From the Constituency Office of Niagara Falls, Ontario Riding MPP Wayne Gates
December 22nd, 2015
Niagara Falls, Ontario – Niagara Falls NDP MPP and Transportation Critic Wayne Gates is concerned consumers have yet to see any substantial savings at the pump with the continued slide in oil prices.
“Ontarians have seen the price of oil consistently decline, but drivers have yet to see any savings at the pump,” stated Gates. “When I initially brought this issue forward, the price of a barrel of oil was roughly $46. Today it’s nearly $35, but for some reason drivers in Niagara haven’t witnessed any substantial savings.”
The price of oil has trended downward over the past two months—reaching $36 USD a barrel today. However, the average price of gas in Ontario still sits at 97 cents a litre. BMO economist Benjamin Reitzes noted earlier this month that gasoline prices are not correlating with this drop in crude oil prices.
“At this time of year especially, families are looking for some financial relief,” stated Gates. “With food banks at capacity in the region, it would be nice for families to have a little extra money to go towards food.”
Gates has called on the Liberal Government to examine regulations that protect Ontario drivers from price gouging at the pump. Currently, five Canadian provinces have regulations surrounding gasoline sales.
“I will continue to press the Liberal Government to take serious action to protect Ontario drivers from unfair prices at the pump,” noted Gates. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: people are being gouged and it needs to stop.”
A Brief Footnote on this from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper –
I’m no fan at all of fossil fuels, but to the extent we still need a gas-driven car to get around, drive it across the border and fill your tank at a pump in the Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York area if you want to save on gas.
Strange as it is after all the work the recently ousted Harper government put into making Canada one of the world’s most prosperous petro states, and even with Canada’s petro loonie becoming more worthless by the week, pulling up to a pump on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo is still a better deal!
And while you are over there you might still want to do a little shopping because a range of items from books to a tin of coffee remain a better deal too.
Here we have all these Bay Street-sponsored financial analysts in Canada trying to tell us the sinking dollar is good because it makes whatever products we still manufacture in this country cheaper for other regions of the world to buy. Yet here we are more than a year in to this dollar drop and we don’t see any real growth in manufacturing jobs in Canada. In fact, this fall the overall jobless rate in Niagara and many other regions of the country went up.
As for the cost of purchasing retail products, because most of these products are purchased in other regions of the world and we are buying them with a loonie now worth less than three U.S. quarters, Canadians consumers are paying more at the cash register to. A recently published economic forecast predicted that the average Canadian household will pay at least $350 more for groceries this coming year, which is particularly hurtful to lower income people who already struggling to pay the bills’.
This is just some of the mess the Harperites, who claimed only they could be trusted to drive the economic wheels of the country, have left for the new government in Ottawa and rest of us to clean up.
NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.
Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary for and from the greater bi-national Niagara region.
Niagara At Large 