Calls mount to change Ontario licence plate sticker refund after big cheques issued

Calls are mounting to change Ontario’s licence plate sticker refund program in the wake of a CTV News investigation that showed millions in licence sticker refunds went to people with apparently deep pockets — including one $38,000 cheque.

Most Ontario drivers received less than $1,000 — but thousands of cheques worth millions of dollars went to drivers who had registered more than five cars, the investigation showed — a sign that the government should rethink the rebate and the cancelled fees going forward, said Green Party leader Mike Schriener.

“It’s outrageous at a time when we’re in a climate emergency that the government would be spending millions disproportionately subsidizing wealthy drivers,” said Green Party leader Mike Schreiner, pointing out that he voted against the subsidy when it was proposed.

“It was an election ploy all along, costing the treasury $2.4 billion that would be better spent on health-care … I have argued all along this money would be better spent making sure we could keep our emergency rooms open rather than a handout to the wealthy,” he said.

The government has defended the program, saying more than 99 per cent of the cheques went to people receiving less than $1,200.

“The purpose of the program was to deal with the rising cost of living that so many of us are dealing with,” said Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney at a press conference in Hamilton on Friday.

“The vast majority of Ontarians received a refund of under $1,200. Obviously, there are rare cases of people who have a large number of cars, but we are very pleased that we’ve been able to put so much money back in people’s pockets to help them when they need it most.”

The program, part of a suite designed to help Ontarians after a COVID-19 pandemic and enacted by the P-C government before the 2022 election, provided small cheques adding up to more than $2 billion.

While rates change by location and by type of vehicle, a typical passenger vehicle in Southern Ontario would have cost $120 each year to register. The refund covered two years of fees.

Just under 7 million drivers got $1,100 or less. When divided into $100 increments, the biggest group – 1.87 million people – got between $200 and $300.

But about 21,000 people were refunded more than $1,200 – the equivalent of registering about five cars – for a total of $32 million in that category, the data shows.

This still doesn’t come close to the highest refunds, which were in the tens of thousands of dollars. One person received $16,020.50, another received $19,096.50, and the largest refund was $38,779.50 — the equivalent of about 160 cars.

Ontario Liberal MPP Stephen Blais told CTV News he was surprised to see cheques that big.

“I was taken aback by some of the numbers,” he said. “In our home we got $700-800. We probably paid bills and went out for dinner. I don’t think it had an enormous impact on kick-starting the economy. It’s questionable whether that kind of intervention in the economy was needed in the first place. The billions it cost could have been better spent supporting our kids in schools or in emergency rooms.”

A map of where the funds ended up painted a picture of money heading largely to the vote-rich car-driving suburbs in Southern Ontario that propelled the Ford government to a majority. Northern Ontario gets less, in part because the typical passenger vehicle licence fee there would be about $60.

University of Toronto geography professor Matti Siemiatycki told CTV News that the refund policy fits in with the cancellation of some tolls and a gas tax cut — while avoiding benefits for non-drivers such as subsidized transit passes — as a sign that the benefits did filter through to people likely to be supporters.

“These policies have been so targeted at drivers and motorists as key parts of the electoral base of this government and critical to their coalition,” he said.

It would have been simple to find a way to design this program and avoid paying large cheques to people with many vehicles, he said.

“You could have the payouts decrease based on the number of vehicles you have,” he said.