budget. It’s time for a user fee on junk food. It’s time to tax Big Macs and french fries and potato chips and soda pop, and use that tax money both to improve the medical system and to promote healthier lifestyles.

The Halifax research group GPI Atlantic two years ago called for a tax on junk food. That call came after the province’s cancer agency asked GPI to determine how much being overweight is costing our province. GPI’s estimate: $260 million — $120 million in health-care costs and $140 million in lost productivity.

Why not have an extra five per cent tax on fast food and junk food? Anyone who can afford a $5 Happy Meal can throw in another 25 cents to pay for their increasingly likely heart surgery.

Yelp like a wounded dog

If a junk-food tax was introduced the industry, of course, would yelp like a wounded dog. It would scream that the tax threatens jobs and the economy and yadda yadda yadda. So far, their fear-mongering has worked in about one out of every three cases.

In the U.S. 17 states have special taxes on soft drinks or snack foods. (California tomorrow begins to debate a tax on soda pop.) Collectively, these taxes raise more than $1 billion a year. The food industry successfully lobbied to repeal similar taxes in seven other states.

A Nova Scotia junk-food tax would mean more money to cure our health crisis. If it prompted us to eat better, too, that would save us in the long run. Both ways, we’d be better off than we are right now.

Copyright © 2002, The Daily News