Quebec Liberals applaud Raymond Bachand as he rose to deliver his budget speech on Tuesday. Opposition parties accused the government of picking taxpayers' pockets. Canadian PressOpposition parties are lining up with interest groups to denounce Quebec's new budget as a cash grab that will bruise the province's majority lower and middle classes.

But municipal leaders applauded a new fuel tax they can use to fund transportation services.

Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand tabled his first budget Tuesday afternoon. It includes a graduated health levy and other public service user fees, two levels of fuel taxes and a higher provincial sales tax.

'Sacred cows exist only in India.'—Finance Minister Raymond Bachand

The revenue-generating measures will help pay down Quebec's $4.5-billion deficit, Bachand said, and will help set a new relationship between taxpayers and the province.

"Public services aren't free," the finance minister reiterated on Wednesday in an interview with CBC. "We offer $16 billion more in public services than Ontario. We're going to say, 'OK, we're going to cut our costs. And we, as citizens, we're going to make one-third of the effort.'

"Sacred cows exist only in India."

Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois slammed the budget as a complete surprise for Quebecers who elected the Liberal government one year ago.

Premier Jean Charest compaigned on a promise to manage the economy through the recession, but said nothing about making people pay for services on top of income tax.

"That is not acceptable," Marois said. "The government is going to pick money from the pockets of Quebecers."

There is no promise of better service through fees in the Liberal budget, "one of the saddest budgets we've seen in the history of this government," complained Action Démocratique du Québec Leader Gérard Deltell.

Quebecers already heavily taxed

Consumer advocates are concerned about the average Quebecer's ability to absorb more user fees when they pay so much income tax already.

"This is very worrying because people have not much room in their budget, actually, so we would have like to see more equity in the way the government is taking money out of our pockets," said Charles Tanguay, a member of the Union des Consommateurs, a consumer advocacy group.

'We would like to see more equity in the way the government is taking money out of our pockets.'—Charles Tanguay, Union des Consommateurs

Bachand said tax credits will ensure that lower-income Quebecers can recoup some of the cost of these new user fees.

PQ treasury board critic Sylvain Simard expressed doubt that user fee revenue can even pull Quebec out of its deficit.

"I'm not confident at all," he said. "The bare facts show that in the last years, [Liberal projections] have been wrong all the time."

Montreal welcomes gas tax

The new fuel tax of 1½ cents per litre, granted to municipalities in the Greater Montreal region and Quebec City, will take some financial pressure off local governments, elected officials said.

Cities can now charge the fuel tax to generate funds for public transit, road infrastructure and other transportation needs.

Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay said it couldn't come at a better time. The city's transit corporation (STM) and regional transit authority face a combined $55-million deficit.

Tremblay says he'll work with other mayors to enact the new gas tax as soon as this year.

"Definitely, in the next couple of weeks, we're going to go back to the Montreal metropolitan community, table a resolution, have a vote, give it to the government, to implement [the tax] as soon as possible," he said Tuesday.

Quebec said it will also invest $200 million to build an express rail link between downtown Montreal and the Trudeau International Airport.

The gas tax will increase money available for the desperately needed rail line, Tremblay said.

A recent Transport Quebec study suggests traffic gridlock costs Montreal $1.4 billion in lost productivity.