That's basically what he is...
The leader of B.C.'s government is indeed a troublemaker...a part of a gang.
I'll let Mike Smyth tell it...the story of B.C.'s (and Vancouver's) gas prices.
Because I'd use expletives if I tried to tell the story.
"Mike Smyth: Breaking down where your gas money goes
Columnist Mike Smyth writes about soaring Metro Vancouver gas prices.
160.9 is the posted price for regular gas in Surrey today.
Richard Lam/PNG / PNG
Richard Lam/PNG / PNG
It’s always
cringe-inducing to hear Premier John Horgan plead with the federal government
to do something about soaring Metro Vancouver gas prices, the highest in North
America.
Horgan was at it again
Monday, blaming the feds for a lack of fuel-refining capacity in B.C.
“Let’s make more
(refined gasoline) here, creating more jobs here and relieving the enormous
pressure on the travelling public,” he said.
Say what? He’s worried
about pressure on drivers? At the same time he jacks up the carbon tax on every
litre of gas sold in B.C.?
Unbelievable.
The Horgan government
increased the carbon tax on April 1, and it now stands at 7.78 cents per litre.
On a typical 50-litre fill-up at a gas station, you’re now paying nearly four
bucks in B.C. carbon tax alone.
The carbon tax used to
be “revenue neutral” meaning the government was legally required to lower other
taxes to offset it.
The NDP changed the
law, and now the entire carbon tax flows directly into the coffers of
government with no neutral offset required.
The provincial bite at
the gas pump doesn’t end with the carbon tax.
There’s also the B.C.
Transportation Financing Authority fuel tax of 6.75 cents a litre. And the
general B.C. Motor Fuel Tax of 1.75 cents a litre.
Then in Metro
Vancouver, you have the whopping TransLink fuel tax: another 17 cents a litre,
or $8.50 per fill-up.
And now Horgan wants
the federal government to ease your pain? Good grief.
Of course, the federal
taxman has to get his piece of the action. So you also pay the federal fuel
excise tax of 10 cents a litre.
The sour cherry on top
is the five-per-cent federal GST, which is charged on top of your total gas purchase,
including all the other taxes.
That’s right: You pay tax
on your gas taxes.
Would refining more
fuel in B.C. ease prices? Sure, but publishing tycoon David Black has been
trying for six years now to get his refinery project off the ground with no success.
Now Horgan says he’s in
talks with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee about expanding refinery capacity south of
the border.
Yes, this is the same
Washington state that refines million of barrels of diluted bitumen pumped
through British Columbia from Alberta via the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
No wonder Horgan says
he would continue to allow 22 million tonnes of bitumen to flow through B.C. a
year, at the same time he says the stuff is dangerous to the environment and
human health as he fights the pipeline’s expansion.
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