The Bard once wrote the immortal words, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," spoken by one of his best-loved characters, the beautiful but doomed Juliet.
An updated and somewhat less poetic version begins, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . ."

Calling a tax a fee does not fool anyone. Look no further than the recently implemented eco-fees for an example. The eco-fees look like a tax, no matter what Stewardship Ontario is calling them.

The eco-fee is a surcharge on products as a result of the Waste Diversion Act brought in by the Conservative government several years ago. The purpose is to help fund waste diversion programs. In essence, people pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the eventual disposal of toxic items.

An eco-fee was attached to a few products, like paint, in 2008. But on Canada Day 2010, the same day the HST was implemented, eco-fees came into effect on several more products with little warning. Perhaps the timing was a coincidence. However, many are reading the situation as an attempt to sneak in a "cash-grab" while everyone's attention was diverted.

Implementation of the HST was done in an open manner. Considerable effort, not to mention expense, went into explaining how the new tax would work, who would benefit, and how the government intended to soften the blow for those who would be negatively affected.

At the same time, Stewardship Ontario, an industry-funded (change that to consumer-funded) but government-controlled (one might change that to out-of-control) agency, brought in its new round of eco-fees. Few of us even knew about them until we noticed an extra amount tacked onto the bill for those environmentally friendly light bulbs the government has been pushing at us, for example, or a cleaning product, or even some dirt from the garden centre.

Perhaps the Stewardship Ontario people figured the public wouldn’t notice a few cents here and a couple of dollars there. Wrong. We noticed.

Perhaps they assumed the "eco" in the new fee name would do the trick of having us accept them as good.

Then again, it may just have been a failure to properly communicate the implementation of the new fees.

What it looks like, though, is someone figured that with all eyes on the HST, no one, including opposition parties, lobby groups and media, would be prepared to launch an effective protest against eco-fees.

There may have been no organized opposition on July 1 when the new round of eco-fees was launched, but the protest is growing by the day and getting louder. It may be only a few cents here and a couple of dollars there, and the purpose may be to fund all kinds of wonderful recycling programs, but consumers do not like being left out of the loop.

In the eyes of the general public, eco-fees are taking on a distinct aroma reminiscent of e-Health.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a sneakily-imposed tax disguised as a fee just plain smells.

— from the Wingham Advance-Times