(Quebec) The some 500,000 tourists who visit the bucolic Percé year after year will no longer have to pay a tourist fee recently implemented by the Gaspé municipality, if we are to believe a decision by the Superior Court.
Percé merchants opposed to the levy finally won their case. Judge Isabelle Germain has just concluded that the municipality exceeded its powers and contravened the Cities and Towns Act with its by-law imposing a fee of $1 for every $20 spent by visitors.
This case was followed with interest by municipalities across Quebec, which are seeking to increase their revenues thanks to new powers obtained in 2017.
This is the case of Percé, visited by half a million tourists each year, attracted in particular by its famous rock. The village of 3100 inhabitants must maintain a range of infrastructures to accommodate all these people. At City Hall, we are looking for ways to increase revenue.
The municipality therefore decided in September 2021 to set up a tourist fee. The first draft of the rules asked merchants to collect $1 each time a visitor purchased more than $20 from their business.
But there is a catch. According to the court, the law does not allow municipalities to turn merchants into royalty collectors unilaterally. She must have their agreement, which was not the case in Percé.
“If the municipality fails to collect the fee itself, it can enter into an agreement with a third party or the State for the collection of it,” noted Judge Germain.
Percé was made aware of this fact before the trial by a legal opinion from the Union des municipalités du Québec. So city council changed the bylaw in June 2022 to make merchants pay — turn them into debtors — every time a visitor pays more than $20 to their business. The merchant was therefore free to pass on the fee to the tourist, but was not obliged to do so.
This modification did not convince the judge, who considered it “purely cosmetic”.
“The fee is defined in Larousse as a “sum due in return for the use of a public service”. However, it seems clear that it is not the merchants who use the targeted public services, but the visitors, ”we can read in the decision dated June 16.
“It is the presence of many visitors to Percé that creates the need for tourist infrastructure and not the presence of merchants,” added the judge.
The Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ) said Monday that it “will analyze the Superior Court’s decision and its legal implications for municipalities,” but declined to comment further at this time.
Several municipalities are looking for ways to generate more revenue from tourism. The municipality of Îles-de-la-Madeleine is considering, for example, the possibility of imposing a fee of $30 on visitors as of 2024, which would be collected by carriers.
“We did not come to question the royalty regime put in place by Quebec. It is the way Percé uses to collect the royalties that is in question,” said Tommy Gagné-Dubé, assistant professor in the tax department of the University of Sherbrooke, in an interview.
According to him, it would always be possible for a municipality to impose a fee directly on merchants or visitors. But as the court points out, it is illegal to impose a fee on visitors through merchants, without their consent.
Tommy Gagné-Dubé recalls that Quebec only gave towns and villages the right in 2017 to impose a fee. “At the moment the municipalities are doing a lot of trial and error and it’s normal for municipalities to break their teeth,” he said. The municipalities that have read this decision will be able to govern themselves accordingly. »
At the time of publishing this article, Percé had not responded to a request for The Pressit is therefore impossible to know if the municipality plans to appeal the decision.