Mr. Speaker, Canadian consumers have heard reports that they may be paying 80 cents per litre for gas by Christmas because of rising oil prices. Something has been overlooked in the whole equation, the fact that roughly half the cost of a litre of gas is made up of taxes.
On August 26 my Calgary caucus colleagues and I handed out Ottawa gas tax bucks to Calgary residents filling their tanks. They were surprised to find that Ottawa takes $300 million in gasoline taxes from Calgarians and nothing comes back to Calgary to help with its transportation challenges.
From municipalities across the nation Ottawa takes in $4 billion a year in fuel taxes but less than six cents on the dollar go to highway renewal. The rest goes to more big government.
Municipalities like Calgary send billions in tax dollars to Ottawa and never see them again while they are forced to raise property taxes to pay the bills for maintenance of communities where overtaxed Canadians live. Calgarians want—