Ahh, hogtown, my old stompin' grounds. It was good to be back in what we affectionately (sarcastically?) call "the centre of the universe" this past week. That's right, yours truly was in Toronto for Game 7 and Game 1 of the respective playoff series.

Tuesday night was a lonely night in a downtown Toronto hotel for myself and a few other Ottawans travelling on business; there wasn't much to cheer about given the sound 3-0 trouncing the Leafs handed our hometown heroes. Thursday night, this time in Oakville, I watched in disbelief as the bruised and battered leafs stymied the bigger and well-rested Carolina Hurricanes. Oh well, go Leafs go, I guess.

In my travels in and around the GTA on almost every suburban street corner you will find a guy selling Leafs flags (and car mounted ones) along with world cup soccer flags out of the back of a van. And the other thing throughout the GTA that is constant from Whitby to Burlington is construction and roadside repairs. Toronto is bursting at the seams and roads and transit can't be developed and/or repaired fast enough.

Congestion, gridlock, multiple waits for GoTrains and subways are the norm for life in the big smoke. And this sorry state of affairs is quickly repeating itself in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, Metro Calgary, Montreal (on and off island), Halifax and to a lesser extent, here in Ottawa as well.

By now most Canadians are acutely aware of these problems and have heard about the emerging cities debate being pushed by Canada's big-city mayors, the FCM, TD Bank and others. Amidst this backdrop your not-so-humble scribe went to Toronto City Hall this past Thursday to kick-off the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's (CTF) 4th annual Gas Tax Honesty Day (GTHD) campaign.

And it is no coincidence that GTHD is held annually on the Thursday before the May long weekend, the symbolic start of summer (although you wouldn't know it by today's cold temperatures). Motorists assume gas prices will rise this weekend but in actual fact over the last 25 years, pump prices have gone down as many times as they've risen before the May long weekend.

Big oil is not gouging us … but governments are. Last year Canadian motorists paid an average of 42% in taxes each time they filled up at the pumps. GTHD blows the whistle on this tax grab and serves to remind politicians that gas taxes should be treated as a user fee and pumped back into roadway spending. This is something our cities desperately need.

Last year Ottawa raked in over $4.8 billion in gas and excise tax revenues but only returned a paltry 2.4% or $113 million in the form of transfers for provincial roadway development. Even if all federal infrastructure funding is factored in, Ottawa still returns less than 20% of its yearly tax take from motorists.
In a new report entitled Filling the Infrastructure Gap, the CTF advocates

· Directing $2.2 billion in federal gas taxes to a Municipal Roadway Trust;
· Ending the 1.5 cent/litre gas tax surcharge implemented in 1995 to fight the deficit; and
· Elimination of GST and HST on taxes at gas pumps.

Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman liked what he heard. "This report from the CTF underscores our campaign to find new, sustainable sources of revenue for Canada's major cities. The federal government has taken long enough; its time for them to start giving some back." Couldn't have said it better myself.

The Municipal Roadway Trust program would devote $2.2 billion of gas tax revenues annually for three years (renewable by Parliament) for urban regions to draw upon for roadway expenditures. This would allow municipalities, including Ottawa, to redirect more of their current public works and roads budgets to other priorities such as transit and waterworks initiatives.

Accountability would be maintained with annual reports from municipalities, verifiable by the federal Auditor General with opportunity for provincial piggybacking efforts. This model provides immediate cash for stretched urban regions and maintains federal accountability for spending of federal tax dollars. Annual oversight, and penalties if appropriate, would ensure that city governments would build real infrastructure like roads and bridges instead of bocce ball courts, canoe museums and riverfront fountains.

Ottawa nets 10 cents/litre each time you fill your tank. The Municipal Roadway Trust would chew up about half of this amount. But with Ottawa netting a $9.8 billion surplus - as we found out earlier this week - it's not unrealistic to advocate for the abolition of federal gas taxes in their entirety.

Think about it! In 1995, Paul Martin slapped an extra 1.5 cent/litre tax at the pumps to help fight the deficit. But the deficit was vanquished five years ago. There is no reason for this charge to still exist. And to add insult to injury, Canadians continue to pay tax on tax at the pumps with GST charged on top of everything else. This double-dipping taxation is a blatant cash grab.

Now if Mssrs. Martin and Chretien do the right thing with our Trust model and nuke the 1.5 cent/litre deficit surcharge, Ottawa would still be left with a 3.5 cent/litre take at the pumps. Given that the federal grits are reeling from corruption allegations and rife with internal struggle, now seems to be the appropriate time to add another voice to the cities agenda and lobby for wiping out the remaining federal gas tax. Perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too.