Ontario Gas Tax a Rip-off for Rural Residents, says MPP Arnott

With gasoline prices in Waterloo-Wellington hovering around a dollar a litre and consumers fuming, Waterloo-Wellington MPP Ted Arnott is again calling upon the Provincial Government to share a portion of the gas tax with small town and rural Ontario communities.

Ontario residents pay 14.7 cents in gas tax to the Provincial Government for every litre of gasoline they purchase. This adds up quickly - on 50 litres of gasoline, $7.35 is added to the cost for the gas tax.

“In many cases, people don’t realize how much gas tax they are actually paying when they fill up their tanks,” said Mr. Arnott. “A big part of the price of gas is tax, and this is the part that the federal and provincial governments have direct control over.”

Some time ago the Provincial Government announced a plan to share a portion of the gas tax with large municipalities that operate municipal transit systems. Rural Ontario was left out in the cold.

The Federal Government is also committed to sharing its gas tax revenue with municipalities, but has promised to include communities large and small, recognizing the transportation needs of rural municipalities.

“Unfortunately the Liberal Government at Queen’s Park made a conscious, deliberate decision to exclude small town and rural Ontario from this sharing of the gas tax revenue, and focus their attention only on cities,” Mr. Arnott added. “They are ripping off rural Ontario, and it makes the current high gas prices even harder to take.”

Mr. Arnott is attending the Association of Municipalities of Ontario Conference in Toronto on August 15th, to continue to show support for the Municipal Councils in Waterloo-Wellington who have spoken out on the gas tax inequity. “I see this as a simple matter of fairness, and we need to continue to speak up until the Government begins to listen,” Mr. Arnott concluded.