The social engineers just never stop – even when the facts, common sense, and past practice all align against their ideas. 

On Wednesday, the Victoria Times Colonist published an op-ed from Tom Warshawski, calling yet again for sugar-sweetened beverages – ostensibly pop, fruit juice, slurpees, maybe even Tim Horton’s double-doubles – to be taxed in a “similar” way to tobacco. Is he really suggesting we add three times the cost to a bottle of grapefruit juice?

To tax Coke like tobacco would drive the price of a 12-pack up from $5 to $18.

Warshawski’s policy “solution” has already proven to be an abject failure in Denmark. The Scandinavian country was the first nation to bring in a food tax, and within a year, it became the first country to repeal a food tax. It was an economic disaster: half of all Danes poured south to shop in cheaper Germany, more than 1,300 Danish jobs were lost, and merchants became snared in red tape.

Jens Klarskov, the CEO of the Danish chamber of commerce, likened food taxes to “shooting rabbits with nuclear weapons.” Complete and utter overkill.

The cross-border shopping boom is especially concerning for a country like Canada, where 75 per cent of us live within 90 minutes of the U.S. border. Want to help boost the American economy? Bring in a Canadian food tax. Already, some Fraser Valley homes receive flyers from U.S. grocery stores – a trend that will become commonplace if food is made even more expensive.

Forget tobacco – the more compelling comparison for a food tax would be the Lower Mainland’s ridiculously high gas tax scheme - some 50 cents per litre. Taxes make up 95 per cent of the price difference between Canadian and American gasoline, and sends Canadians across the border millions of times per year to fill up. A food tax will accelerate that trend and bleed even more money south.

Late last year, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation published a comprehensive report authored by Maclean’s magazine editor-at-large Peter Shawn Taylor examining the scientific research and real-world experience of food taxes and obesity causes.

Not surprisingly, there are many causes for obesity – not just pop. “Obesity is a complex condition with multiple determinants including social, environmental and biological factors,” wrote Taylor. “Taxing particular foods or beverages in order to reduce obesity is a naive solution to a multifaceted problem.”

More than 96 per cent of Canadians face no elevated risk of mortality due to their weight. That means 96 per cent of us would be paying more in food taxes for no reason. Further, there is no consensus among researchers that pop and juice cause obesity: “Numerous peer-reviewed studies in academic journals have found no link between these drinks and obesity,” Taylor wrote.

How does unfairly taxing 96 per cent of Canadians encourage “personal responsibility,” as Warshawski claims?

The solution is simple: let people make their own decisions. Government should be about providing the services that individuals cannot do for themselves – communal resources and infrastructure, not social engineering. We don’t elect people to parent us; we elect them to manage our infrastructure and administer our laws.

The best government is self-government. Let the people manage their own diets.