New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

Fat_Tax

Feature Article December 4

Feature Article May 13, 2004

LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb Home

Contact Us

Fat tax? Fat chance.

The winter's debris that had drifted in along the shore erupted and there was Maizie's snout poking out for some fresh air. I hadn't seen my favourite underwater monster since freeze up and she looked in the best of health.

"Hi Laddie," she hailed while hoisting herself onto the shore. "What's new, your world any saner than when I left you in the fall?"

"Not really, Maizie. A bit wackier if anything, and yours down there?" I answered, pointing towards the middle of Mazinaw Lake.

"Same as ever except less fish around, which meant fewer humans trying to catch them last winter and that was a blessing. What are you guys doing for food if not hunting and fishing? You don't look like you're starving."

"Far from it Old Gal; we are so well fed that Ontario's premier tried to tax meals under $4 and wean us off 'fast food outlets'; a noble attempt to reduce the overall weight of Ontario."

"And how was this healthy fat tax received Laddie?" she asked while trying to pull a bloodsucker off her tummy. "Is everyone happy to better his or her fellow man's health?"

"Not really, Maizie; according to his political critics, the poor, the retired and the kids are being discriminated against. They need their cheap calories; we can forget the fat tax as a constructive move by Grampa Dalt. Too many misinterpreted his sincerity as another tax grab, which he promised not to do. "

Maizie, searching for another bloodsucker, looked preoccupied, then muttered, "It's a noble cause to reduce overweight people to a reasonable size but he is going at it the wrong way. I have a suggestion for him."

"And may I ask what it is?"

"Certainly, Laddie. Let me measure you across the hips. Ah! 13 inches clothed and I expect you weigh about 160 pounds dressed as you are." She had pulled out a yardstick from somewhere before I could object and slapped it across my butt.

" All he has to do is to screen out the fatties but let in the poor, retired and slim kids to enjoy their calorie laden snacks until they join the ranks of the obese, then they will be excluded automatically."

"Excluded, Maizie? How will that be managed? I can't see Grampa Dalt and his uncivil servants standing at the entrance of every fast food joint in the province holding a yardstick; some of those with thin skin but ample underlay may object to him contemplating their rumps."

"Laddie, Laddie, use your head. If the rest of the humans are as unimaginative as you are no wonder the human race is in trouble. Really, I have two suggestions. The first, which I expect the government would prefer as it would be expensive and would line the pockets of his industrial friends, would be to place a weigh scale under each fast food joint doormat. Anyone tipping it at 150 or over gets catapulted automatically back onto the street."

"Not practical, Maizie. Too many would get a sore back and demand disability payments, and your second brainwave to save mankind?"

"Very simple Laddie," she said while edging towards the open lake. "Take a lesson from the Yankees invading your Canadian businesses. Use those cement-filled steel posts that they use to keep trucks from crashing into the box stores; but place them only a foot apart."

"But that would exclude me!"

She dove giggling.
With the participation of the Government of Canada