After often coming to the defense of motorists, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is in turn accused of waging war against them by opening the door to tax increases on registration.
Bill 39 on municipal taxation, adopted last week, gives municipalities the power to use registration taxes to finance their public transportation services. “This is completely unacceptable,” proclaims the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime.
The latter equates this potential tax to the taxes that Québec solidaire advocated during the campaign (the “orange taxes”, as François Legault described them), although Éric Duhaime prefers not to describe them as blue taxes, but “powder blue”, to better attribute authorship to the CAQ. François Legault’s party, he says, is “waging war on the car” while the middle class is already caught by the throat by “the rise in the grocery basket, interest rates […]galloping inflation.”
“There are places elsewhere in Canada where even the progressive left considers that the time has come to give motorists a little tax relief,” he added, referring to Manitoba. In this province, the new NDP government, led by Wab Kinew, has committed to lifting the provincial tax on gasoline as of 1er next January.
Decrease spending
Mr. Duhaime met the media on Monday to take stock of the last parliamentary session, in which he was not able to participate directly due to the lack of a deputy elected in the last elections. In his eyes, the issue of registration taxes is another example of the relevance of his party, since the three opposition parties present in Parliament supported it.
The government says it has decided to give cities the possibility of increasing the registration tax to help them finance their transport companies, which are facing huge deficits. Asked what he would advocate instead, Éric Duhaime replied that it was up to transport companies to reduce their expenses.
Especially since public transport ridership has been declining since the pandemic, he stressed. “Transport companies will have to find a way to ensure that there are more people or[elles] reduce [leurs dépenses]. »