Where Does The $6-7 A Pack Go?
Ontario Looking To Extortion To Stop The Bleeding.
TORONTO — The Ontario government will introduce legislation Wednesday that would allow the province to sue tobacco companies to recover costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses, Attorney General Chris Bentley said.
Mr. Bentley said the legislation, if passed, would allow the province to directly sue tobacco companies for alleged wrongdoing and for the recovery of past, present and continuing tobacco-related damages.
I think someday they’ll prove that…
… smokers cost the health system less over the long run – usually smoking leads to a short, terminal disease. Think of how much Alzheimer patients chew up our health care money. Or those folks living to 100.
Could it be that enough people have decided against paying the exorbitant taxes on smokes? You’d think at $10 a pack there would be a fortune to pay for the health care of smokers.
How much does the tax on cigarettes bring in? Shouldn’t this go directly to health care?
Or are cigarette companies just an easy target for extortion.
Just saying…
photo credit: Thomas Hawk
March 4th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Obama is going down the tax CO2 path to generate bundles of new revenue and Dulton, in his desperation, is going after companies selling a legal product, legalized by Dulton’s government.
The desperation to pay for socialism knows no bounds.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I trust they are also going to sue all the fast food restaurants, the auto manufacturers, and the liquor companies. Here in Alberta you pay an extra fee if you are obese and have an operation. Not so with smokers. You can see the smog hanging over Calgary from auto exhausts, not cigarette smoke. More money is lost to the economy every year by drunk drivers and hung-over folks missing work than there is by smoking related diseases.
However, in Ontario, that bastion of political correctness, one must be seen to attack the target of the most vocal advocacy groups not the one’s who cause the most damage.
I left that provincial hell-hole over thirty years ago and it was the best move I ever made.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Then can we sue them (the govt.) for legalizing tobacco in the first place and accepting all that tax money from it all these years?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Some nanny-state we line in! If these things are so bad, why are they still being sold at Shopper’s? Oh yeah….wait, government addiction to the tax revenue. That way they’ll have the ca$h to send some affirmative action bureaucrat somewhere exotic, & put them up in a 5 Star hotel so that they may find out about the ills of tobacco.
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