Rumours broke last week that Toronto mayor Rob Ford was considering a return to the city’s controversial vehicle registration tax. The removal of the VHR was a key point on Ford’s campaign platform when he ran for office in 2010, and removing it ($60 per car per year at the time it was scrapped) was one of his first moves after replacing former mayor David Miller, who had instituted the VHR in 2007.
Last week, Ford suggested not only bringing back the VHR to subsidize the cost of extending the Sheppard subway line, but increasing it to $80 or $100. The change of tune shocked even Ford’s supporters. Now, the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association has issued a press release urging Toronto City Council to reconsider.
The press release reads: “Drivers in Toronto and across Ontario not only pay to purchase and operate their own vehicles, but already subsidize public transit by way of gas taxes.”
Ontario’s Gas Tax Program shares two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenues with the province’s municipalities to help fund public transit. Since 2004, $1.9 billion in gas taxes have been transferred from the Ontario government to help fund municipal transit. Toronto specifically has received $1 billion of that revenue.
“A new tax on cars is nothing but a tax grab,” writes Frank Notte, director of government relations at TADA. “Public transit has a role to play to help move people across the GTA — but it should not come at the expense of hiking taxes on families for simply owning a car.”
Luckily for the city’s drivers, not two days after Ford put the vehicle registration tax back on the table, he swiped it right back off, declaring that “there will not be any new taxes administered by my administration. The last thing I would ever do is bring back a car registration tax.”
