Editor: Re: Jeff Nagel’s article, “Gas prices remain stubbornly high despite oil’s dive” (The Times, Aug 14).
Good report on the huge discrepancy between high gas prices and low crude oil prices, however not entirely believable.
Even after paying the 17 cent/litre TransLink and BC carbon tax, we pay up to 15 cents per litre more than the rest of Canada, but every year we get the same tired old excuses that west coast refinery capacity is the cause.
My assertion is it appears the petroleum producers are purposely restricting the supply to claim a shortage to jack up the prices.
They slow down west coast refinery production under the guise of maintenance shut down or upgrading.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) represents the oil and gas industry, who are running most of the expensive ads on radio, TV and print media. The oil industry is in a precarious situation with low world oil prices which places our economy and many jobs at risk.
Politically, the NDP, provincial and federal, have well known anti-oil anti-pipeline policies but try to pussyfoot around it during the election.
The Liberals and Justin Trudeau skirt their position on oil and pipelines as they try to disguise it during the election, but they are really anti-oil.
Trudeau’s hand-picked top adviser Gerald Butts is an anti-oil radical extremist who states there should be no fossil fuel economy and no carbon-based energy industry.
My conspiracy theory is that we here in protest la-la land are being scapegoated for the anti-progress, anti-pipeline movement as the industry passes off the costs to the consumers.
We are ultimately paying for all the PR and those expensive public relations battle counter-ads every time we fuel up at the high-priced pumps.
Roland Seguin
Langley
