Ontarians can’t afford to see gas taxes surge in the new year, so taxpayers must make that clear to provincial politicians well in advance of the currently scheduled tax hike. Pictured: Premier Doug Ford. Photo Credit: Doug Ford/X.
Premier Doug Ford’s gas tax cut saved Ontario families hundreds of dollars over the past two years.
But that tax cut will disappear by Christmas if Ford doesn’t act.
Yes, Ford has extended the gas tax cut before. Still, taxpayers can’t get complacent.
It’s time for Ontarians to push Ford to make his 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut permanent.
In fact, all Ontario politicians need to get on board with locking in the gas tax cut.
Why?
Ontario families are seeing their budgets stretched to the max. And the gas tax cut has delivered meaningful savings.
A family that fills up a minivan and a sedan once a week saved $884 over the past two years. That’s enough to pay for more than three weeks’ worth of groceries for a family of four.
Saving families from high prices at the pumps shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But Ontario’s official Opposition came out against Ford’s proposal when he rolled it out ahead of the 2022 provincial election.
Then-NDP leader Andrea Horwath promised to cancel Ford’s gas tax cut on day one. And her finance critic, MPP Catherine Fife, called Ford’s gas tax cut a “gimmick.”
Ontarians didn’t buy the NDP’s spin that higher taxes are a good thing.
Ford’s gas tax cut proved to be popular with voters. That promise helped him win in 2022.
In fact, that single policy move has been so popular with Ontarians that Ford extended it not once, not twice, but three times.
Originally, Ford pledged to cut the gas tax for six months, starting July, 2022. As of today, the gas tax cut will remain in place until the end of 2024.
Most of us don’t want to sit around in August and think about Christmas being right around the corner. But governments move notoriously slow.
Ontarians can’t afford to see gas taxes surge in the new year, so taxpayers must make that clear to provincial politicians well in advance of the currently scheduled tax hike.
Ford has extended his gas tax cut three times. But there’s no guarantee a fourth extension is on the way.
Make no mistake: Ford deserves tremendous credit for saving Ontario families hundreds of dollars over the past two years.
Still, Ontarians deserve certainty these savings are here to stay.
Ford’s critics would be wise to flip the script. To steal the government’s thunder, one of Ontario’s opposition leaders should commit to making Ford’s gas tax cut permanent.
Ontarians punished Ford’s opponents when they promised to scrap his “gimmick” tax cut two years ago. Ford’s critics shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
In Manitoba, voters recently elected an NDP government in a landslide and temporarily suspending the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax was at the heart of its election platform.
Ontario’s opposition leaders would be wise to take a page out of Premier Wab Kinew’s playbook by supporting lower taxes.
The gas tax cut in Ontario has been tremendously popular. Last fall, 75 per cent of Ontarians wanted Ford to extend it. It’s hard to get 75 per cent of Ontarians to agree on anything, let alone a tax cut that once garnered considerable opposition.
Soon after that poll was released, Ford gave Ontarians what they wanted and delivered on the extension.
Why wouldn’t an opposition leader want to come out ahead of the curve and promise to entrench such a popular policy ahead of this year’s deadline?
So far, we’ve heard crickets out of Queen’s Park, both from the opposition and the government benches, on the future of the gas tax cut.
But one thing is clear: Ontarians want the gas tax cut to be here to stay.
One of Ontario’s opposition leaders should seize the moment and promise to deliver exactly that.
Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He previously served as a policy fellow at the Munk School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
