A man walked into a Jasper Town Council meeting and dumped a grocery bag full of garbage on the table in front of Mayor Richard Ireland.

This was the scene at the March 16 session of Jasper Town Council where local gardener and recycler Charlie Finley gave a gloomy and dour presentation about the state of garbage and pollution in Jasper. In response to Finley’s assessment of the litter-bug problem, the mayor stated that he supported the idea of a consumption tax in Jasper.

Although details about the tax have not been worked out and it may never come to pass, the potential new tax would essentially place a surcharge on every food and beverage product purchased in Jasper. The price of food and drinks would rise and the money collected would likely go into a fund where it would pay for clean-up efforts in town.

Mayor Ireland said he supports the tax because it goes to the source of the problem: the polluter pays for their crime before they have even committed it.
“This is a tax at the source. It’s getting directly at the people who cause a lot of the waste,” said Mayor Ireland.

The mayor said he primarily supports the idea due to Jasper’s heavy drawing of tourists around the year.

“We really are under a different set of circumstances here,” said the mayor.

He explained the 25,000 people who visit the town over the course of a typical summer or winter weekend don’t have to pay taxes for things like garbage collection and beautification because they don’t live here. The 5,000 or so people here who do pay property taxes are essentially left holding the bag for those polluters.

Finley also made this point about fairness during his presentation, where he consistently mentioned that “nothing leaves my yard.” He said it wasn’t fair to expect him to have to pay for cleaning up Jasper when he simply wasn’t as dirty as a lot of other people around town.

“I really don’t see education getting to the point where it really does anything,” said Finley of efforts to educate polluters about their harmful consequences.

“It’s awfully difficult to come up with alternatives to a plan like this,” said the mayor of the consumption tax.

To implement the change, a major revision of the Municipal Governance Act of Alberta would be required. The act states that municipalities can only raise tax revenue through property taxes. For a tax at the till, some major dealmaking with the provincial government would be required.

Mayor Ireland said that the Town of Jasper has been in talks with the province about bringing about the tax for several years now.

“It’s going nowhere without any speed,” said the mayor.

Still, according to Finley, Jasper is in need of a solution fast.

“I’m picking up 30 cans every Sunday on that ski hill... It’s all over the place right now and it’s disgusting,” said Finley. “It’s a state of super consumption and then just throw it away.”

Ken Quakenbush, director of environmental services for the Municipality of Jasper, said that the town spends somewhere around $50,000 per year on general litter clean-up around Jasper. That includes employing a summer-time street-sweeping/litter collecting one-man operation; the costs of picking up furniture and other residential items in the spring and fall; and the costs of paying employees salaries when they go out on highway and park cleanup duties on Stewardship Day. The number is likely much larger though as the town employs groundskeeper workers who do some litter collection, among many other duties.

The town’s entire solid waste budget is $650,000 ever year, while the recycling budget is $100,000.