The end of the road
Good for Tammy Hart, the deputy mayor of South Stormont, who’s doing what she can to get rid of Ontario’s Drive Clean testing program for motor vehicle emissions.
“I’m getting fed up with the province draining our pockets,” says Hart, who recently convinced the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry to declare Drive Clean an unnecessary “money grab.”
As Hart also points out, “Our cars are cleaner than ever, there’s been less emissions.”
In fact, Norm Sterling, the former Progressive Conservative minister who introduced Drive Clean 14 years ago, has said the original idea was to get older, polluting cars off the road and then wind the program down. The projected lifespan was seven years.
That didn’t happen, and Drive Clean has become little more than an annoyance and needless expenditure: $35 plus HST.
Vehicles older than seven years must be tested every second year, and without a “pass” registration can’t be renewed.
But most people with vehicles that are reasonably maintained know they will be certified by Drive Clean. Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter has certainly provided enough evidence to conclude Drive Clean has outlived its usefulness.
“Vehicle emissions are no longer one of the major contributors to smog in Ontario,” McCarter said in his annual report last December, suggesting the government look at scaling back the program.
“As well, ministry estimates show that more than 75 per cent of the reduction in vehicle emissions (since 1999 when Drive Clean was launched) is actually due to things like better manufacturing standards for emissionequipment and federal requirements for cleaner fuel,” McCarter added.
Drive Clean doesn’t even apply to all light-duty vehicles on the road.
Vehicles built before 1988 are exempt and so are all vehicles driven in northern Ontario.
As well, Drive Clean gives a break to some of the worst polluting cars on the road. As McCarter has pointed out, vehicles “are not required to incur any repair costs if the repair estimate exceeds $450.”
That meant about 8,000 clunkers avoided being fully repaired in 2011.
The provincial auditor has also raised questions about the legality of Drive Clean. McCarter warned that a court could find Drive Clean to be an “illegal tax” if its user-fee premise isn’t reflected in the cost of running the program.
According to McCarter: “A user fee cannot exceed the cost to the government of providing the service. Otherwise a court could determine that the amount of the excess fee is really an unlawful tax and therefore repayable.”
Drive Clean has turned into a money-maker for the province. The auditor said the program was expected to realize an accumulated surplus of $11 million by the end of the 2011-12 fiscal year and $50 million by the end of 2018.
Drive Clean is no longer about helping the environment. It’s about making the majority of Ontario drivers pay for tests they don’t need and letting those who pollute go free. The program should be scrapped.