HPW Min Clarifies Airport User Fee

Thursday, 12 October 2017 08:36

Mostyn says the provision will not be to tax travellers.

Highways and Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn (Whitehorse West) continued to deny that his government was going to impose a user or service fee at airports as contained in the Public Airports Act. Wednesday was the second straight day Mostyn fended off an attack from the Official Opposition Yukon Party.

He repeated his position from Tuesday in the Legislative Assembly that the government was not going to implement the user fee provision. Outside the Legislature, Mostyn attempted to clarify why the user fee clause was included in the legislation. “Somebody wants to open up a hotdog stand and sell hotdogs in the airport parking lot; how do we collect that fee? There is currently no method of doing that. This allows us to do those things. It opens those opportunities as well. Its not this overarching airport improvement fees. There's lots of reasons why we might want to charge somebody a fee to use our airports and this allows us to do that.”

While the government could collect user fees, as a way of generating more revenues for its cash-strapped coffers, Mostyn says the airline industry was vehemently against any increased fee. “In my consultation with the industry over the last eight months, the industry has been very clear that air transportation in the territory is run on margins and the margins are very tight. The have made it very clear that pennies matter to them. What they characterize as a fragile industry and they have made it very clear to me that an increase--an airport improvement fee like they've put in place in some other airports would be extremely damaging to them.”

Yukon Party interim leader Stacey Hassard (Pelly Nisutlin) says if the government does not want to use its new power, why not take it out of the legislation. “Yukoners learned that the Yukon Liberals are bringing forward a piece of legislation that will give themselves the power to implement an airport tax. The minister claims that he doesn’t want an airport tax, but actions clearly speak louder than words. If the minister does not want one, then why did he have a piece of legislation written that includes the ability for the Liberals to implement an airport tax? If the Liberals are sincere that they do not want this, then they should have no problem amending the legislation to remove that power. Will the minister agree to amend the legislation to remove that power — yes or no?”

Mostyn deflected Hassard’s questioning suggesting it was the Yukon Party who collected $1.5 million in airport parking fees. Yet that measure was put in place to deter residents from leaving abandoned vehicles parked there.

(Dan Jones Whitehorse Oct. 11, 2017)