Now look at Europe and Japan, where taxes are high but more people take clean, efficient public transit. Canadians often complain that our gas taxes, and pump prices, are far higher than they are south of the border. But measured against the rest of the world, our prices are low. In March of this year the weighted average price of regular, unleaded gas in Canada was 72.4 cents a litre. Even in Canada, taxes make up a smaller share of the price of gas than they did in 1989, when a litre cost 51.7 cents and taxes accounted for 22.8 cents of that.
Nobody likes taxes.
Nobody likes high gas prices. But the culprit in the recent price rise is OPEC, not Ottawa. Let's not try to ease our pain by doing something that defies fiscal, economic and environmental common sense. Back to the articles index. Back to the main page.