Some Metro Vancouver drivers were confronted with sticker shock Wednesday morning, after an overnight bump in the price of gas.
The cost of regular gasoline climbed to over $1.80 per litre in many areas — just days after the province confirmed it would scrap the consumer carbon price next week.
That had some motorists ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½ spoke with fuming at the pump, while others speculated about the timing of the price hike.
Petroleum analyst Dan McTeague of Canadians for Affordable Energy attributed the price increase to higher spring break demand and the weak Canadian dollar.
“What you often see is prices going even higher than now, so people are getting a real break … This time last year it was $2.04, that’s a 25-cent difference year over year,” he said.
“This time last year 134 pennies bought you one U.S. dollar, now it’s 142. So that’s added about six cents a litre to the price of gasoline.”
McTeague said once the province lifts the consumer carbon price on April 1, drivers should see prices fall by 18.5 cents a litre.
He said any gas bar that fails to cut prices to match the tax cut will be punished by price-conscious drivers.
“Tuesday morning when you wake up you will see gas prices are much cheaper than they were Monday,” he said. “Gas stations that don’t do that, well, just don’t visit them.”
Speaking on CKNW’s The Jas Johal show, B.C. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said the province will be watching.
“Producers and retailers specifically to you, we expect you to pass these savings on to consumers. We expect that at the pumps and we expect it at the grocery stores,” she said.
She also pointed to the province’s Fuel Price Transparency Act, implemented in 2019, which requires fuel companies to report data as a tool to help prevent any price gouging.
B.C.’s NDP government, long a proponent of a consumer price on carbon, pledged before last year’s election to scrap the measure if the federal government removed the requirement for provinces to have one.
After winning the Liberal leadership earlier this month, Mark Carney zeroed out the required price on carbon.
The NDP says it will introduce legislation on Monday to eliminate B.C.’s consumer carbon price.
The government has yet to say how it will make up the $1.5-billion hole that the move will punch in the provincial budget.
— with files from Grace Ke