Why an investigation into gas prices will come up empty

Of course an investigation will show nothing. All the big talk by governments {both Canada and US} will get no answer or some garbage that will sound like the oil companys are going broke. There is always an excuse to take advantage of the consumer and governments will put on a concerned face to show they care when they are really no different from big oil companys. Taxes on fuel are huge and there is no way that Federal or provincial governments are going to let anything happen to those taxes. I predicted this was going to happen almost two years ago. Speculation on oil took off again even though governments said that wouldn't happen and is going to cripple our economy again. As much as we try not to buy gas we have no choice. It's the other things we buy that drive the economy that will suffer and when we go into another recession there will be no bail out this time.One oil company has already shown a profit of 30 billion dollars and these same compays are subsidised by our tax dollars. What is wrong with this picture. Do you think you'll be subsidised when your out of work. Are we being gouged? Of course we are. Is there anything we can do about it. Of course not. Governments can't touch these companys and big oil could care less what you or anyone else thinks about them. Solutions? Buy less gas. Walk or take tranist if you can. Stop buying things like food and what ever else they sell in these gas stations.That is a rip-off to. It just shows you have money to spare if your wasting it on over inflated products like sandwichs and chips and pop. You can buy those thing for half the cost at a grocery store. My advice is hang on to your hats because here we go again and this time it will be worse. I wonder if our Fore Fathers had this in mind when they came to the new world. Greed at an unprecidented scale.

The oil companys have been fixing prices since the discovery of oil. My father was a sales representative with a major oil company in the 60's - 70's. I remember going out at night as a boy with my dad while he was reading the competitors gas pumps and reported the readings to head office so the powers to be could adjust the prices accordingly. This was done to maintain market share (price).

This problem will never be fixed, the oil companys pay and elect our government officials. The most powerful lobbyist groups in Ottawa and Washington are major oil companys. This is just another dog and pony show by Mr. Clement to make it look like he acually cares. Our government officials are nothing more than spineless wimps and the psychopathic oil companys are just way to smart for them. The oil companys dictate policy to governments !!!!!! Oil companys have control of the largest military in the world and completely ran the White House for both Bush administrations.

American oil companys are taking our natural resource (oil) and selling it to our American counter parts for nearly $2.00 a gallon less than we are paying as Canadians. Again, our spineless politicians are standing by while the Canadian citizans take it up the rear.

God help us all !!!! We are going to need it.

Keith...YOU HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD, WAKE UP CANADA, WE PAY MORE AT THE PUMPS THAN THE USA, AND THEY BUY OIL FROM CANADA!!!!

Previous governments in the US were able to break up Standard oil to the benefit of the whole North American Economy. What has Canada done recently? Well if memory serves they sold the Nationally owned Petro Canada. What will most Canadians do about this state of affairs? Nothing. As a motivated Canadian the only thing that can be done is to minimize fuel consumption and wait for things to boil over in the US and then benefit from their changes. Our recent election results clearly demonstrate that Canadians choose to reward underhanded self serving politicians so you can't expect any change here at home.

Keith, how is that fixing prices? It is perfectly legal for every oil company to adjust their prices. There are clear laws in place that define what price fixing is. I work for a major oil company and work with setting prices. If you accuse me of price fixing, I will shove a gas pump down your throat. If I were in the business of selling some product, and the same product is sold by some of my competitors and they change their price, I would be stupid not to change mine. In the gasoline business, if one gas station doesn't increase their price to match others, then they get swamped and sold out very quickly. I recall back in the 80s when the majors were in the price war game. I was paying $0.18 per litre. The major companies were heavily criticized because this game put the small players out of business. We will never do that again. If you don't like the prices here, move to the US, but I doubt they will take you. And by the way, I live in Canada and work in the US and my oil company does sell Canadian crude to the US at a huge profit. We are a business, not a charity. I also pay the same high price at the pump as you do.

Well here in New Brunswick, we have a Gas Regulation Board. They have a formula based somehow on the price of oil on some New York market. They adjust the price for consumers
once a week on Thursdays. I like it, no daily changes to the price, all the stations are within a cent of each other. So this time, the price came down from $1.338 to 1.236 in my town in Bathurst.
Apparently we are the envy of the rest of Canada if the Saint John Telegraph is to be believed on their front page.

Don, Thank you for your post. I guess your are the guy we are all actually looking for, the guy that decides what gas prices should be. If you are this guy please give us some releif before the poor working people like me goes broke trying to get back and forth to work.

I'm also sorry for all your anger towards the many hard working people of this country that will not be able to afford such a necessary commodity like gasoline for there daily living so companies like yours show record or huge profits as mentioned in your post.

You will not be able to convince me or the majority of Canadians that we should be paying such a huge difference in fuel prices at the pumps to our American counter parts, while oil companies show record profits. We are an oil producing nation and as Canadians we should benifit from this resource, not the Americans. Like yourself and many others in the oil business your attitudes is Canadians just need to suck it up or shut up.

That truly is very said. You sir are the one that should move to the US, I'm proud to be Canadian,

Perhaps what we need is an investigation into refinery and distribution profits as well as net taxation levels. Oil companies are always quick to point out that oil prices are set by the markets, and that the stations they sell to make very little money and yet they rarely push to build new refineries. Perhaps the Chinese could refine the fuels for us and ship it over with all the other Walmart & Apple products coming from there?

The problem with Moffat's analysis is simple: in a freemarket system with healthy competition - the producer who lowers their price faster, should also see more customers switching to them.

His argument is that after a small drop, the consumers stop shopping around and so the pressure to reduce prices is lowered - fair enough, but that's not competition. Competition is going further to try to take customers away from complacent competitors.

THAT is what's not happening in Canada.

When you see line ups for a few cents difference in price, which happen regularly, the vendor who decided 'I'll lower mine another cent' should win.

But that doesn't happen. Almost everyone ends up at exactly the same price.

It's not a conspiracy - they don't get together in a darkened room somewhere and pick a price - it's a natural trend to settle to the same price to avoid competing.

So if we get another "investigation" into conspiracy and active collusion - they will, again, find none because there is none. What they need to investigate is why the gas market competes so weakly and what can be done to fix that.

Perhap this is one time where letting the Americans come in and compete with us on our soil might help...

@Don... actually I am not angry "towards the many hard working people of this country that will not be able to afford such a necessary commodity like gasoline for there daily living..." I am angry at those who think that we carry out illiegal activities to make a profit. Like I said, I too pay the high prices and I have family members that will have a difficult time. No one person sets the price. It is not as simple as some people may think. I would challenge anyone to step into the business and see what it is like. I recall back my early days, when we were being investigated and threatened with being regulated, my CEO said that would be the best situation for our company, guaranteed profit and gas prices would shoot so much higher in order to maintain the business as we are on a global market, and to pay for the added layer of bureaucracy. If the prices would be set too low, guess who would end paying for the losses? Does Ont. Hydro ring a bell? As I said before, we do make huge profits selling crude to the US. When any Candian oil company tries to build a new refinery here is Canada, guess what happens? NIMBYism, high costs, and other barriers that make us take our business south of the border. Yes, some of the Americans complain about our dirty oil, but I have yet to see them turn it away. You say that Canada, being an oil producing nation, should benefit from this resource. Well what do you think we are doing? By the way, although I have the freedom to live and work in the US, I choose to live here in Canada. I earn my money in the US and spend 100% of it here in Canada even though I am a 5 min drive from the US border. Some local people I know shop almost exclusively in the US. I hope they don't call themselves proud Canadians.

Why is everyone so worried or upset about gas prices? Don't you all know that the world is going to come to an end on May 21?

Like the banks when they all initiated monthly fees. They all had record profits the next few years. They told us it was a coincidence. The oil companies are no different. yes growing up I remember oil companies competing with each other, and then they came to their senses. Why are they killing each other? We all need to buy gas for our daily lives. If they all charge the same outrageous prices for the fuel then they all getting filthy rich. Like pigs at the trough. If you really want to send a message then everyone boycott 1 gas company for the entire month unless we see gas down to oh I don't knoe 80 cents a litre . I don't care what business school you went to or business book you read, if people are not buying your product you are not making money. I myseld built a device for my truck that tells the engine to add more air to the fuel mix. As you know from High school fire needs 3 elements. Fuel, heat and oxygen. By adding more air you intensify the flame and make more power at the piston therefore needing less fuel. I am saving 25% plus in fuel economy. No difference in drivability. If interested I can be reached for more info or demo at gouging.at.the.pumps@hotmail.com / if it does not work on your vehicle then you are on your way with no cost to you.

The problem facing us it that Mulroney sold us out when he put gas and oil into free trade and then it's based on world pricing.
The big fix is to take it out of free trade and if the Americans don't like that then tell them to take their free trade and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

To add insult to injury, none of the foreign companies in the oilsands are Canadian and very few pay taxes or royalties, only when they show a profit from their oilsands development.
Yeah, wait for that day.
Does anybody think any of these clowns are going to clean up after themselves!!
All the provincial and federal goverments are interested in doing is collecting taxes from people employed in the oil industry.
Don't hold your breath waiting for Harper or his stooges to fix anything.
He's just another undercover easterner.
We were better off in Alberta before all the foreign companies snuck in here and now all that happens is we get our pockets picked by them and government.

It makes me wonder how a young fellow still wet behind the ears such as Jason Buckland can blame the gas stations for setting the prices in Canada when parent companies are the ones who tell the stations what to charge.
I think that it is high time that the Federal Government lower the taxes on fuel.
We can blame McGuinty for HST in Ontario for our higher prices but that doesn't explain why the prices in other provinces are higher than here and they aren't collecting it.
The truth of the matter is that in all factions of the economy there are far to many greedy people using necessary sevices to bilk the population for higher wage increases that we can no longer afford.
When the economy is suffering it is up to all of us to take a hit at not asking for pay raises, not just th non union sectors that cannot afford it anymore as they have no other place to go for more money to cover expenses that are already too high.
Take Ontario hydro for instance, anybody checked into their hikes in wages over the last ten years and how many of their employees are over the 6 figure mark. This amounts to a further question of how are they going to eliminate the debt retirement charge if they keep getting wages increased.
Figures show that approximately 5% of the rich control 95% of the poor which in turn causes crime increases but unfortunately it is our good neighbours who bear the brunt from the suffering that criminasl attack when they are short of cash.
Again Canadians should be forcing the Goverment to make crime their priority and that goes for all Canadians and Foreigners in this country alike.
Where do the judges get their direction on fairness when a woman can be driving carelessly in the GTA and get her sentence dropped to a misdemenor and fined $500. after taking someones life.
Oh! I forgot to mention the fact that the woman who died was in her 80's so I guess the judge figured she wasn't very important at that age or the fact that she was somebodies mother, sister, aunt, etc.
Come on Canada wake up and start speaking up.

Moffat's heads is up his.. lalaland if he thinks comparison shopping will bring prices down. As the owner of a gas station making $.006 margin in a competitive marketplace where current retaill is $1.339, no amount of shopping is going to drive prices down. Taxes on fuel are only eclipsed by those on tobacco! Ten years ago, our margins on fuel were close to $.06 cents per liter when gas was approx $.699 per liter. A margin of 10%!! I wish I could see even half that now. Ask the gov't how much more they have gained in tax revenue from the retail market. It's simply time to review the tax structure. Nothing else will bring fuel costs down.

I'm thinking the politicians are not going to find any reason the oil companies are in collusion with each other for raising the price of gas, I think the politicians are in collusion with the oil companies, higher prices means higher taxes and that will benefit the politicians who are in power and it must be known by now that the politicians are not working for the people who vote for them but only for themselves as their benefits are increasing the longer they will stay in power.

Don,
You are a greedy idiot, unfairly filthy rich, ignorant and pathetic. You are spending American money in Canada and call yourself a "proud" Canadian. You are a stupid North-American, snotty and who deserves a kick in the butt. You are going to get it big time and very soon if this abusive practice by the oil companies will keep going. The Arab countries are a very good example of what might happen to the rich thieves when they don't know when to stop.

oh Ketih, cry me a rive. If you cant afford it dont buy it. I find it odd that people are driving from Barrie and waterloo into the core of the city and then they complain about gas prices. Here's a tip, if your job and future drop prospects have a good chance at being in the downtown core then move there, dont drive 250km a day and complain about gas prices. I hope gas hit $2.50 a litre so we can clear up all this clutter on the roads.

Keith, maybe you should do a little research. Why do we sell oil to the US at one price and buy it back at a higher rate ? The answer is that we DO NOT. We sell them RAW OIL and they process it and sell it back as a finished product. Just like if you make furniture, you buy the lumber at a lower price than you sell the table or chair at because you did work to tun it into a table or chair. The US has vastly more refineries than Canada has and that is even more true for processing the oil from the Oil Sands.

Dave, you are wrong as are most people who look at the taxes on Oil. As I have stated MANY times, most the government taxes on gas (except HST) are EXCISE taxes meaning they are PER UNIT. You seem to be confusing them with an AD VALORUM which is proprtional to value. The excise portion is much higher than the AV portion and so the government would make MORE by selling more units (litres) which they would do at a lower price. But go ahead and keep spouting your uneducated BS.

Brad, you cannot just attempt to "close" a market and assume that will fix things. For one, as I pointed out above we cannot refine our own oil so it does not matter how much we take out of the ground, the supply at the pumps will remain the same. Nobody will build new refineries and I can't see the whiners in Canada wanting the government to spend the hundreds of Billions it would take to be self sufficent (this doesn't even begin to address the environment issues surrounding them). Secondly, you need a military to enforce the closed market because if not, people like me will buy gas in a tanker truck at say 50 cents a litre and drive the hour to the US and sell it there until all the tanks here are empty anyways. You cannot have a closed market on a commodity like that unless you are willing to militarily enforce it against your own people.

But I guess for most of you hippocrates, that would be fine with you. Just so long as I'm not destroying downtown Toronto in my "peaceful" G8 protest. Then when the cops do something according to you it is un-Canadian, and an overreaction.

The simple reason why gas is at this absurd price is because we as the people let it be at this price instead of banding together as a nation and not buy a single litre of gas to show our discontent with the gas companies pricing and with the government lack of action on the absurd prices. Their current show is just that just a show to make it look like they are actually listening to the people. Trust me if we would just band together for one week and not buy a single litre of gas in canada, the oil companies would definetely take notice of that. They count on canadians to whine but do nothing attitude, they mock us buy giving lame excuses on why the price jumps overnight but take forever to come down. The classic one is that some distaster or war happens somewhere that disrupts the production of gas and the price skyrockets overnight, then after that is over they give the excuse that price will fall slowly because the gas out there was produced at a higher price and it takes time to work its way throught the system. Well if thats the case then how does the price jump overnight, the price increase using that analogy would slowly increase not overnight, because you would have to use up all the reserves produced at the lower rate before the price would increase. The reason it jumps because the gas companies using any excuse to make it rise and resist the call for the price to drop quickly as it rises. The gov sits there with its hands up its ass with a do nothing attitude, because they reap a huge tax winfall because of the high prices. If the gov was really serious about doing something, they would stop speculation in the market, they could easily have a made in canada price and world selling price. Lots of countries that produce oil have it. They should also end all subsidies towards gas companies. Its insane to give them money when they are pulling record profits in the billions of dollar. I was watching a congressional meeting on tv, it took place in the states and they had the heads of major oil companies there. The had the gall to say hands off our subsidy and threaten to stop exploring for oil. What a crock of crap from the oil companies, nobody with half a brain would believe that they would stop exploring for oil because of lack of subsidies. If I was the gov the moment the execs of the oil companies even dared to threaten that move, I would revoke all of their oil rights to any land. But we live in society made up with complacent people and governed by people who are gutless to actually stand up to these companies and do what will have the people financially survive. Their lack of action actually hurts the economy and cause inflation on many products. Many of us need gas to get to work which means we have to cut back on our decretionary spending on other things.