Gas: the fix is in…

Feeling a little gas pain lately? It seems everyone is these days, especially in the Maritimes.

Yesterday as I walked to work, I was given another reminder to why I am glad that I have refused to purchase an automobile. Overnight in my province, gas prices made a staggering ten percent hike to sell at $1.17 per litre. Last week it was $1.06, yet the price of crude oil went up to a record $65 dollars a barrel, so the gas companies didn’t hesitate to pass that on to the consumer who will pay hand over fist now to fill their cars up for the ride into work.

Critics of the insane prices made an appeal to the federal government to decrease taxes on gas or at least cancel out the GST when prices pass a certain level so that it doesn’t hit consumers so hard in the wallet. I happen to agree with the government when it comes to the request to drop gas taxes. That happens to be the worst suggestion I’ve ever heard. Even if the Government was nice enough to do that for drivers, that kind of drop in price would be gone in less than a week. So instead of that money going into public projects like repairing roads, your money would be going into corporate coffers instead. Does that sound like a good idea to you? With prices jumping up too fast, no tax break would ever work. It would be like applying a band aid to a gunshot wound… not going to work here people.

While I understand and feel for the consumers who don’t want to pay these prices, I really think they’re barking up the wrong tree. Complaints about gas prices shouldn’t be made to the Prime Minster, but instead to Canada’s Competition Bureau who take complaints from consumers who thing they are being gouged or hurt by price fixing. Forgive me for being cynical, but does anyone else find this just outrageous that what will likely be the biggest gas hike of the year came less than seven days away from one of Canada’s biggest travel holiday weekends: Labour Day. I find this to be too much of a coincidence to swallow the petty excuses being tossed out by corporate gas companies that state their prices are determined by the price of crude oil, which is also setting record highs. While I understand a need for the market, these kinds of gas hikes are not market setting; it’s gouging, plain and simple. To hike the prices before what everyone knows is the busiest and last holiday weekend of the summer reeks of price fixing and I think the government should order a formal investigation into the matter.

Believe it or not, but high gas prices make up the bulk of complaints that come to the Competition Bureau. The fact that every single company manage to charge the same price to the exact tenth of a penny is flat out annoying to consumers who are all crying fix and want someone to do something about it. If the government wants to win some enormous brownie points with consumers without doing a thing to current taxes, a good start would be to order a complete audit of every single gas company from St.John’s to Victoria. There should also be an investigation into how each company manages to come out with the exact same price every time they go up or down, and to also answer why gas prices don’t go down as fast when crude oil takes a dip in price. If the people want to do something about gas prices, whining and crying about it while watching the rate fly up will do nothing. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and get writing. Send that letter to your member of parliament, and let them know that their lack of action to do something will cost them a vote the next time we hit the polls and will give our support to anyone who promises to do something about it. All mail can be sent to any Member of Parliament, postage free to the following address:

House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

If that doesn’t satisfy you enough, send that letter to this email address and make sure gas remains the public’s #1 complaint: compbureau@cb-bc.gc.ca

Let the competition board know that you’re not impressed with how a certain industry has done, and that they had better come up with a reasonable explanation for what’s going on. Either that or you can leave the car in the garage and do what I do: take the bus.

Peter