JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1019 Report
Mounting pushback by car owners in the Montreal region against the tripling of vehicle registration fees received a boost last week when a petition was launched in the National Assembly by Vaudreuil MNA Marie-Claude Nichols.
For Île Perrot resident Tamra Canty-Currie, who has been leading the charge on this issue for the past year, while the move is a significant achievement, the fight isn’t yet finished.
Pushback on the registration fees began last year after the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal — the regional body that includes 82 municipalities on and around the island of Montreal, including parts of Vaudreuil-Soulanges — tripled car registration fees, pushing the cost to $183 per vehicle. The move was implemented in an effort to shore up financing for public transit after cuts in funding from the Quebec government.
Canty-Currie said the increased fees were a direct blow to many residents in the CMM who “literally need a car to even just leave their areas.”
“I’m very happy to pay taxes to get accessible services,” Canty-Currie said in an interview last week. “But to pay for something where I have no choice, I can’t use it, that’s not fair.”
The petition was launched March 30. The document requests, among other things, for the Quebec government to review how car registration fees are applied throughout the CMM “in order to ensure greater fairness among citizens.”
As of yesterday, the petition had received more than 1,600 signatures.
“It’s essentially a petition that’s calling for equity of access to service,” Canty-Currie explained. “Should you not have access to (public transit) services, you should not be paying the same price as somebody who could just walk out their front door and get on a bus.”
Although the new fees went into effect last year, the CMM council approved the increase back in May 2024. The Vaudreuil-Soulanges representative on the council at that time was Guy Pilon, then-mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion. He voted against the measure and publicly criticized the increase, saying residents in the surrounding regions are more likely to need a car than those living in downtown Montreal.
“When (the new registration fee) came in the mail, I was shocked,” said Canty-Currie.
This had spurred her on to publish her own petition against the increase on Change.org, which had received more than 5,600 signatures.
St. Lazare councillor Daniel Thibaudeau voiced his strong support for the National Assembly petition on social media last week.
“If people have a choice, they’re opting for their cars,” Thibaudeau explained, pointing out that in this region, as it currently stands, “the public transit option is not viable, and that’s sad.”
Public transit must be convenient in order to encourage residents to use it over personal vehicles, Thibaudeau said. However, with limited routes and low service frequency in the area, “it is the opposite,” he said. “It is inconvenient, the choice to use public transit.”
Both Thibaudeau and Canty-Currie lamented the fact that the increased charges did not initially come with improvements in frequency or accessibility to public transit.
“It’s to try and maintain a level of service that we have already that is inadequate to begin with,” Thibaudeau said.
Regional public transit authority Exo had announced in February plans to modify its lines in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region, with the aim to bring riders to the Anse-à-l’Orme REM station in Ste. Anne de Bellevue. Among the changes includes eliminating bus line 40, which brings commuters from Vaudreuil-Dorion directly to the Côte-Vertu métro station, a move that will cause a headache for commuters, Canty-Currie said.
“More connection time and more taxes for nothing,” she added. “It’s outrageous.”
The updated bus routes will take effect in conjunction with the opening of the West Island’s REM branch, which is set to open this spring, but does not yet have a set launch date.
The petition has a signing deadline of June 1. Those interested in reading over the petition may access it via the Quebec government website at https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/index.html. Click on ‘Voice your opinion’ and opt for ‘Signing an E-petition.’
Local Journalism Initiative