acton@ubc-cs.CDN (Donald Acton) (11/09/84)
Last night Micheal Wilson announced that Canadian oil prices would be allowed to go to world levels. For you and me this means that the price of gas at the pumps will be going up 2 to 3 cents per litre. However, I do see a brighter side to this and that is that the petroleum compensation tax (PCT) will no longer be required so once that is removed our prices should go down. For those of you who are unaware the PCT placed on every litre of gas is designed to make sure that those of us in western Canada don't get gas cheaper rate than the rest of the country. The idea is that since the west can use its own oil which was being sold at a cheaper rate than the oil bought on the world market for eastern Canada then we ought to pay extra so that the price of oil can be subsidized in the east. Actually I think the east also had to pay this tax but then it is not really a tax because they should have been paying the market price to begin with. If they had paid the market price then their prices would have been higher yet because they wouldn't have been getting the subsidy from the west to reduce the cost of their oil. Since Canadian oil is now to be sold at world prices I also presume that when world prices go down so will ours so maybe this increase is not such a bad idea. I am not opposed to paying world prices for oil but I am sick and tired of governments placing taxes on my gas to finance their ill-conceived plans. Just out of interest what is the price of gas in your area? Here in Vancouver the predominate price at a self serve station seems to be 50.4 cents/litre for regular and 52.2 for regular unleaded as of Friday November 9th. Donald Acton
carlo@oscvax.UUCP (11/13/84)
> Just out of interest what is the price of gas in your area? Here in >Vancouver the predominate price at a self serve station seems to be >50.4 cents/litre for regular and 52.2 for regular unleaded as of Friday >November 9th. As of Nov. 13, gas prices in Toronto were approx. 47.9 for regular. Prices in Kitchener/Waterloo were 43.5 for regular (going up to 49.9 with the end of a local gas "war"). -- Carlo Sgro Ontario Science Centre, Toronto ...!{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!oscvax!carlo "Don't touch that dial!"