VANCOUVER – The price of regular gasoline has passed the $1 mark in a large Canadian city, apparently for the first time.
A Petro-Canada station in Vancouver boosted its price for regular gas to $1.01 a litre on Friday.
Gas-pump prices broke the $1 threshold last year or earlier at stations in some smaller cities such as Gander, Nfld.; Sydney, N.S.; Yellowknife and Whitehorse.
Gasoline prices are likely to rise further in coming weeks because the price of oil is at a record high and demand for gasoline usually goes up in the spring and summer.
Prices in Montreal are close to the $1 point, but they are averaging around 90 cents in Toronto and Ottawa. Drivers who shop carefully can still buy regular fuel in Calgary and Edmonton for about 85 cents.
On Prince Edward Island, where gasoline prices are set officially, the Regulatory and Appeals Commission pushed the regular self-serve price up by 4.3 cents on Friday, to 91.9 cents a litre.
Service Nova Scotia Minister Barry Barnett has proposed fixing fuel prices in his province, and he said again this week that regulation is the way to go.
Last year, his Conservative government introduced legislation to give Nova Scotia consumers 48 hours notice of gasoline price increases and to prepare for a regulatory system.
Opposition New Democrats and Liberals would not support the legislation, and it was shelved.
No conspiracy
The federal Competition Bureau announced results of another investigation into gasoline prices this week, and said its examination of complaints from last spring and summer found no evidence of price fixing.
The bureau said low North American inventories of gasoline and worldwide price increases for crude oil led to a rapid rise in retail prices.
Since 1990, the Competition Bureau has investigated allegations of collusion five times, and always found there was no sign of a conspiracy by the oil industry.
