Winnipeggers see prices jump at fare box, gas pump

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This article was published 01/01/2025 (516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Being a Winnipegger became a little more expensive as the calendar flipped into 2025 on Wednesday.

Most will pay a little more to ring in the New Year, whether it’s fuel prices and transit fares or property taxes and city fees.

For Winnipeg Transit riders, that means a 10-cent hike for regular fares, which works out to just under $4 on monthly e-pass and paper passes.

Many who rely on Transit to get around told the Free Press on New Year’s Day that while it’s annoying to see fares rising again, it’s a necessary evil they have to live with.

“I used to buy it weekly, and it was a struggle,” said Laura, a senior citizen who works part-time and uses transit to get back and forth.

Laura, who was waiting for her bus at Fort Street and Graham Avenue, now purchases a senior’s monthly pass, which is rising by $1.90 in 2025 to $57.75.

“It adds up,” she said.

Another user, Kadin, said it’s unfair given his fixed income.

Kadin purchases the 28-day pass every month, which now costs $3.55 more as of Jan. 1.

“Most of it goes to bills,” he said. “I feel like (bus passes) cost too much.”

For others like Jordan Skowronek, who regularly accesses transit to get downtown for work and Jets games, it works out to an extra dollar per week if he rides twice daily.

“In my opinion, fares should be higher to pay for rapid transit improvements,” he said.

Transit fare hikes were among a list of services, taxes and fees that became more costly as the ball dropped on a new year on Wednesday.

The province’s gas tax holiday ended at midnight, returning after a one-year hiatus.

Motorists can expect to pay 12.5 cents per litre extra at the pumps, a 10 per cent reduction to the 14-cent fuel tax rate that was in place previously.

“Our government keeps our word,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release last week. “We said we’d cut the fuel tax and we did. We said it would last 12 months and it did. Now we’re going further by bringing in a permanent cut to the fuel tax to make it one of the lowest in Canada.”

Fuel prices were up to 149.1 cents per litre at many stations across the city, up from 135.9 cents per litre on Dec. 31.

Some cheaper fuel could still be had, with customers reporting prices as low as 124. 9 cents per litre at Canco on Isabel Street on GasBuddy.com.

Away from the roads, Winnipeg homeowners on the TIPP (tax installment payment plan) program for their property taxes can expect a 50 per cent hike, on average, to their monthly payments on Thursday.

This is because of the province’s latest change to a school tax rebate program that’s seen many iterations since its introduction in 2021. Winnipeggers were undercharged during the final half of 2024, with rates now normalizing to start the new year.

The latest change scraps the old program for a new $1,500 homeowner’s affordability tax credit, with the flat rate being applied directly to property bills throughout 2025.

Property taxes in the city are set to rise 5.95 per cent, pending council approval on Jan. 29, after the city’s budget was revealed in early December.

The property tax increase hike translates to $121 annually for a sample single-family home assessed at $371,000

“I don’t take lightly that… for the first time in decades, we have a tax increase in this amount,” Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said. “But I would rather do what I believe the citizens of Winnipeg need for the future than to try to protect myself and ourselves from public criticism. We need more revenue, full stop.”

The proposal is the city’s highest one-year increase in property taxes since the 1990s.

Other increases include the city’s waste-water diversion fee, which shoots up $13 per household to $93.

Water rates will see a quarterly increase of five cents per cubic metre, to $2.09.

Sewer rates are also rising, with a quarterly uptick of 26 cent per cubic metre, to $3.47.

Nationally, meanwhile, the GST holiday remains in effect, giving consumers a break on the cost of many essential goods before the five per cent sales tax resumes on Feb. 16.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

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