Two governments, the same winter. Ottawa is holding the federal excise on gasoline and diesel at 0 cents until January 31, 2027, which is C$5.3 billion it will not collect. Quebec is adding C$125 a year on every electric car starting January 1, 2027, worth about C$80 million in its first full year. And there is a third bill nobody talks about: C$9.5 billion a year, signed Health Canada.
I will say it before anyone throws it at me: yes, electric cars pay less tax to drive. I redid the calculation with the government’s own numbers, at 20,000 km a year. Here is the breakdown, because a total on its own tells you nothing.
A gasoline RAV4 near Montreal, 8.2 L/100 km, gas at C$1.883 a litre: C$315 Quebec fuel tax, 19.2 cents a litre C$49 public transit levy, 3 cents a litre C$402 GST and QST, charged on top of the other taxes C$0 federal excise, frozen at zero until January 31, 2027 Total: C$767. And C$937 once the carbon market is added.
My Model X, 25 kWh/100 km, Hydro-Québec Rate D second tier, C$557 of electricity a year: C$83 GST and QST on that electricity C$125 annual charge from January 1, 2027 C$0 fuel tax Total: C$208.
Three to four times less. That is true. But it is not zero, and nobody ever counts the C$83 of sales tax on the electricity.
What is also true is that Quebec’s 19.2 cents a litre has been frozen for more than ten years, the federal 10 cent excise has not moved since 1995, and the C$125 on electric cars is written into the law as indexed annually. The road fund spent C$6.9 billion last year. The fuel tax paid C$2.1 billion of it. Less than a third.
Then the big bill. Health Canada, 2022: road traffic pollution causes more than 1,200 premature deaths a year in Canada, 410 in Quebec, 150 in Montreal, and costs C$9.5 billion a year. Quebec’s 2025 road safety report counted 371 deaths in crashes. Traffic pollution kills more people in this province than the crashes do. Being fair about it: heavy trucks account for 63 percent of that, cars for 37. That still leaves C$3.5 billion a year for cars, roughly 8 cents a litre that nobody pays at the pump. Almost exactly the 10 cents Ottawa just suspended.
Whatever put the hole in road funding, it was not the electric cars.
If your state or province is looking at an EV road charge right now, that is the number I would ask for first: what does the fuel tax actually cover, and what is already being paid somewhere other than the pump?
Sources: Quebec Budget Plan 2025-2026 · Revenu Québec · Régie de l’énergie du Québec · Finance Canada · MELCCFP · Natural Resources Canada · Hydro-Québec · Health Canada (2022) · SAAQ, 2025 road safety report