The Quebec Liberal Party opposes the implementation of the kilometer tax

In the Quebec Liberal Party, “the environment always trumps all problems,” interim leader Marc Tanguay assured Wednesday. However, he said he opposes the introduction of a kilometer tax and refuses to envision a Quebec with fewer cars driven.

“The plan should clearly not be taxing,” Mr. Tanguay stressed in an exchange of environmental taxes. “The PLQ plan is, among other things, REM,” he added, referring to the project launched by Philippe Couillard’s Liberal government in 2016.

In front of journalists, he emphasized the importance of developing the public transport offer. “”Tout is in tutt”, as Raoul Duguay said. If you want to reduce the number of vehicles, you have to improve the public transport offer and we don’t have that in Quebec today,” he lamented.

Over the years, the Conseil du patronat du Québec, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and the CAA-Quebec have taken a position in favor of introducing a kilometer tax to replace the others that currently apply to motorists. The metropolitan community of Montreal is studying this avenue, which involves charging motorists according to the number of kilometers they travel.

Consider mileage tax

On Tuesday, in an interview with Radio-Canada, Finance Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced that we “have to think about” the “whole question of mileage taxes.” “M^me Guilbault, the Ministry of Transport should take a stand,” he added.

The next day, his colleague in finance qualified his comments in an interview with 98.5 FM. “Coming with additional taxes, it’s really not the right time,” said Eric Girard. “If there were no registration fees on small cars, there would be more small cars than there are today,” he argued.

Mr. According to Girard, Quebecers must “change their behavior,” and not just electrify their means of transportation. “If everybody who has two cars in their driveway today, five years from now replaces their two gasoline cars with two electric cars and we have the same number of cars on the road, the same traffic jams… It’s not more pleasant, the traffic is more pleasant in an electric car than in a gasoline car. Jam,” he said.

Mark Tanguay doesn’t want to say the same. He also said Mr Fitzgibbon was content to “put both hands in his pocket” and say the car fleet had to be reduced. “You have to be thoughtful, focus on it,” he said. Along with public transport, electric vehicles, in his opinion, are part of the solution and therefore it is necessary to “promote” their purchase, he repeated.

“more combative”

Chief Tanguay also listed his party’s three priorities at the start of the new parliamentary session. The Liberals are concerned with “protecting the purchasing power of Quebecers,” stimulating and “increasing” housing construction and supply. [les travailleurs de] Front line like nurses, teachers and educators”.

“We’re going to wear it in bad weather, it’s the word of Quebecers,” the Liberal leader promised. “You see me more combative than ever,” he said. But for now his party has not revealed any new proposals. He would do it “in due course”, Mr Tanguay promised.

The interim Liberal leader recalled that his party wants to abolish property transfer taxes (commonly known as the “welcome tax”) on first property purchases. PLQ also wants to remove sales tax on “essential products”.

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