Gas prices have hit record highs in North Bay after a price hike Thursday.
Pumps are charging over $1.85 a litre of regular, up another dime from yesterday.
Eagle's Nest, just outside city limits on Highway 17 west, is selling a litre at $1.57.7, almost 20 cents a litre cheaper than North Bay proper.
Ontario drivers were warned this week to expect a big jump in the price of gasoline. Dan McTeague, the president of a group called Canadians for Affordable Energy, told CTV this week that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is helping drive the high cost of fuel even higher, warning prices would only get higher in the coming weeks and months.
The NDP re-tabled the Fairness in Petroleum Products Pricing Act this week, a bill previously brought forward in 2017 and 2018 but failed to reach the finish line either time. It would require the Ontario Energy Board to regulate the retail price and wholesale mark-up of petroleum products in Ontario.
Timmins NDP MPP Gilles Bisson is heading the effort and told Sudbury.com last year that people in northern Ontario are being charged more for gas “simply because they can” be.
"Gas prices are hitting northern and rural Ontarians especially hard — they pay the highest price for gas in the province."
It was just two years ago that Premier Doug Ford promised his government would tackle the "totally unfair" practice of charging northern drivers much higher prices than those in southern Ontario.
Nothing has changed and there has been no evidence of any effort to control northern prices.
See: Gas price difference in northern Ontario 'totally unfair' says Ford
Toronto drivers are facing a record-high gas price of $1.67 per litre, still well below what North Bay drivers are facing.
The NDP’s bill would fix the maximum price of fuels so they are the same across the province, with changes made on a weekly basis by factoring crude oil value, the cost of refining, transportation and room for profit.
"At a time when the cost of housing, child care, groceries and everything else is rising fast, record-high gas prices are taking a big bite of our family budgets,” said NDP leader Andrea Horwath. “Doug Ford had three years to fix this problem and stop the gouging. But, like the Liberals, he’s siding with his buddies in the oil and gas industries, and the rest of us are paying for it.
“You’re getting gouged at the gas pump. Let’s fix it.”
Meanwhile, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Ontario Premier Doug Ford to implement his promised 5.7 cents per litre gas tax cut right away as Ontario drivers confront record-high gas prices.
“Hardworking Ontarians have been waiting four years for Ford to make good on his commitment to cut the gas tax and it’s high time that he delivers,” said Ontario CTF Director Jay Goldberg. “Taxpayers are facing the highest inflation levels in over thirty years and soaring living costs. The need for a provincial gas tax cut has never been clearer.”
During the 2018 election campaign, Ford promised to cut the provincial gas excise tax by 5.7 cents per litre. In November of last year, Ford reiterated his commitment to implement the tax cut by March 31, 2022.
“Every Ontario family could use extra money in their wallets and Ford has the opportunity to make that happen,” said Goldberg. “A family filling up a minivan and a sedan once a week stands to save over $390 a year through Ford’s promised tax cut. That’s two weeks of groceries for a family of four.”
Ontario drivers currently pay 48 cents of tax on every litre of fuel at the pumps. The federal government is set to drive that up to 50 cents per litre with an expected carbon tax hike on April 1.
With files from Sudbury.com
