François Legault has just lost one of his most effective responses against Québec solidaire: “orange taxes”.
• Read also: A CAQ law will allow cities to impose an “orange tax”
• Read also: “Orange taxes”: opposition parties denounce the “hypocrisy” of the CAQ
Worn orange
The metaphor was starting to get a little worn out, it must be said, from being used in all sorts of ways. Just last Thursday, facing Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, leader Legault praised his anti-inflation gestures – his famous “checks”. He couldn’t help but bring out his “line”, but laboriously: “The aid that was given in the portfolio was not orange taxes, it was aid with money, real money!”
We can bet that he will now be somewhat reluctant to take his tape back. His government has just granted cities, in Bill 39 on municipal taxation, the right to impose an additional tax on registration in order to finance public transport. The tax could even vary depending on the engine capacity, precisely what QS proposed in 2022.
At the time, the leaders of the CAQ did not have harsh enough words to condemn the idea. Minister of Transport, François Bonnardel denounced it as an odious way of increasing the burden on “suburban motorists”.
Faintness
These same motorists, already furious with the CAQ (and despite certain treats: reduction in the cost of a driving license, for example), are increasing their anger. The Corporation of Quebec Automobile Dealers instantly expressed “its dismay” in a press release: “He should have the courage to recognize that the orange taxes of Québec solidaire rather inspired him.”
- Listen to the latest Lavoie-Robitaille meeting with Guillaume Lavoie, public policy expert, and Antoine Robitaille via QUB radio :
Ministers Andrée Laforest (Municipalities) and Geneviève Guilbault (Transport) poorly hid their unease Friday morning: “It’s up to the cities to decide”; it’s “just the cities that have public transportation”; it’s not like those who want to “systematically tax SUVs and pickup trucks”.
Consistent
In rhetoric, certainly, the CAQ does not seem coherent, but on other levels, it is. In its “Sustainable Mobility Policy 2030”, launched in 2018, it set a target of “reducing by 20% the share of trips made by solo car on a national scale”.
However, according to the 2022-2023 Summary Report, solo driving increased between 2017 and 2021, going from 69% to 74%. Tanks are popular. There is undoubtedly a pandemic effect here, but precisely, if we really want to move towards “sustainable mobility”, we must revive public transport. To do this, there is no choice to invest.
In the same Report (submitted in March 2023), the government boasts: it will diversify the transport offer thanks to major projects such as “the REM, the blue line and the Quebec tramway” (yes yes!). This will generate “savings for individuals and for the State”.
The CAQ wants to please everyone. She sets beautiful goals for herself, does not really take the means to achieve them, tries to encourage others (here the cities) to act so that they become odious. To sum it up in the words of a well-informed source: “Thus, they arouse discontent, but do not reap the fruit of their decisions.”