The Montreal agglomeration council unanimously voted Thursday evening in favour of a resolution asking the Quebec government to grant the island's de-merged cities the power to levy the city's new car registration tax.
The city's plan is to charge car owners an extra $50 annually for registration, with the new revenue slated to fund the Société de transport de Montréal's (STM) ballooning budget.
While Montreal has the power to do so under the provincial law, the de-merged cities do not, hence the agglomeration council resolution Thursday night.
The city plans to implement this new tax on Jan. 1, 2011 and the hope is that Quebec's Municipal Affairs minister approves the new taxation powers in time for the de-merged cities to do the same.
"It has reached a point where property taxes alone cannot absorb all the expenses having to do with the STM," Baie D'Urfé Mayor Maria Tutino said.
Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay says the money is needed to fund new projects included in the city's "ambitious" new transport plan.
"This will give us a revenue source to accelerate the realization of priority projects, and new commuter train lines to the West Island is one of those projects," Tremblay said.
The de-merged cities, however, would like the new money to be used to fund the existing STM expenses and not necessarily new projects in order to keep costs in check.
"You have to understand that the demerged cities really have no say in what the (STM) budget is, we have no say what's included, we have no say what the bill is," Tutino said. "All we know is we're going to receive it, and when we receive it we have to put it onto our citizens."
