On July 14, the average price of gas in Canada was 137.8 per litre, according to gasbuddy.com.
Across the provinces, the cheapest gas around was unsurprisingly found in Alberta, with an average of 129.5. The highest? British Columbia (also unsurprisingly), with an average of 153.9.
In our fair province, the cheapest gas to be found on July 14 was at a Fas Gas Plus in the small city of Enderby, south of Salmon Arm: a downright miraculous $1 per litre (seriously… how? The next lowest was 131.9 at a Husky in Sparwood).
On the comparatively remote West Coast of Vancouver Island, you would have paid 160.9 stopping in Ucluelet on July 14. And across the Georgia Strait, in Tsaawwassen, you would have seen prices in the 166.9-range—likely the highest in the entire province.
And up the Sea to Sky highway, in Whistler, gas was listed at 161.9 on July 14, where it has hovered for months. Pemberton showed similar prices, give or take a penny or two.
According to the Government of Canada, there are four key factors influencing gas pricing across the country: taxes, competition and consumer choice, the amount sold, and the type and location of stations.
But to Jordan Sturdy, longtime Pemberton farmer and former MLA, when looking at Vancouver and the Sea to Sky, the math just doesn’t add up.
In a July 9 post on Facebook, Sturdy called on residents to write the premier and energy minister while comparing gas prices in Langley (149.9) and Pemberton (161.9).
Fuel prices in Metro Van, which includes Langley, are inflated by taxes of 27 cents, Sturdy said: 1.75 to general revenue, 6.75 to the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, and 18.5 to Translink.
In the Sea to Sky, taxes amount to 14.5 cents, he noted: 7.75 to general revenue, and 6.75 to the BCTFA.
“In other words, after pulling out all the taxes the price of fuel in Langley would be 122.9 and on the same day in Pemberton (or Whistler or Squamish) the price of gas without taxes would be 147.4, a 24.5-cent difference,” he wrote. “The question has to be ‘why?’”
It’s a question Sturdy has been asking for years, both during his time in the legislature and in the pages of Pique. And it’s not exactly a new revelation. Back in 2019, Sturdy noted, the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) collected all the data needed for a proper submission to the Canadian Competition Bureau. And in 2021, the BCUC acknowledged the issue.
“Retail prices in regions adjacent to regions with higher fuel taxes (e.g., Vancouver) exhibit similar pump prices to those in higher tax regions despite lower tax rates (e.g., Squamish),” it said in a release at the time. And while Squamish drivers were paying significantly less tax at the pump compared to Vancouver—39 cents to 52, respectively—Squamish gas stations were taking an average of 20 cents in their retail profit, while Vancouver stations only took five.
More than four years later, nothing has changed—Sea to Sky drivers are still getting hosed at the pumps.
“It’s disappointing … that the minister seems unwilling to take existing data and create a submission to the competition bureau,” Sturdy said in a follow-up phone call with Pique.
“Because at the end of the day, the competition bureau may just say, well, you need more competition. But it just seems that we are paying so much more money both in the Sea to Sky and on the Sunshine Coast than virtually anybody else in the province. It extracts tens of millions of dollars out of our pockets on an annual basis if that spread was annualized.”
In the Sea to Sky, the margins for fuel stations are “enormous,” Sturdy added, “and I guess the perception is we just have to accept it.”
For a government that talks a big game about affordability, “it certainly seems to me that it’s a very low-hanging piece of fruit. They have all the data,” he said.
“Obviously with the carbon tax gone, that’s made a significant difference, but the fact that we’re still 20-some-odd cents higher than Vancouver, it’s craziness.”
The army of Tesla drivers in Whistler, and the cyclists and the e-bike brigade will smugly look on all this and scoff—tell the rest of us to get with the times and upgrade to something better for the planet (and our wallets).
But while it’s easy to talk ideals, the reality on the ground is much more difficult for many drivers. Purchasing a car is a major decision—one some people will only make a few times in their life, if that. Ditching internal combustion engines for good is necessary, but it’s still going to take some time. We still need gas stations, and it would be great to not get ripped off in the meantime.
And whether or not you’re fuelling up yourself, high local fuel costs impact all of us—at the grocery store, at the restaurants, built in to the products we buy, because the bottom line of businesses takes the hit.
Sturdy said he’s spending upwards of $20,000 a year on fuel for his farm.
“Maybe it’s not collusion in the way that we think of it in a formal sense, of they all get together in the middle of the night over cigars and decide how much to charge us for fuel,” he said. “But we’re missing something in the Sea to Sky that the rest of the province, virtually, doesn’t have to deal with.”
Pique reached out to both the premier’s office and the energy minister, but did not receive a response before our weekly press deadline. We’ll update the web version of this story at piquenewsmagazine.com when and if we have more info to share.
In the meantime, you can contact them yourself at [email protected] and [email protected].
