In recent months, calls for federal funds to pay for municipal infrastructure projects have begun to capture public attention. Road-rot and water-main breaks are the latest symptoms of the general malaise that has crept into municipal infrastructure works.

But among the reports and commentaries calling for new taxing powers for municipalities, federal gasoline taxes should be targeted first.

Gasoline taxes are a user fee to be earmarked primarily for roadway and highway renewal. The province generally understands the idea but Ottawa is still not clear on the user fee concept.

The vast majority of federal gasoline tax revenues are not channeled back into road and highway improvements. Of the $4.8 billion collected in federal gasoline taxes last year, Ottawa returned a paltry 2.4% or $113 million back in provincial transfers for road and highway development, of which 99 percent was spent east of Ontario.

Gasoline taxes in Canada are tantamount to highway robbery.

In the last calendar year, gasoline taxes accounted for an average of 42 percent of the pump price paid by Canadian motorists.

Over-taxation in the form of a 10 cent per litre federal gas taxes helps explain the source of Ottawa's multi-billion dollar surplus.

Meanwhile, roads and highways are getting ripped to shreds by unrepaired wear and tear.

TD Economics and the Association of Consulting Engineers both estimate Canada's roads and highways deficit to be $17 billion. This deficit should be met using gasoline taxes - a user fee on motorists.

Since January 2002, Canadian municipalities, led by the big city mayors (C5) have asked federal and provincial government for more cash to help fund upgrades to crumbling municipal infrastructure.

Cities, they say, are the primary engines of economic growth. Without improvements to core infrastructure, they will not realize their full economic potential.

True, but the same can be said for every municipality. Drivable roads are as important in rural Manitoba as they are in Winnipeg for the sake of productivity and safety.

To that end, the Canadian taxpayers Federation launched its 4th annual Gas Tax Honesty Day (GTHD) - a public awareness campaign to cut gas taxes and fix roads.

With the release of a new report called, Filling the Infrastructure Gap (www.taxpayer.com), the CTF recommends that Ottawa put federal fuel taxes back in the service of municipal roads. Quite simply, use it or lose it.

The federal government should develop a Municipal Roadway Trust program that would dedicate $2.2 billion or 50 percent of federal gasoline tax revenues to municipalities to draw upon for roadway development.

Accountability would be maintained with annual reports from municipalities, verifiable by the federal Auditor General.

The model provides immediate cash for stretched urban regions and provides federal accountability for spending of federal tax dollars.

The federal government should also:

• reduce gasoline tax rates to levels commensurate with road and highway funding;
  
• eliminate the 1.5 cent/litre gasoline tax introduced in 1995 as a deficit fighting measure; and,
  
• eliminate the GST charges on the tax component of the pump price.

The need for more roadway funding is clear. It is not a question of creating new taxes, but one of fairly distributing the taxes that already exist. The Municipal Roadway Trust would make a significant contribution toward meeting the road-renewal needs of municipalities in the 21st century.