The Quebec Urban Transport Association (ATUQ) is demanding $622 million in aid from Quebec for 2025 “in order to preserve the service offering” in public transport. The organization also wishes to sign a five-year agreement by next fall.
This is what the association representing the ten transportation companies in Quebec indicated in a memorandum sent Wednesday to the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard. The latter is currently receiving several reports from various organizations as part of the upcoming pre-budget consultations.
All this comes as new negotiations will soon begin with a view to establishing a “recurring and predictable” funding framework over five years for public transportation, a mandate given by the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault. It is this framework that must be confirmed by this fall, demands the ATUQ.
Discussions for 2024 ended abruptly last December, after weeks of negotiations in the public arena. Government aid for 2024 was 265 million, including 238 million for Greater Montreal.
If this aid did indeed make it possible to “complete the 2024 budgets”, it did not, however, allow any increase in service, denounces the ATUQ. She is concerned that several carriers will have to use non-recurring amounts that should have been allocated for other purposes, in order to balance their finances.
“For 2025, transport companies currently estimate that the shortfall to cover needs and ensure the maintenance of the service offering will amount to 622 million”, maintains the group, recalling that time is running out, its members having the legal obligation to submit their budget for 2025 in October 2024.
A copy and paste?
At present, everything indicates that negotiations between transport companies and the government will once again be tough. “We see the government’s desire to work with us and we are responding,” said the interim president of the ATUQ, Geneviève Héon, in a statement.
However, she affirms that “cities and transport companies must be at the same table to co-construct a shared vision of collective transport […] by prioritizing the user experience and the real needs of citizens.”
In Geneviève Guilbault’s office, we are already warning that the government will have to “be responsible and respect Quebecers’ ability to pay”, which implies that the aid of 622 million will be the subject of a counter-offer.
“We are already working, with transport companies and municipalities, to find sources of optimization to better finance our collective transport,” added the minister’s communications director, Maxime Roy, in reference to the performance audits that will be launched soon Mme Guilbault.
The ATUQ also recommends that Quebec index existing sources of financing, such as the tax on gasoline or that on registration, which was increased throughout Greater Montreal last year. These two taxes have not been indexed since the 1990s, deplores the public transport industry.
Mme Héon also recalled that a good number of transport companies, including the STM in Montreal, hope to obtain the right “to carry out real estate developments as activities related to public transport activities”, which is already being done elsewhere in the world. “Let’s be innovative,” she persisted.
His group finally deplores that the five billion planned by the government for the electrification of bus networks “will be clearly insufficient in current conditions”. “The astronomical increase in costs also places a considerable burden on the debt service of transport companies and therefore on their operating budgets,” noted the organization.