Be Careful What You Wish For

"With the popularity of gas-guzzling SUVs and other land barges, I'm amazed at consumers' surprise and anger at increased gas prices...I support much higher taxes -- doubling the price of gas would be a good start -- that would put an end to this waste of an irreplaceable resource."
--Raymond Perrin, Ottawa, as published in yesterday's Globe and Mail


A-plus for sentiment, Ray ol' pal, but an F for thoughtlessness.

Gas is now sitting at around $1.35 a liter here in Waterloo Region. That's $5.10 a U.S. gallon. Last I looked it's $1.46/L (~$5.52/gallon) in Montreal and even higher in Vancouver.

These prices are dirt-cheap by European standards, of course. But they remain considerably higher than U.S. retails. Only in California are prices even remotely comparable. This is a source of endless consternation in Canada, given that we supply the United States with approximately half of its oil.

Taxes are the main culprit after initial costs. Which begs the question: what is this money spent on? We have always been told that fuel taxes pay for road upkeep. Actually finding out what governments do with tax monies collected is a nontrivial exercise. If you've ever been on a U.S Interstate outside of Michigan, you know Americans manage to keep their roads in much better shape with dramatically lower taxes. Ten times the population does have its advantages.

In my moments of insanity, I find myself echoing Raymond: the first thing we'll do is double the price of gas. Then I remind myself that I like to eat occasionally. That clothes are nice to have at least some of the time. And that there are people in this country--many of them--who don't have the ability to just walk to the store on account of them not living in the city.

Raymond's Canada doesn't include...most of Canada. Oh, how nice it would be to just fold up the landscape the way you fold a map: St.John's to Victoria in five easy steps. Unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way. Most of what we buy is trucked in over distances that beggar the imagination. Michelina's  frozen dinners, for instance, were at one point made in Canada, packaged in the States, and re-exported back to us.

You can eat local, right? If you're lucky enough to live in Southern Ontario, the Annapolis or the Okanagan, you can even eat a wide variety of local foods...for about seven months out of the year. Otherwise...well, good luck growing anything here:

Yes, Europe manages to survive and even thrive with much higher fuel taxation. Europe also has this nifty neato thing called intracity public transit. We should really try it here. Except there are countries in Europe that aren't much bigger than some of the counties in Ontario.

Double the price at the pumps and the economy will go poof. Maybe that's what Raymond wants to see happen, but I'd rather not see it happen here.