Éric Duhaime proposes temporarily suspending the gas tax to help the population cope with the increased cost of living. The Conservative leader believes the government is strong enough to deny this source of revenue.
This is not the first time that Mr. Duhaime has put forward this idea. It was already in his election program for 2022 and he occasionally pulls it out of his pocket.
On Wednesday he braved the snowstorm to make this request again to parliamentary press journalists. In his opinion, the context has evolved and his application deserves reconsideration.
“We have just seen that life has been extremely difficult economically for Quebecers. “Now one in ten people goes to a food bank, and it is becoming more and more difficult to make ends meet,” he said, recalling that the price of gasoline affects the price at the grocery store due to the cost of transporting food.
The Conservative leader also highlighted the fact that the NDP government in Manitoba just announced the temporary suspension of the gas tax.
“If a left-wing government is able to do it, I think Mr. Legault would be able to do it,” he quipped.
But when asked how he planned to finance the measure, which Quebec's Conservative Party estimates would cost the state coffers about $800 million for a year, Mr. Duhaime made little progress, contenting himself with saying that the government would have done the means for this and try to draw a parallel to the negotiations in the public sector.
“As for the state employees, it was a few billion that they hid from us […]. So I think we're not talking about an astronomical amount, nor an amount that's not necessarily recurring,” he said.
Mr Duhaime also argued that the petrol tax is “regressive” because it does not affect the wealthier “who buy electric cars”, while less wealthy people and those who live in the regions and have no choice but to have an electric car , petrol cars would be disadvantaged.