The City of Vaudreuil-Dorion is asking the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (CMM) to revoke its decision surrounding the increase in the registration tax for passenger vehicles. The increase to counter the deficit of Transport Companies will bring the tax on registration from $59 to $150 as of January 1, 2025.

Remember that only motorists whose vehicle is registered in a city included in the CMM will be affected by this increase, considered staggering. For a rare time, it was the mayor, Guy Pilon, who read the resolution containing nearly twenty recitals. “What is indecent is that cities outside the CMM, whose citizens use trains, buses or the metro, will not pay a penny. In Vaudreuil-Soulanges, 11 towns are in the CMM and 12 are outside the CMM,” laments Mr. Pilon.

Another point criticized by Mayor Pilon, but also by all the mayors of the South Crown, certain citizens will be impacted by the increase even though their municipality is not served by public transport. The mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion cites the Municipality of Cèdres as an example. “Les Cèdres is in the CMM. It’s a nasty tax increase considering they have no service,” adds Mr. Pilon.

“We’ve been talking about it for years. When I was president of the Transportation Commission, we were already talking about it. It's unfair. The amount is perhaps not enormous, but it is abnormal for cities outside the CMM to use (public transport) services without having to pay the $150,” continues the chief magistrate.

The increase in the registration tax will lead to an increase in the per capita cost for residents of the Couronne-Sud, which includes a portion of Vaudreuil-Soulanges. For example, with a tax of $150, the per capita contribution would amount to $95 for the South Crown, compared to $56 for the Montreal agglomeration.

Revenues from motorists in the South Crown are used to finance metropolitan modes of transportation in the center of the region, and less and less to finance the public transport services used by citizens of the South Crown.

In 2023 an agreement in principle was agreed between the five sectors of the CMM - Montreal, Laval, Agglomération de Longueuil, Couronne-Sud and Couronne-Nord - so that the sums of taxes on vehicle registration will be redistributed from 2025 walking in areas where the tax is levied. This measure aimed to allow the South Crown, among other things, to either reduce the current bill or invest in the development of structuring east-west transport in the territory.

“Now, this money will go to resolve a recurring deficit of $560 million for the next five years,” denounces the mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion.

Faced with this situation, the City of Vaudreuil-Dorion insists on the need for the five sectors of the CMM to agree before September 25, 2025 on the adoption of a new funding policy that is more equitable for all sectors. “We want the new financing policy to take into consideration the order of services available for each sector/city in order to avoid making sectors/cities pay for services that are not available on their territory,” continues Guy Pilon. 

Elected officials from the South Crown also ask that the next funding policy take into consideration who benefits from the services, for example: industries, businesses, businesses, office towers that need to have a public transport service. common efficient to be attractive to the workforce, in addition to avoiding their delays. Financing, like his colleagues, Guy Pilon, believes that the user/payer formula for cities outside the CMM must be considered.

“We hope that there will still be discussions, but one thing is certain, as long as we have a Minister of Transport who says that she takes care of cars and bridges, but not at all of public transport , that will not change. As far as we know, in almost all countries in the world, it is the governments that finance and make the necessary efforts to advance public transport. Last year we fought to have a limited increase of 4%, we scraped the bottom line, but there is no longer any bottom line. They need to find a way to fund or reduce the service or get the government involved. There are three ways of financing, the cities, the users and the government, we cannot get out of it,” concludes Guy Pilon.