Bloody Taxes

Today on The Social, a buzz-worthy topic hit close to home- in Canada we are taxed on the use of feminine products. Much like the sentiments of one of the hosts I, too, was not aware that we were being taxed on this. Notably, there are different levels of taxation from necessity to luxury items. Can anyone explain to me how feminine products are considered a luxury item? What is the alternative, less luxurious option here?

A luxury item, to me, is something where if a basic, generic version that typically does the job fine is available but a better quality version exists, then the definition of luxury would be exemplified in the better, branded, more expensive version. For example, cars: there are the Ford Focuses of the world and then there are the Bentleys of the world. The luxury item here is, of course, the high-end Bentley (a car itself, for that matter, is technically a luxury item in a day and age when public transportation is quite accessible and probably more affordable to use than personal vehicles). To the best of my knowledge, no woman enjoys paying an arm and a leg for an item as necessary as the toilet paper where there are no other basic versions of this type of product to choose from, unless by basic they mean dating back to the era of stuffing your underwear with free toilet paper.