Customers relieved, for now, as gas prices fall at B.C. pumps after death of the carbon tax
Several Vancouver gas stations had the price for regular gasoline at $1.72 per litre on Tuesday morning, down about 20 cents from Monday, when prices were nearing $2.
By midday, GasBuddy.com showed most gas stations in the city had regular gasoline at between $1.71 and $1.78 a litre. The cheapest gas in Metro was in Aldergrove, at $1.66.
Josh Edwards had been biding his time, waiting for the end of the carbon tax before filling up his Volvo sedan at the Chevron station on Main Street and East 12th Avenue.
He welcomed the end of the unpopular tax, even though he was skeptical whether the savings would last long.
'It's good if they actually gave the savings back to the people,' he said. 'I hope so.'
He's noticed the steady rise of gas prices over the last week, jumping to about $1.96 on Monday and taking a bite of the savings that kicked in because of the repeal of the tax.
'Early last week, we were pretty close in price, and I saw it jump up until yesterday.'
He doesn't know what accounted for those increases, but said, 'it's a little strange, if you ask me.'
Several drivers at the gas station also commented on the run-up in price.
'I guess they have to make a few bucks,' said Rob Knight, who likes to fill up in Vancouver rather than Bowen Island, where he lives part-time, because gas there is more expensive.
He didn't mind the carbon tax, even though he might not have got the same amount back in carbon tax rebates issued by the B.C. government.
'I don't think people understood it,' he said of the tax, which the Conservative parties in B.C. and Ottawa pledged to axe long before the B.C. NDP and federal Liberals acted to remove it. 'It's getting cancelled for political reasons.'
The NDP government fast-tracked its legislation to kill the tax on Monday, in time to coincide with today's demise of the federal version of the tax. The B.C. law, introduced Monday morning, got final approval at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The tax had been in place since 2008, when B.C. became the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a broad-based carbon levy.
Premier David Eby said Monday that the tax played an important role for many years, but it became 'toxic' as a result of campaigns by the B.C. and federal Conservative parties.
He told reporters he expected British Columbians to save 17 cents a litre starting Tuesday, and warned oil and gas companies that the tax repeal should be reflected in the prices at the pump.
'Now is not a time to be playing games with essentials for British Columbians or Canadians as a whole,' said Eby on Monday.
Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at gas tracking site GasBuddy.com, said Tuesday he expects relief in the order of 15 cents a litre at the pumps, accounting for other factors that affect the price.
'Gas prices move for many different reasons all at the same time,' he said, pointing to spring refinery maintenance, refineries switching to making summer grade fuel, and increased demand as the weather warms.
A refinery fire in Northern California in February also pinched the market all along the west coasts of Canada and the U.S., said De Haan.
'Unfortunately there are some abnormal circumstances happening there preventing this 17.6 cent rollback from being visible' in B.C., he said.
De Haan is expecting the cost of diesel to come down by more than 20 cents a litre, which should have positive ripple effects on the overall economy as it lowers costs for truck drivers, farmers and other users of that fuel.
GasBuddy had the national average for a litre of regular unleaded gasoline at $1.52 a¢¢ litre, a drop of 3.1 cents, around midday Tuesday. But De Haan said that data tends to lag what stations are actually posting as price reports from volunteers come in. The GasBuddy system may also need time to validate such a big drop.
One of Prime Minister Mark Carney's first actions when he took office last month was to do away with the federal consumer carbon charge, which had previously been set at $80 per tonne — an amount that has increased yearly since it was first imposed in 2019.
For Vhea Balbin, who was filling up in Vancouver after school, the price at the pump — about $1.70 a litre for regular — came as a pleasant surprise.
She wasn't aware of the carbon tax repeal, she said, but was happy to see the price drop.
'I'm glad it's cheaper today. I don't know if there's any cons to that.'
chchan@postmedia.com
With files from The Canadian Press
Cross-border travel from B.C. to Washington state plummets
B.C. ends its carbon tax on consumers after marathon debate in legislature
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