Have we all yawned our way into complacency during these the dog days of summer? It’s a suitable term for humans, and I know it makes sense to the canine community!
With the driving season now in the sunset of high gasoline demand, and with pump and rack prices falling as a result, can we now go into coast mode? The real question is, why are prices falling, and do we really want to know the answer?
They are falling because we are facing an inflation pandemic.
According to those who know everything at the Bank of Canada, the only metaphorical vaccine, (as our bobble head parliamentarians nod in agreement or shrug), is to spike interest rates on the things we need and now cannot afford like housing and food to put on the table in those same houses.
The fossil fuel industry of course is the convenient target by politicians and our left leaning media.
I cite one Toronto newspaper that claims to be the one and only Toronto-based publication read across the entire country. In their “Business Brief,” they report that in the second quarter 2022, Imperial Oil posted a profit six times higher than the same period in 2021. In the next paragraph they trumpet that the federal government posted a surplus of $5.3 billion compared to a deficit of $23.8 billion over that same period.
Perhaps the editors should have added another paragraph stating that one of the reasons for the government surplus is that the oil industry performed so well for them.
The higher the rack price for gasoline and diesel, the higher the end price is for the consumer. As GST/HST is a percentage added on to the parade of other taxes, which are charged at a fixed rate, the higher GST/HST revenues that are accumulated from higher consumer prices for fossil fuels, all get funneled into the surplus trough.
May I suggest from the government’s perspective that the oil industry’s guided mission is to collect taxes and send them the cheque?
Without that cheque we would all be on welfare and who would pay for that? Do you want the chicken, or do you want the egg?
Fuel for thought.
Nah! It’s summer! Let’s just let sleeping dogs lie.
– Roger McKnight – B.Sc., Senior Petroleum Analyst
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