Tax car travel? Vacant homes? Paved parking lots? Montreal is considering new solutions to finance its next budget, according to a document made public on Wednesday.
The City discusses eco-fiscal and social taxation measures, in addition to exploring the possibility of reducing the frequency of garbage collection or snow loading. It must close the 200 million gap currently envisaged between expenditure and revenue forecast for 2024.
These ideas are submitted to civil society for a consultation which will open at the end of the month. “The objective is to find structuring and lasting solutions that will allow the metropolis to adequately finance its activities and better meet the needs of the population”, indicates the president of the executive committee of Valérie Plante, Dominique Ollivier, in the introduction.
Some scenarios the administration wants to hear from citizens:
The terms of these scenarios are not fixed and are also part of the consultation. It is not known whether a possible mileage tax would apply to all vehicles or whether a possible tax on impermeable surfaces would only affect large parking lots, for example.
On Wednesday, the Plante administration declined to comment further on the content of its consultation document.
Experts say Montreal is far from the only local government to turn to eco-taxation – taxing harmful behavior in an effort to discourage it – to kill two birds with one stone: protect the environment and bail out the chests.
“It’s really in tune with the times,” explained Justin Leroux, professor of economics at HEC Montreal.
In addition to environmental goals (hence the “eco” in the name), the concept can also be applied to taxes that discourage other behaviors, such as keeping a home vacant, Leroux explained. “It’s really the idea of modifying a behavior through a price signal,” he said.
Jean-Philippe Meloche, professor specializing in urban economics at the University of Montreal, believes that Quebec is “socially behind” other societies in terms of eco-taxation: “We have a carbon tax, but it is very weak. We have a fuel tax, but it is very low. We have a very watered-down application of eco-taxation. »
In his opinion, however, it is not local governments such as municipalities that should be held accountable. Several of these measures – notably a kilometer tax – can hardly be applied on a small scale.
In addition to considering the introduction of new tax grabs, the administration’s pre-budget consultation document also mentions a possible reduction in spending by the City of Montreal.
“Are there any activities where the City should or could review the level of certain services? asks Montreal in the document.
“It would be a question of the frequency [of garbage removal], for example weekly or every two weeks, the document continues. In addition, today snow loading operations are carried out from 8 to 10 cm of snowfall. It would be good to ask whether these standards could be reviewed to generate savings without reducing the quality of services. »
The possibility of transferring certain responsibilities to the demerged cities or outright asking other levels of government to assume certain services will also have to be part of the reflection.