Conveniently released just one week after the province’s $11.9 billion deficit budget was supported, Ontario taxpayers received the grim news that this government will in fact hike taxes in Ontario.

The timing is so convenient.

Buried on a busy news day with major political scandals exploding in both Toronto and Ottawa, many folks may have missed the news of a series of new taxes in Ontario. The government wants taxpayers across Ontario – directly and indirectly – to fund a lofty proposal to modernize Toronto’s transportation infrastructure. (Metrolinx photo:Wikipedia/Taxiarchos228)

The government’s transit bureau released its Big Move report, and its solution is exactly what should be expected from a tax-and-spend government.

Taxes, taxes, and more taxes.

Ignore the $272 billion of public debt – more than half of which was racked up by the current administration under both McGuinty and Wynne. This government wants more of our money, more influence over the economy, and more control over our mobility and how we choose to get around

A five-cent per litre hike on gas taxes, one point added to the HST, a new 25-cent per day levy on all suburban parking spots, and a 15 per cent hike in development taxes.

Punitive taxes on driving. Punitive taxes on parking. And subsidies for taking public transit.

The government is bankrupt, both financially and intellectually. The best they can come up with is pilfering more of your money.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has repeatedly put forth a series of recommendations for the government, including passing a Gas Tax Accountability Act to ensure by law that revenues generated from gas taxes are tied to roadway spending.

Gas taxes were brought in as a user fee for roadway infrastructure, but instead, the revenues flow into general government coffers. The same honey pot the government dips into to cover the costs of eHealth, Ornge, gas plant moves and other spending scandals, not to mention outrageous government union gold-plated compensation packages.

This needs to stop.

According to the recent budget, the Ontario government will collect $2.94 billion in combined fuel taxes. CTF’s annual Gas Tax report shows another $1.85 billion will be raised by HST on gasoline, including $694 million from the nefarious practice of government’s taxing their own taxes.

That totals $4.79 billion. And yet, according to Ministry of Transportation, only about $2.7 billion is spent on all roadway spending, including “design, engineering, property, construction and rehabilitation to repair and expand highways, roads and bridges across Ontario."

You read that correctly. The government collects $2.09 billion more in gas taxes than it spends on roads.

Imagine what an additional $2.09 billion could do to ease congestion and traffic in Ontario’s major urban centers. Heck, there’d even be room to cut the dreaded tax-on-tax!

But the Big Move isn’t about reducing congestion. It isn’t about improving traffic in the Toronto and Hamilton area. The Big Move is about Big Government trying to get you out of your car and into public transit.

The average two-car family in Ontario already pays $1,239 per year in gas taxes. Now the Wynne government is asking a household of five to pay an additional $977 for the Big Move. This doesn’t include the unseen costs that businesses will pass along to consumers for the parking levy, development levy, land capture levy, and shipping and transportation cost increases inflicted from the gas tax hike.

The McGuinty-Wynne government is not transparent about how they already use the current pile of gas taxes they get, so why should we fork over more dough?

They have not proven themselves to be responsible stewards of Ontario taxpayer’s dollars. We should not enable their Big Government spending addictions by opening our wallets to new taxes.

Ontario taxpayers need to tell Premier Wynne and her government to reject the Big Move tax grab. Taxpayers have had enough.