FREDERICTON, NB – Tolls on New Brunswick highways are not the answer to the province’s poor financial position, the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association (APTA) says.

The province’s finance minister Roger Melanson, who is also the transportation minister, has gone on record saying he is reviewing all options for revenue as he prepares for his first budget, and that includes highway tolls.

New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant confirmed yesterday that everything is on the table as his government tries to bring the province’s $400 million deficit and $12 billion debt under control.

But the APTA says it is unequivocally opposed to the road fees.

“There are other ways to generate revenue for the province, including raising the HST,” APTA executive director Jean Marc Picard said in a published report in New Brunswick’s Telegraph Journal.

Picard said the cost of tolls to businesses and individuals make them more of a liability than a benefit.

“The highway tolls would have to be very steep to generate a worthwhile amount of revenue,” he said. “The amount they would generate would not cover the headaches that come with it.”

Highway tolls in New Brunswick were a hot issue during the 1990s.

They were imposed by a former Liberal government but removed in 1999 when the Progressive Conservatives took power.

Opposition leader Bruce Fitch said tolls were looked at by the previous Tory government, and a business case was prepared. The Tories never went ahead with tolls for a number of reasons; including the fact that it appears they would have to be expensive, perhaps over $10, to generate a reasonable return for provincial coffers.

“If people think it’s a $2 toll, most people would say, ‘No problem’,” Fitch said. “But to be sustainable, it could be considerably more expensive than that.”