The Ontario NDP will present a motion at Queen's Park next week calling on Premier Doug Ford's government to provide an immediate gas price rebate of $200 for each northern household.
"This rebate will help offset the skyrocketing prices of gas and the cost of living," said Sudbury MPP Jamie West during a conference call Friday featuring northern Ontario NDP MPPs and provincial election candidates. "For the last four years, Doug Ford hasn't provided any relief and northerners can't afford any more empty promises."
If passed, the proposed $200 rebate would be available to each household in the northern region and would be delivered via direct bank deposit or by mailed cheque.
West notes the Ford government's recently announced plan to temporarily reduce taxes on gas and diesel — after the June provincial election — offers no incentive for gas companies and retailers to follow through on lowering prices once the tax is reduced. Monday, the government introduced legislation with a cost of $645 million over 2022-23 intended to lower the gas tax by 5.7 cents per litre and the fuel tax (diesel) by 5.3 cents per litre for six months from July 1 to Dec. 31.
Gas prices have been averaging in the neighbourhood of $1.70 per litre in Ontario for weeks and are approaching the $1.80 mark in Timmins as of Friday.
"The people of Ontario and across the country have just been getting gouged, day in and day out," said Ford recently. "You see the gas prices, just skyrocketing, unprecedented prices. And it's about time that the government starts putting money back into the people's pockets instead of the government's pocket."
Timmins MPP Gilles Bisson said northerners need relief from price gouging at the pumps.
"The Ford government, like the Liberals before them, refused to stop gas price spikes and northern families keep paying higher and higher costs. Instead of a break, families are getting more empty promises from Doug Ford. This $200 rebate is action now to take some burden off northern families," he said in a news release.
See also: B.C. drivers getting one-time rebate to help with rising fuel prices
What began as a 2018 election promise to cut gas and fuel taxes has seen the government scrap the cap-and-trade system and cut the provincial gas tax. Lower prices resulting from those measures were soon negated by federal carbon tax, a situation the Ford regime fought, and lost, in court.
According to a Canadian Press report, in late 2021, Ford promised to make good on the 2018 promise to cut gas prices by 10 cents total but eventually walked that back.
With files from Jeff Turl
