Crooks! All of Them!

These days, the price of a litre of gas looks more and more like the frequency to your favourite radio station. Just this morning, I was witness to prices ranging from (in Canadian pennies) 102.1 to 107.9 Toronto’s best fuel Mix.

Now those of you who are reading this in Europe won’t find this very high at all—since you’re used to paying much more for your fuel. Those of you in the US reading this may think it’s a steal because you will have overlooked the word “litre” and automatically assumed “Gallon”.

I’m not going to complain about the price of fuel these days. It’s a futile endeavour. What I will take exception with is the price gouging going on in this country, or at least in this province.

You see, In Canada—I don’t know about other places so I won’t comment—individual gas stations set their own prices at any time—and frequently throughout the day. Regardless of location or company, an Esso in Toronto will have a different price/litre than an Esso only 5 blocks away. This little fact alone is annoying, but when you take into consideration the fact that the price between the two can differ up to 10 cents/litre, now you’re talking shady price-fixing.

tr.v. goug·ing: informal. To extort from

Frequently, you’ll see throughout the day, gas stations from opposing companies, on opposing corners of an intersection changing their prices. One will go down, then the other will follow. Then one will go up, and the other will do the same. Sometimes this can help the consumer, after all, competition is good right? But what I don’t get is when one station jumps their price up by 5 or 6 cents and then so does the other station. This has nothing to do with the fact the price of a barrel of oil went up, they’re still pumping the same gas they were when the price was 5 cents lower! It has everything to do with the fact that these companies are greedy and unscrupulous.

Collusion comes to mind.

Collusion happens when rival companies cooperate for their mutual benefit.

— Definition of collusion from Wikipedia.com

Collusion is against the law in Canada and the US. Collusion is also very difficult to prove. Price gouging is also illegal.

This past Saturday, Tanya and I went out to a nice dessert place in Woodbridge (just north of Toronto) with some friends. I clearly remember seeing the price at a nearby gas bar (it was 99.9 cents/litre) because I had filled up before we left for about 105.9 cents/litre near my house, and I was feeling a Slightly raped.

Literally one hour later, we left the dessert place feeling happier and full of sugar when I glanced over at the same station that had gas at 99.9 cents/litre only an hour before. This time the price was 108.7 cents/litre! That’s almost a 10 cent change in an hour! I quickly turned the radio on expecting to hear news of some catastrophe that may have occurred wiping out a quarter of the planet’s oil reserve, but no such news was breaking.

No, this was just one more example of those evil blood-sucking oil fuckers extorting as much money from us as possible.

Of course, every station around them had their prices set at a similar rate…

…Too bad there is no evidence of collusion or price fixing eh?