TORONTO – Toronto has become the first major Canadian city to do away with single-use plastic shopping bags.
City council passed a motion to scrap the five-cent tax on each bag — a move supported by Mayor Rob Ford.
Moments later, council went further by voting 24-to-20 to ban the bags altogether starting next January 1st on the grounds they’re bad for the environment.
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Mayor Ford spoke out against the ban, saying plastic bags are useful for a number of things.
“It’s just ludicrous,” Ford told radio station AM 640 on Thursday. “It’s the dumbest thing that council’s done, and council’s done some dumb things, let me tell you.”
They mayor then directed his frustration to voters, saying they need to get in councillors’ faces to stop things like this from happening.
“It’s the people’s fault,” Ford said.
“Sometimes I get so frustrated because the people are just sitting back listening but they don’t pick up the phone, don’t go down to city hall, they don’t ask questions,” He said.
“I want people to get engaged in municipal politics and find out who their councillor is and know how they vote.”
Ford said it would be difficult to rescind the motion, explaining that it would require someone who voted against the measure to get 30 votes out of a 45-member council to reopen the issue.
He said it would require people taking action for it to happen.
“If there was a couple of hundred thousand people down at Nathan Phillips Square today (saying) they want plastic bags back, yes, then the councillors would listen.”
Five years ago, Leaf Rapids, Manitoba became the first Canadian community to ban single-use plastic shopping bags.
Last month, Los Angeles became the biggest American city to pass such a ban.
LA’s ban will be phased in over 12-months.
After that, LA retailers will charge shoppers 10-cents per paper bag.
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