Canada’s GST will be cut by one more percent on Tuesday, bringing the national sales tax down to 5%. Rather than bringing down the price of its municipal services, though, City Hall will take the opportunity to pocket the difference.
“If the hourly rate for parking meters is $2, the GST reduction would lower the price to $1.97 or $1.98,” a city spokesperson told La Presse. “It would be a problem. We’d have to modify all of our systems and it would cost as much as the GST cut would provide in additional revenues.”
Parking prices and the cost of tickets for municipal attractions like the Biodome and the Botanical Gardens will stay the same, but the city will benefit from an additional $500,000 in revenue, which it plans to invest in cultural organizations.
According to La Presse, the city is still pressing the provincial government to raise the TVQ by a single percentage point in order to raise an additional $1 billion in annual revenue, which would then be distributed to Quebec’s municipalities, including $250 million for Montreal. So far, the Charest government has steadfastly refused such an arrangement.
Photo by Robert Mailloux, La Presse