Despite growing protests from opposition MPs and industry groups, the Ontario government has said it won’t reduce the controversial Drive Clean testing fees until April 2014. Drive Clean, which was first introduced by the province in 1999, was designed to reduce vehicle emissions and become a revenue neutral program over the course of its lifetime.
However, the Ontario Auditor General reported that Drive Clean achieved revenue neutrality during 2010-11, yet motorists and businesses in the province, including car dealers continue to pay a $35 fee for vehicle emissions testing.
According to page 128 of the 2012 Auditor General’s Annual Report “test revenues collected by the Drive Clean program are considered a user fee, not a tax. However, according to a 1998 Supreme Court of Canada decision, user fees must have a reasonable relationship to the cost of the services provided. In other words, a user fee cannot exceed the cost to the government of providing the service. Otherwise, a court could determine that the amount of the excess fee is really an unlawful tax and therefore repayable.”
Frank Notte, Director of Government Relations for the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association (TADA), which represents more than 1,000 new car dealers in Ontario, said “the [Ontario] Government owes drivers an immediate reduction in Drive Clean fees. Drivers have over-paid for emissions testing since 2011, and should not be forced to pay one cent more towards a program that was never intended to generate a profit.”
