Ontario Truckers Want Metrolinx Taxes to Go to Improve Roads and Bridges

Ontario Truckers Want Metrolinx Taxes to Go to Improve Roads and Bridges

The Ontario Truckers have stated their desire for the Metrolinx proposal to increase taxes on a regional basis throughout the province of Ontario on the existing 'HST tax in concert with the federal government to also go towards road repair and expansion of the existing road network and highway system.




"The trucking industry believes in paying its fair share for the infrastructure it uses. However, Metrolinx is a transit plan; it does not address the equally compelling need to maintain and upgrade the region's or the province's network of roads, highways and bridges," says OTA's president and CEO, David Bradley.


How Metrolinx deals with the issues regarding the truckers is shown in the following points in which the position of the Ontario Truckers in relation to taxes generated from fuel taxes and fees should also be dedicated to provincial construction of new road and highway networks.




"That's where the trucking industry's fuel tax dollars should be going," Bradley says. "Truckers should not be expected to pay for transit. Unlike motorists who have a choice in terms of whether to drive or take transit, truckers have no such choice."


In addition, truckers are already smarting from a 70-per cent increase in commercial plate fees announced by the McGuinty government last year. "No other sector has been subjected to such an increase in user fees," Bradley claims.