{"id":578476,"date":"2026-04-03T00:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578476\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T00:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:44:09","slug":"the-gas-price-shock-isnt-hitting-canadian-cities-evenly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578476\/","title":{"rendered":"The gas price shock isn\u2019t hitting Canadian cities evenly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

With the war in the Middle East now in its fifth week, the price shock across Canada has been far from even.Christopher Katsarov\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The failure of U.S. President Donald Trump to clarify how and when the Iran war might end caused oil futures to soar Thursday to their highest levels since 2022, while the spot price for physical North Sea crude spiked to levels last seen in 2008. <\/p>\n

For Canadian drivers, the turmoil means even more pain at the pumps, adding to an average 33-per-cent jump in regular gasoline prices nationwide since before the war began. <\/p>\n

But with the war now in its fifth week, the price shock across Canada has been far from even, with year-to-date prices up by nearly 55 per cent in Prince Albert, Sask., considerably more than some cities in B.C. and Quebec, according to a database<\/a> of retail fuel prices maintained by the federal government. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The war has shut down almost all tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokehold of sea in the Persian Gulf through which roughly 20 per cent of the world\u2019s oil supply passes each day. <\/p>\n

There is always a huge variance in oil prices in Canada, said Carol Montreuil, vice-president of the Canadian Fuels Association, which represents refiners and fuel retailers. He added that three main factors drive prices: fuel taxes, commodity markets (both global and regional) and local market competition. <\/p>\n

For the most part, those cities that entered the current oil crisis with higher prices \u2013 particularly Vancouver and Victoria, where fuel taxes are highest \u2013 have experienced smaller price shocks than cities in Alberta and Saskatchewan that started from a lower base.<\/p>\n

But as all cities see local prices climb higher, it\u2019s putting Canadian consumers at a tipping point, said Mr. Montreuil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get into the $2 [a litre] range, as we are now in many cities in the country, that\u2019s when you see people start to change their habits and demand drops,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Decoder is a weekly feature that unpacks an important economic chart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: With the war in the Middle East now in its fifth week, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,14537,44,1008],"class_list":["post-578476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chartoftheday","tag-news","tag-pleasemod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}