Mayor Rob Ford says he didn’t campaign for office on a promise to scrap the 5-cent plastic bag fee but he now wants to get rid of it.

Ford said on his Sunday radio talk show that the tax, introduced in June 2009, by then-mayor David Miller, has served its purpose.

“This bag tax has been around too long,” Ford said on his CFRB radio program which included his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, and featured a special Mother’s Day appearance by their mother, Diane.

Monday, Ford will urge members of the executive committee, which he chairs, to scrap the 2009 bylaw, which has helped curb annual plastic bag use in the city from 457 million bags to 215 million as people switched to reusable bags.

Retailers net about $5.4 million a year from the fee, and Councillor Michelle Berardinetti has been pushing a plan that would see retailers put some of that money into preserving the city’s tree canopy.

In an interview, Berardinetti said replanting trees to replace those lost to the emerald ash borer is projected to cost $10 million a year, money the city doesn’t have.

“At the end of the day, the taxpayers are going to have to pay for that tree canopy one way or another,” she said. “If they want to rescind the fee, the issue is we’re going to have to increase the property tax.”

Only 19 per cent of the city’s land mass is shaded by trees and a coverage of 35 per cent is considered healthy, said Councillor Joe Mihevc.

“We desperately need a funding source to help us replenish our tree canopy,” Mihevc said. “It’s unfortunate the mayor isn’t showing leadership on this.”

While Ford said the plastic bag fee has served its purpose, people still need encouragement to go with reusable bags, Mihevc added.

“The fee helped reduce the amount of bags people use, and people comment to me how it helped change their behaviour, but behaviour needs to be reinforced. It’s very easy to go back to bad habits and you want to reinforce good habits.”

The mayor will run into opposition from councillors, Berardinetti predicted.

“From what I’ve been hearing, most are in support of keeping the bag fee bylaw in place,” she said. “The policy is working; there are fewer plastic bags. I’m not sure why we would rescind something that’s working.”

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