Queen’s Park — Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MPP John Yakabuski expressed his frustration that the Liberals and NDP joined forces to defeat his private members’ bill, titled Gasoline Tax Fairness for All Act, 2014.
If passed, the Bill would have distributed gas tax revenue to all 444 Ontario municipalities. Currently, gas tax revenue from the province is only distributed to municipalities with public transportation systems, even though everybody pays for it.
“This is just another example of the Liberal and NDP parties working together to deny rural Ontarians the rebate money and infrastructure opportunities they so desperately need,” MPP Yakabuski said. “By voting to maintain the current approach to the gasoline tax, they’ve renewed their commitment to punishing the province’s rural communities.
“I was not going to re-introduce this bill, but had to once the Liberals opted again not to address this wrong with their 2015 budget. Rural municipalities continue to be treated unfairly by the province’s gas tax rebate system” said the MPP.
In contrast, the federal government understands this fundamental tenet of fairness and in turn allocates its gas tax rebate to all municipalities in Ontario for the purpose of maintaining local infrastructure.
“The provincial government needs to adopt the federal gas tax rebate system and finally show some respect for the rural communities,” MPP Yakabuski stated. “Instead, they are ignoring rural people and continue to make life harder for them with their new carbon tax on everything that will take even more money out of their pockets.”
Included in the Gasoline Tax Fairness for All Act was a mechanism to provide stable, predictable funding. By voting against the Gasoline Tax Fairness for All Act the Liberal and NDP parties have denied rural Ontarian’s a plan to bring fundamental fairness to how the provincial government distributes the gasoline tax.
“Only the Ontario PC Party stands up for taxpayers-no matter where they live in this province,” concluded MPP Yakabuski.
