Municipalties and Gas Prices

Okay, so Bob Chiarelli apparently made some statements today about high gas prices and their impact on city budgets. Grr!! I figured this would happen. My big beef with this isn't that I think they're lying about increased costs, but how about the fact that they're forgetting that they are getting increased revenues at the same time?

Municipalities will be getting a share of fuel taxes that the federal government has promised them. It should be incumbent on them to demand an accelerated/increased set of payments since the federal government will now have an increase in revenues in this area.

Update: This of course assumes that demand doesn't drop to the point where the decrease in tax income is offset by the increase in prices. At the same time, I'm not sure what tax income the feds have promised... the fuel surtax or the GST. Only the GST will increase in this case as the fuel surtax (along with the provincial elements) is a strict per litre number and not percentage based.