The Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, is banking on more transparency to reduce price differences at the pump across Quebec, but at the same time considers that the gas tax is not high enough.
The CAQ elected official made this astonishing statement Thursday, at the very end of a press briefing on the profit margins of gasoline distributors in certain regions of Quebec. “Lower fuel taxes? I think we should show them if we do something,” he told the parliamentary press, before leaving the room where the press briefing was held.
This speech breaks with the historic position of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, which has always refused to impose tax increases on taxpayers. Contacted for details on Thursday, Mr. Fitzgibbon’s office did not respond to our questions. However, a few minutes later, the minister went to the social network “X” to dot the “i”: “The government has no intention of increasing the tax on gasoline”, he wrote.
At the CAQ, tax increases are far from being a habit. The Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, has for example already described the addition of taxes – “ penalty » — on polluting vehicles as a “false good idea”.
“We don’t want to increase the consumer’s bill even further,” he said during the 2022 election campaign, commenting on the tax proposals on the purchase of a gasoline vehicle from Québec solidaire. “The great danger is to create an aversion to mobilization. We must mobilize the population and not turn them against us. »
During a leaders’ debate, Mr. Legault, since returned to power, also accused the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, of wanting to add taxes on gasoline. “How much are you talking about?” Thirty cents a liter, a dollar a liter? » he asked. “It comes out of nowhere,” replied the PQ leader, who was in fact proposing a tax on the “excess profits” of oil companies.
The gasoline tax currently stands at approximately $0.19 per liter. Last year, the same Pierre Fitzgibbon suggested that the gasoline vehicle fleet would need to be reduced by at least a third by 2050 for Quebec to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets. “Pierre, he read a lot of reports on environmentalists this summer,” Prime Minister Legault joked, before adding: “we still have to be realistic. »
No more, the floor price
Pierre Fitzgibbon released a report on Thursday on the gasoline retail market in Quebec.
In this document, commissioned last year, Robert Clark, professor of economics at Queen’s University, recommends eliminating the floor price on gasoline, in order to reduce costs at the pump for motorists. He also suggests that the government demonstrate more transparency on the price of gasoline by making “higher frequency price data available to consumers.”
These two recommendations will be followed by the Legault government. Mr. Fitzgibbon intends to take advantage of the tabling of his energy bill, between now and the end of the parliamentary session, to abolish the floor price on gasoline, which has not had the expected effects — to avoid consolidation big players in the industry — according to him.
The establishment of a “transparency regime” will allow consumers to “go where it is cheaper,” added Mr. Fitzgibbon, who hopes at the same time to reduce the price gap between the regions of the Capital. -National and Chaudière-Appalaches and the rest of Quebec. “It’s the best we can do for now,” he said.