The Alberta Policy Coalition for Chronic Disease Prevention deserves credit for wanting to find ways to help improve the health of Albertans.

However, their recent idea, to create a tax on “sugary drinks,” is one that has already been sent to the recycling bin in other jurisdictions as it simply doesn’t work. The Alberta government, and the Coalition, would be wise to discard the idea and instead look at successful tools that have improved health outcomes.

Consider that Denmark introduced a “fat tax” on fatty foods back in 2011. Yet, after a year of penalizing virtually all consumers (including those without ‘extra’ pounds), the Danish government concluded the tax was not only despised by the public, it simply led to more cross border shopping. Thus, the country scrapped the tax a year after it was implemented.

In Manitoba, the provincial government studied the idea of taxing “junk food” for years, but it too decided to take a pass. As the province’s NDP government adores high taxes, it must have killed them to conclude junk food taxes don’t make sense.

Confidential Manitoba government documents, obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, included some real gems on junk food taxes. One government policy analyst noted:

“Currently there is only, at best, weak evidence that junk food taxes would be effective in achieving public health goals of influencing food choices. Such taxes would certainly raise revenue.”

Another major concern with “sugary drink” taxes is that they penalize everyone, regardless of their weight. If you eat healthy and exercise regularly, should you be pay an extra tax for having the odd soft drink after your kid’s soccer game? Of course not. But that’s the problem with such blanket forms of taxation – everyone is punished even if they don’t need to be.

Finally, a third significant concern with soda taxes is the complexity. Anyone who has looked at taxation regulations knows that it’s already quite the headache for small grocery stores to keep track of what is and isn’t taxable.

Large grocers may have staff to keep track of complex government regulations, but forcing small store owners (or worse government bureaucrats) to sit down and figure out which drinks are “too sugary” and which ones aren’t is a nightmare waiting to happen.

One thing the Alberta Policy Coalition for Chronic Disease Prevention is right about is the reality that treating obesity-related health problems costs the health care system a fortune each year.

So what can be done about the situation? Well, why not look at incentives for people to live healthier lives?

Writing for the Wall Street Journal in 2009, Steve Burd, the CEO of Safeway, described how the grocery chain modified its health insurance system (in the U.S.) to incentivize healthy behaviour. The firm reduced family health insurance premiums by up to $1,560 if employees didn’t smoke, had healthy weights, and maintained good blood pressure and cholesterol.

After implementing the incentives, Safeway was able to keep health care costs constant while “most American companies’ costs … increased 38% over the same four years.”

Just imagine if the Prentice government could bring such successful policies to Alberta? Now there’s a tasty idea worth further investigation.