VICTORIA – If you plan to get in your car and travel this summer, it will cost you a lot more than it did on Monday. The price at the petrol pump has risen by 11 cents per liter in the Greater Victoria area.
Chris Pahl refueled his new SUV at a local gas station on Tuesday.
“The last time I filled it was under $ 70; today it’s $ 85.50,” said Pahl.
Here in the Greater Victoria area you now pay 162.9 cents per liter.
“It is measured,” said Fred Kirke, who refueled on Tuesday.
“It’s definitely a shame,” said Kelly Beattie, who was in a similar position.
“Why are we paying 162 per liter?” Said islander Brian MacDonald. “It’s crazy.”
Dan McTeague is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, and he says he can explain the reason for the huge increase.
“We are seeing a response to the shutdown of an FCC fluid cat cracker at Phillips 66 Refinery in Ferndale, WA,” said McTeague.
According to McTeague, this shutdown in Washington state has led to a supply crisis in the Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, the demand for fuel is increasing south of the border.
“It may seem like we haven’t gotten through our locks, but they’re in the United States and their economy is in full swing and so is demand,” said McTeague.
If an 11-cent jump didn’t get you down, maybe it will. In April last year, the price of gasoline on Vancouver Island was 84 cents per liter. At that point, we were in the middle of our COVID-19 restrictions.
Kris Sims is the BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and has studied math. 162.9 cents per liter cannot be fully attributed to the closure of the refinery.
“61 cents of that are taxes,” said Sims.
We pay a provincial excise tax, a federal excise tax, and in Victoria we pay a transit tax and a sales tax.
“And of course we have two carbon taxes here in British Columbia,” said Sims.
High-profile gasoline prices in BC are not a new topic.
“There is clearly something wrong with the gas market here in British Columbia,” Prime Minister John Horgan said in November 2020.
In 2019, the province completed an investigation into gas prices in the province. The report’s results questioned the competitiveness of the gas market and also found that BC drivers were likely to have paid nearly half a billion dollars too much for fuel. The review was instructed not to consider provincial taxes.
CTV News reached out to the Department of Energy, Mining and Low Carbon Innovation but received no response by the Tuesday deadline.
Look to the future, prepare yourself. Analysts predict another three cents spike through Thursday, and gasoline could hit 170.0 cents a liter by the end of summer.