The Manitoba government is again giving another three-month extension to the provincial gas tax holiday, Premier Wab Kinew confirmed Wednesday.
In a news release, Kinew said the 14-cents-per-litre tax break will continue until Dec. 13.
The premier said last week that an announcement would come mid-week on whether the holiday would be extended or the tax reintroduced.
“Since we cut the gas tax in January, inflation has gone down in Manitoba,” Kinew said in the news release. “This is what governments are for. We know Manitobans are still struggling with the impact of interest rates and grocery prices so we’re going to continue to step up and save you 14 cents at the pump.”
Kinew said people who drove a pickup truck will save about $14 every time they fuel up. Gas prices were just below $1.30 a litre at many stations.
The provincial gas tax normally generates some $340 million a year in government revenue.
The Manitoba Bureau of Statistics estimates the gas tax holiday has directly contributed to a decrease of 0.4 percentage points to inflation, the news release said.
Ahead of last year’s election, Kinew promised to temporarily eliminate the tax to give some relief to Manitobans amid inflationary cost increases.
Introduced Jan. 1, the tax cut was initially meant to last six months, but it was extended by another three months to the end of September.
The province has not yet said whether the holiday will continue into 2025.
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching
Reporter
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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