In Ontario, the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association (TADA) has said it is disappointed with the provincial government’s proposed tax increase to fund public transit expansion.
Premier Kathleen Wynne’s latest transit panel has recommended increasing taxes — specifically on drivers — to fund its $50 billion transit expansion in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. If approved, drivers will soon be paying five cents/litre more in gasoline taxes, for a total amount of 19.7 cents/litre. Drivers may soon pay approximately $800 million in new gasoline taxes, and $80 million more in the HST applied to gasoline.
“The family car is not responsible for the lack of transit expansion in Greater Toronto and Hamilton,” said Frank Notte, Director of Government Relations for TADA. “The Ontario Government should focus on better fiscal management, and stop wasting billions of dollars in order to fund transit expansion — rather than simply calling for an $880 million tax hike.”
Currently, the Ontario Government receives about $10 billion from drivers annually through at least nine different taxes and fees but last year spent only about $2.9 billion on provincial highways. Proposed strategies for funding transit expansion without raising taxes include:
- Allocating some of the $20 billion in revenue the province is forecasting to receive over the next five years, according to page 109 of the 2013 Ontario Budget;
- Implement the recommendations on pages 412 – 417 of the Drummond Report that says Ontario could collect $1 billion — every year — through better coordination and enforcement mechanisms;
- Use some of the approximately $1.5 billion generated per year thanks to the HST being applied to gasoline (which started on July 1, 2010).
“Ontario has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” said Notte. “The lack of transit funding is a direct result of Ontario’s out-of-control spending. Higher gasoline taxes will just give the government more money to waste. Instead, the Government should look at prioritizing their existing $136 billion and growing budget.”
