Doug Ford comes out pro-Pepsi and anti–healthy drinks in another acrimonious city hall battle pitting left versus right
Depending on whom you ask, Doug Ford is upset because either the city is force-feeding kids healthy drinks or it’s not force-feeding them enough sugar. Apparently, Ford is angry that regulations, which ban bottled water and require vending machines on city property to be half-stocked with healthy (healthier than pop, at least) options, are costing the city a nice chunk of change.
From the Globe and Mail:
The high-profile councillor and brother of mayor Rob Ford took several minutes of a government management committee meeting on Wednesday to rip council and city staff for health regulations weighing down an exclusive beverage vending contract with Pepsi.
That contract began in 2005 and was expected to bring $850,000 in annual revenues to city coffers – or $2.5-million over the life of the contract. But a new report to the committee shows actual income topped out at $359,000 in the first year and dwindled to $313,000 last year.
City staff blame council’s healthy vending initiative, which requires Pepsi to stock its machines on city property with 50 per cent health drinks, for the huge gap between forecast and reality.
Read on, and the issue starts to feel more and more like a microcosm of municipal politics. In one corner, there’s a lefty in favour of government involvement in things like what children eat and drink. In the other, a small-c conservative who believes any sort of intervention is an unjust burden on the glorious free market. They bicker back and forth about a sum of money that’s rather inconsequential considering the size of Toronto’s budget. Then, somebody gets accused of sole-source contracting, and everyone goes home unhappy.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Star is reporting that some small tweaks could see Toronto raking in $2.5 million from the city’s red light cameras while also making the city’s streets safer. Of course, if anyone finds a way to frame this discussion in terms of left versus right—or suggests that red lights are a tool of the iron-fisted nanny state—we figure any hopes of collecting that additional cash will be quickly squashed.
• Doug Ford rips council for healthy-drinks policy [Globe and Mail]
• Healthy drinks cost city $1M on vending deal [National Post]
• City loses revenue on beverage deal [Toronto Sun]
(Images: Doug Ford, Toronto.ca; Pepsi vending machine, Like_the_Grand_Canyon; juice, Steve Ryan)
 options, are costing the city a nice chunk of change.
From the Globe and Mail:
The high-profile councillor and brother of mayor Rob Ford took several minutes of a government management committee meeting on Wednesday to rip council and city staff for health regulations weighing down an exclusive beverage vending contract with Pepsi.
That contract began in 2005 and was expected to bring $850,000 in annual revenues to city coffers – or $2.5-million over the life of the contract. But a new report to the committee shows actual income topped out at $359,000 in the first year and dwindled to $313,000 last year.
City staff blame council’s healthy vending initiative, which requires Pepsi to stock its machines on city property with 50 per cent health drinks, for the huge gap between forecast and reality.
Read on, and the issue starts to feel more and more like a microcosm of municipal politics. In one corner, there’s a lefty in favour of government involvement in things like what children eat and drink. In the other, a small-c conservative who believes any sort of intervention is an unjust burden on the glorious free market. They bicker back and forth about a sum of money that’s rather inconsequential considering the size of Toronto’s budget. Then, somebody gets accused of sole-source contracting, and everyone goes home unhappy.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Star is reporting that some small tweaks could see Toronto raking in $2.5 million from the city’s red light cameras while also making the city’s streets safer. Of course, if anyone finds a way to frame this discussion in terms of left versus right—or suggests that red lights are a tool of the iron-fisted nanny state—we figure any hopes of collecting that additional cash will be quickly squashed.
• Doug Ford rips council for healthy-drinks policy [Globe and Mail]
• Healthy drinks cost city $1M on vending deal [National Post]
• City loses revenue on beverage deal [Toronto Sun]
(Images: Doug Ford, Toronto.ca; Pepsi vending machine, Like_the_Grand_Canyon; juice, Steve Ryan)){kind=link}
Congratulations Rob Ford for letting us eat and drink whatever we want! As a Large Man, I feel it’s important that my right to gluttony be respected – if I want to purchase a couple of 2 litre bottle of pop to glurge down while I drive vroom vroom down the road in my big truck, then the pencil-necked cyclists who occasionally get a faceful of my Cola-phlegm shouldn’t be allowed to complain. Heck, they shouldn’t be allowed on the road, right Rob Ford?
Red light cameras are dumb, they only punish drivers WHO VOTED FOR ROB FORD!!! So that’s not going to fly!!!
Let’s start ticketing homeless people – that will raise revinue.
Just imagine what the tobacco companies would pay for us to put cigarette vending in schools?
I smell money!
People here do realize that it’s of no use to anybody to have “healthy” drinks if no on is buying them. Also, is it really fair to say Doug Ford is angry because kids aren’t drinking pop? or angry because the city isn’t force-feeding kids orange juice? I didn’t think it was either.
There is clearly no harm in putting soda pop in schools. Pop contains sugar, sugar gives you energy, and energy is needed by high school football players. If the machines are placed outside the rub-and-tug parlors that Dug wants to put in the school counselor offices, and on the side lines of the new high school lingerie football league games, the city could eliminate its deficit and quite possibly eliminate property taxes.
You’ve got a picture of orange juice as the healthy alternative to Pepsi. Pepsi ownes Tropicana..so I guess Doug is right. Take the money and force Pepsi to offer healthy drinks in their machines.
Why not put a variety of choices in the machines and let the people decide? Poor example in the photo as Orange Juice has almost as much sugar as most soft drinks.