The price per litre for standard gasoline in Alberta has topped $1.50 in many parts of the province. On March 7, the average cost for drivers filling up at Okotoks' pumps was $1.57.9 per litre, as an example.
This is in reaction to a leap in the price of oil, pegged March 7 at just over US$115 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the global standard for crude prices.
That day Premier Jason Kenney said that, beginning April 1, Alberta will drop the 13-cent per litre fuel tax applied to prices at the pump, which will apply to gasoline and diesel. Tax on marked gasoline and marked diesel, set at four cents per litre, will also end.
Kenney said the desire was to drop the tax as soon as possible, but that was not feasible, given that fuel retailers have paid for their current stock of fuel with the tax included.
Reinstatement of tax collection will be considered on a quarterly basis based on the average price of WTI oil, but collection will not begin before July 1.
In the future, a sliding-scale approach will be taken using the price of WTI. When the cost of (WTI) oil is more than $90 a barrel, the tax will be removed. If prices go below $80 a barrel, the tax will be reinstated, Kenney said.
The federal government plans to introduce an increase to their carbon tax on April 1, resulting in an increase of three cents per litre, from nine to just over 11 cents per litre, which the premier called a "big April Fool's Day joke."
In British Columbia, which currently has the highest gasoline prices in North America at more than $2.00 per litre for regular at some Greater Vancouver pumps, Energy Minister Bruce Ralston told reporters the province is not considering freezing a provincial carbon price increase set for April 1.
