Canada's Prime Minister Steven Harper
The Prime Minister on High Gas Prices..
PM Harper says Canadians hit hard by High Gas Prices should not look to Ottawa for relief at the Pumps..
Harper says that the ability of the Government to affect the price of gasoline is so small that it is not worth doing at all...
The PM says that the Energy Prices in his belief will continue to rise and you can not fool the Public into thinking otherwise.
In response to a question on Fuel Prices, the PM said that the “ability of the Government to affect the Price of Gasoline per se is so small that it is not worth doing”.
“What you’ve really got to do is lower the costs for consumers generally, rather than try to fight the upward trend in the Price of Gasoline”
The PM also said that overall Tax Cuts, like the two percentage points his government taken off the GST (goods and services tax), from 7% to 5%, are the best way to bring saving s to consumers.
Pump prices have risen 11.6 per cent from last April, while fuel oil and other fuels surged 36.9 per cent...
...ON THE OTHER HAND
Oil Prices have doubled from where they were a year ago, surpassing a record $132 US on commodities market yesterday. Yet the Prices at the Pump while painfully high have not doubled.
According to this week’s survey of pump prices by consulting firm M.J. Ervin, Canadians paid an average $1.27 per litre. Last May, a year ago today, the average was about $1.12 a litre, the difference of average 15 cents...
The Price of the crude oil last May was $66 a barrel and this May $132, the difference of $66..yearly double...
The average increase of 15 cents a litre is Big, but not as Dramatic as that of the Crude oil and why it that so?
There are other costs involved in the processing of fossil fuels into gasoline. You wouldn’t get a match to match increase in prices.
The increasingly very expensive raw product, the Crude is an important part of the equation, but there are other costs, like taxes as well as refining and marketing cost that well determine the final pump price.
Also the Fact that the Canadian Dollar is now in Parity with its US counterpart also keep pump prices relatively lower, since oil is benchmarked in U.S. currency..
