It's not very often you hear of any government acting in a responsible and cost effective manner, but the Manitoba government has done just that with the introduction of the Gas Tax Accountability Act. Once implemented, this new legislation could finally usher in a taxpayer-friendly approach to how our gas tax dollars are spent.

The Act, which will likely pass in the Legislature later this spring, sets out a number of rules for the hundreds of millions of fuel tax dollars collected each year in Manitoba. The Act requires the Minister of Finance (within six months of the end of the fiscal year) to prepare a report that outlines the following:

• as fuel tax revenue, the government's tax revenue for the fiscal year under The Gasoline Tax Act and The Motive Fuel Tax Act, other than the tax on aircraft gasoline and the tax on motive fuel used for the operation of railway locomotives;
  
• as fuel tax expenditure, the total of the expenditures for the fiscal year for
  
• the construction, operation and maintenance of transportation infrastructure for motor vehicles, and ;
  
• assistance to municipalities for transportation systems and infrastructure for motor vehicles; and
  
• the amount by which the fuel tax revenue for the fiscal year and all previous fiscal years beginning after 2003 exceeds, or falls short of, the fuel tax expenditure for those years.

This portion of the Act falls short in one key area in that it does not require the Provincial Auditor to ensure municipal assistance is spent on roads.

Perhaps the most significant part of this legislation is that it lays the groundwork for a much-anticipated "new deal" for cities long promised by Prime Minister Paul Martin. Adopting a long-held Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) position, the Prime Minister is publicly musing about sharing a portion of the federal fuel tax revenues with municipalities. However, the feds can't provide direct assistance to municipalities without first going through the province.

The manner in which Ottawa spends our fuel tax money desperately needs reform. Last year the federal government collected $4.8 billion in gas taxes, but only transferred $119 million to the provinces for highway construction. Simply put, our federal government is subsidizing their elaborate spending programs with our gas money.

As part of our annual Gas Tax Honesty Campaign the CTF has put forward a proposal to return half of all federal gas tax revenues to all of Canada's municipalities. In Manitoba that would be an injection of $64 million - $36 million going to Winnipeg and $28 million for the remaining 200 municipalities. A model such as the MRT would mean steady, predictable, sustained support for our communities and go a long way to address the massive infrastructure deficits we've accumulated as a result of offloading onto municipalities.

Kudos to the Manitoba government for realizing that it is no longer good enough to pay lip service for the fuel taxes collected, they will finally put our money where their mouth is. Manitoba's new fuel tax legislation is a model for the rest of the country and for once, put us ahead of the game.