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Gas Price regulations; another case of let them eat cake |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
The government of Nova Scotia continues to stick it to us with their regulated gas prices. At the end of this dissertation, I have attached a link to the Weekly Gas Price Survey compiled by MJ Ervin & Associates Inc. It makes for interesting reading. Maybe someone should forward a copy to Jamie Muir, the minister in charge of the debacle.
It boggles the mind that a resident of Campbellton, a hoot and a holler from the Quebec border, who has their gas trucked from Saint John, about five hours away, pays two cents less a liter than the residents of HRM who have a major refinery in their backyard.
In Fredericton, the price of a liter of regular gas today is 129.3. Here we are stuck a 132.1 despite the continuing drop in the price of oil per barrel. Why?
First, and this concerns me greatly, the people who insist on keep gas price regulation in place do not suffer the same pain as Joe Citizen. The members of cabinet are all on nice fat expense accounts and couldn’t care less about the price of gas. We, the overburdened taxpayers are picking up their tab every month. Heck, every one of the 52 elected members of the Legislature, regardless of political stripe, is riding on our dime.
And there is another aspect to this exercise. The higher the price of gas, the more in tax revenues the government pockets, unlike New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island where their governments gave drivers a bit of relief by reducing the tax at the pump.
Our man Rodney MacDonald, probably the most inept individual ever to occupy the premier’s office, continues to insist that the tax dollars are needed for the upkeep of our highways. A forensic audit of the gas tax might prove interesting. Determine how much is funneled back to the roads and how much is siphoned (no pun intended) off for other uses?
Hiding behind regulations they developed that are administered by faceless bureaucrats is not the way to help a struggling population. The high cost of gasoline and home heating oil is killing a lot of small businesses. Tourism and the RV industry is staggering. Camp ground owners are having their worst season ever. Prices of food and other trucked-in commodities are rising, and the worst is yet to come.
As the summer slips by, and the fall and cooler days get closer, the real nightmare, heating our homes, will kick in. Unlike the last couple of years when hundreds or maybe a thousand or two needed help, there are going to be thousands of Nova Scotians struggling to keep the oil barrel filled or trying to pay their electric bill. Is there a plan in place to address this? Based on what we have seen to date from this inept lot, I highly doubt it.
The national average of a price of regular gas is 129.2 a liter. Fredericton, an hour away from the closest refinery, is at the national average. Halifax, with the Esso refinery smack dab in the middle of it, is three cents a liter over.
The performance of this government is, in a word, pathetic.
Log on and read the chart below ….. better still, send a copy to Rodney and Jamie. Maybe, just maybe, they will suddenly clue in.
http://www.mjervin.com/WPPS_Public.htm
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