Gas prices hit record highs in parts of Canada this weekend, and other parts of the country can expect to see the same in the coming days.
Toronto saw record gas prices of around $1.42 per litre this weekend, while Ottawa hit an all-time record of around 140.9 cents per litre. London, Ont., hit its record of 139.9 cents per litre on Saturday morning.
Vancouver also appeared to have hit record highs, at 152.7 cents per litre as of Sunday afternoon.
And Tomorrow’s Gas Price Today forecasts that Montreal, Halifax, Quebec City and St. John’s will see record prices “later next week.”
News sources are attributing a hike in oil prices to the emerging crisis in Iraq, but Dan McTeague, who runs Tomorrow’s Gas Price Today, says there’s no real justification yet for hiking prices due to the crisis.
“You’re looking at excessive speculation,” McTeague told CTV News. “I think it’s overreaction to a circumstance in which there’s been no proof of any sort of disruption of supply.”
Compounding the problem is the fact that the loonie has fallen more than 10 per cent over the past year, making global energy prices more expensive in Canadian dollars. That’s been good for western Canadian energy exports but bad for consumers, who according to National Bank, are spending a record portion of their retail dollars on gas -- about 13 per cent of all retail spending, compared to 10.5 per cent in the U.S.
A recent study from Scotiabank estimated that rising energy costs sucked $4 billion out of other parts of the consumer economy in the first quarter of this year.
