PRINCE GEORGE – Gas prices are topping a buck fifty a litre lately.
But with Prime Minister Mark Carney putting the kibosh on the federal carbon tax as his first formal order of business and the Province of BC axing the tax hike as it was set to kick in April 1st, what does that mean?
“It means that in fairly short order, gas prices should come down rather substantially,” says Patrick De Haan with GasBuddy. Now, the federal carbon tax should apply to many provinces in an equal way. About 17.6 cents a litre should be rolled off. If you’re filling up with gasoline almost $0.23 a litre, if you’re filling up with diesel, those significant rollbacks. But we’ve already seen gas prices going up in the last week.”
But because of where we live, much of what we consume and buy comes in on a truck. So will the price of diesel. If it goes down, will it translate into the grocery store? Probably not. “Will it help keep prices lower? Yes,” says Charles Scott with UNBC’s School of Business. “But there are also some things that are rapidly rising that will offset that to a degree. I think there will be a noticeable change in the short run. But with the various the tariff war currently increasing prices of things we bring into Canada, I think we can anticipate that food prices might at the very best slow.”
Meanwhile, De Haan says tariffs that could be announced this week could throw things off entirely. “Even if there are tariffs, it would likely be more impactful to America’s hands. Americans generally are the primary beneficiaries of Canada’s four and a half million barrels of oil it sends to us every day. And so while it would be less impactful to Canadians, the overall economy in Canada could slow down significantly.”
He says, despite the rise in the price of oil and refinery issues, there should be no less than a ten-cent-a-litre drop. Perhaps even 15 cents a litre.
