By Armchair Mayor

Calling BS on excuses for getting hosed at the pump

Mar 22, 2018 | 5:00 AM

MUST BE SPRING — gas prices are about to go up again.

There are all kinds of excuses whenever it happens — refineries shutting down for maintenance, fluctuations in supply and demand, more cars on the road. One year, it was blamed on the Ukraine.

An expert predicts a litre of regular will soon cost around $1.60 down at the Coast. With the difference in taxes, that would mean something like $1.30 in the Interior, and that’s nowhere near a record — we’ve edged into the 1.40s at times.

If I could actually predict what’s going to happen at the pump with any certainty, I might hang out a shingle and charge for it.

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One thing we know about around here is wild fluctuations. One day it’s $1.07.9 a litre, the next day it hits $1.20.9, and nobody has an explanation.

Supposedly, distance explains variations from one place to another. Kamloops is generally a few cents cheaper than Vernon, for example, but I have yet to figure out why Falkland should be less than Kamloops on some days.

Prince George residents, by the way, were paying 11 cents less than we were yesterday. Figure that one out.

And why is it that as soon as the snow melts, gas prices take off? Why is it that refineries suddenly have a need to send gas prices skyward when we hit the Victoria Day long weekend? Or, it seems, any other long weekend?

None of it makes sense to me. No matter how much gas is available, and no matter what the prices, we still drive as much from one day to the next. And I can’t remember the last time local stations ran out of gas.

Some experts say the Trans Mountain pipeline will lower gas prices, others say no. I side with the latter — I doubt Kinder Morgan is spending billions on a pipeline so it can give us cheaper gas.

No matter what, we’re going to keep getting hosed at the pump.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.