CAN DEALERS AFFORD OMVIC?
You will have received an OMVIC Bulletin recently with a message repeated with depressing regularity lately … OMVIC want more of your money … again.
We say enough is enough. It’s time to say NO.
Dealers simply can’t afford OMVIC.
With OMVIC salaries and Board benefits eating up almost of 90% of OMVIC revenue, who could?
With pressures on dealers from all sides – Trump’s Tariffs, the Feds FINTRAC nonsense, inflation and lack of inventory – OMVIC thinks now would be a good time to slap more fee increases on dealers.
TRANSACTION TAX INCREASES
Hot on the increase from $10 to $12.50 in 2024, OMVIC now want $22 for every vehicle you sell to a consumer. This to come into effect on September 1, 2025, unless we can stop it.
FEE INCREASES
Following across the board fee increases by as much as 75% in 2024, OMVIC now plan more fee increases to every fee category from renewals to branch applications, once again effective September 1, 2025.
LATE FEE INCREASES
From $0, dealers now pay $300 and salespeople $150 as of Feb. 1, 2025.
MANDATORY EDUCATION COSTS COMING IN 2026
We still don’t know what those costs will be because, despite asking, they have still not told us.
OMVIC say they need more money, from dealers, their only source of funds.
Why?
Well, in 2022 OMVIC had about 140 employees. By 2026 they plan to have 180 of them. You do the math.
New car dealer franchises and groups will find this eats into their bottom line, but for smaller one-person or mom and pop dealerships, these costs, fees and expenses might very well spell the end of their businesses. Many new Canadians will have to find another path to the Canadian dream.
Consumers will all pay more too, for sure. Where does all this money go? With an abysmal Google Rating below 2, it seems neither registrants nor consumers are happy with OMVIC. Everyone but OMVIC loses, as they build their Empire bigger. Do they really need the population of a small Ontario town to do their job?
If these ‘death by a thousand fee increases’ continue, OMVIC won’t have a an industry to regulate; they will all be curbsiders.
What OMVIC needs is some serious belt-tightening. It’s high time for OMVIC to get their fiscal house in order. We call on them to have an open and honest third party audit to appraise where efficiencies might be found to cut some fat before they ask dealers for another dime.
We asked OMVIC to agree to this, they refused. So now we look for the means to FORCE THEM TO. Political means.
We will hope for a better outcome this time around.
It might be time for the Ontario Government to consider some other way to fund OMVIC operations. Perhaps the public purse should pay for consumer protection, because there is a limit to how much dealers can be expected to bear.
While the UCDA, has, and will continue to communicate concerns to the Premier and the Minister, one effective way to bring YOUR concerns about excessive OMVIC fees is for YOU to write to YOUR MPP, the Minister, the Premier – and to meet with YOUR local MPPs to brief them on the impact of these fees on YOUR operations, especially in light of current economic uncertainty.
WAKE UP DEALERS and let your voices be heard! If you need help with a letter, we drafted one for you here: https://www.ucda.org/omvic-transaction-fee/
Contact your MPP:
https://www.ola.org/en/members/current
Contact Premier Doug Ford:
https://correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca/EN/feedback/default.aspx
Contact the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement
The Hon. Stephen Crawford
Contact OMVIC