Overtaxing Registration: “Dear Mayors, Take Responsibility!” Gayton answers Barrett

Several mayors from the metropolitan area called on the provincial government on Monday to take advantage of a new provision allowing a major additional tax to be levied on the registration of motorists living in Greater Montreal; La Jout was far from a proposition to entertain the panelists on the show.

• Also Read: “We feel completely disconnected”: 82 mayors urge Quebec to adequately finance public transport

The initiative, which could increase registration fees from $60 to $120 or $168 and in some cases to $220, is proposed with the aim of bridging the deficit caused by public transport costs.

“At some point, dear mayors, take responsibility!”, said former health minister Gayton Barrett.

“Would you like to have public transportation? Does the entire population of Quebec need to pay for a bus in Montreal or a tramway in Quebec?” asks the former politician.

Although he recognized that the proposed measures were “probably inadequate,” Mr. Barrett criticized.

“We say: 'You, the government of Quebec, pay us,'” he paraphrases. Not good! At some point, everything has its limits, and dear mayors, if you want to tax the population of your towns, go ahead, be responsible! “

The analyst added that Quebec's population density is not concentrated enough “to have European-style public transportation.”

“In Paris, the population density is 21,000 people per square kilometer, in Montreal it's 3,500 people and in Quebec it's 1,200 people,” Mr. Barrett noted.

something “bad”

Host Paul Larocque opens columnist Matthew Bock-quote on this user-paced concept.

“Development of a metropolis is a nation's responsibility,” said Mr. Although Bock-Côté acknowledges that what “frustrates” him is that the state already injects “significant sums” into joint transport.

“The idea is that in the end, we haven't really looked at where the hidden money is – which is to say in the middle class – and that's where, finally, we can pay for services that we can't afford, which I find to be there. There's something slightly unpleasant about it,” he said.

“Government money – which is nothing but private money confiscated by the state – he continues, is already enough to carry out the projects and those who still believe that we should impose more taxes on registration, licenses and so on, I blame them, like many others, for abuse and bad administration. feeling.”

“Quebecers are already participating in the development”

Columnist and host Yasmin Abdelfadel focuses on an important topic of discussion on two of her colleagues.

“The discussion here is not about developing new public transport routes or improving them,” she interjected. It's about making up for the deficit. “

“The Quebec government and all Quebecers are already involved in the development of public transportation,” she explains. These are deficits caused by the operating decisions of a board of directors who are not accountable to Quebec and it is as if he spent with a credit card and sent a statement in Quebec to tell him: “Pay him with this statement, I decided what my expenses are.”

***Watch the discussion excerpted from La Jout in the main video***