Discussions

It’s probably been discussed to death but why on earth is there almost a 12 cent a litre price difference between gas in Winnipeg & here?

It's because of the freight cost to move the fuel by truck from Winnipeg to Brandon. Winnipeg and Regina have terminals that are served refined fuel directly from the pipeline.  
 
Every mile of distance between those terminals and the final destination adds cost.

So, explain then why smaller towns that are further from either of them are much less expensive than us too? Brandon jacks the price up. Period.

I took a little scroll through Gas Buddy to see if your anecdotal assertion that Brandon gas station owners are particularly venal holds water.  
 
In general, the closer you get to Regina or Winnipeg, the lower the cost of fuel. Brandon happens to be pretty close to halfway in between. Gas prices are slightly higher at Moosomin and Whitewood and in areas south of Brandon.  
 
There are a few outliers like the Ninette grocery store and the Petro Canada at the Griswold corner. Easy explanations can be made for both of those particular outliers.  
 
Ninette grocery is entirely independant and may sell their gas at cost to bring customers to the store. Petro Canada at Griswold is first nations owned. They don't pay as much tax on fuel as non first nations, so they can sell it for less to generate more business.  
 
So basically, no, Brandon does not "jack up the price". The gas stations up by the highway are usually priced a few cents a litre higher than downtown.

The tax payer pays to drill the oil wells, then the tax payer pays tax on their fuel and now the tax payer is paying to decommission and clean up abandoned oil wells.

if gas prices are cheaper then why do they still rape and pillage us at the pumps? Cost of shipping fuel is now cheaper right? and the distance from regina and winnipeg are really about the same ...so it's the gas companies setting the prices as usual don't let them tell you it's because of shipping prices.

I would like to question a point. I would assume of the lower cost of gas the closer you got to a major city. If gas is cheap in the city the closer you are the more likely you will lose a customer to a city gas station. Thus the further out you go the more inclined you will be to pay for your fuel. Dauphin from Winnipeg is roughly 1.5 times the distance than Winnipeg to Brandon. Yet our gas is the same price. Why isn't it another .5x higher? It could be jacked up another 10 cents a litre and guess what....we have no choice but to pay it. Would you jack it up to transportation costs? Doubt it. It is simple what the market will bear.

Farmergeorge you would probably benefit from looking at taxes a little differently. You have made it abundantly clear in multiple posts what you think about taxes and oil wells and ... a lot of other things. In large part many of us agree with you. But paying taxes is a PRIVILEGE. I don’t necessarily agree with how all our tax dollars are spent but it is great to be in a position to be able to pay taxes. That is what pays for all the wonderful things we have in this country...including education, (decent) roads, health care, education, military, awesome health care workers!, law enforcement, education....and much more. As consumers, we pay taxes. Not corporations or big business or anybody else...consumers. Because we benefit.

Gas prices should be in the 50 cents. Thanks Brandon gas stations.

Firstly off, I doubt most people see paying taxes as a privilege. Once upon a time, it was seen that way as it was a measure to support the war, but it hasn't been like that for many years.  
 
Yes, the largest revenue stream for the government by a large margin is personal income taxes, at just shy of 50%. Corporate income tax is the next largest source, at a mere 15% in 2018 (see https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/services/publications/annual-financial-report/2018/report.html). The GST contributes another almost 12% to the federal coffers - again born mostly by the individual taxpayer. So we're easily paying 2/3 of the federal budget out of pocket.  
 
As a result, by and large we're funding out own roads, education, health care, etc... but we also need to pay to clean up orphan wells that *should* be the responsibility of the companies that owned them - a cost of doing business? I support taxation and all the programs you cite above, but I find that patently ludicrous.

Gas went up7 cents a litre at Husky it is 80.9 according to Gasbuddy

saw that yesterday when driving thru the city, not sure how they justify that, must be still trying to pay bonuses to their share holders. Shell in Winnipeg is 66 petro Canada 61 Costco 58

Something fishy there (LOL just kidding)  
 
It is only 77.9 here in Vancouver in some places this morning and we have transit taxes and carbon tax on our fuel....something is odd there.

I have a hard time following your logic. Farmers don't pay road tax. Oil companies and investors drill oil wells. Some Orphan wells will be abandoned and reclaimed with the federal incentive, in the west to help companies in this down turn.

Your last paragraph is a little confusing to me but ...that’s OK. I think there are thousands of people a year that move to Canada because it’s one of the best countries in the world to live in, taxes and all, because it is SO much better compared to where they come from, and most of those countries pay a lot less taxes than we do so I think there may be a connection.  
You suggest that we pay 2/3 of the federal budget out of pocket...not sure what that phrase means. Where does the other 1/3 come from? I kinda thought the government got all their money from consumers/taxpayers, one way or another. The way I see it, only the consumer (end user) pays taxes. When a business determines the price they need for their product, they add up the expenses, including employees wages, owner’s wages, paying for their building, utilities, marketing, advertising, etc., and i:nclude many kinds of taxes - property taxes, GST, PST, taxes on all their products, etc. etc. These are all thrown into the expense column and then a mark-up is added so the business can make it through tough times like we are in now. I am a high school dropout so I’m sure most people reading this have a lot more education than I do but this approach has worked for my business for 40 years. And we’ll make it through this too.  
Farmergeorge, with this business model, if the oil company cleans up after themselves... and I agree that they should...the costs incurred would be passed along to the consumer by raising the price of the oil they produce. So we as consumers would pay for it, either through higher fuel prices, or the government cleans it up with taxpayer (us consumers) money. But I think in the final end we pay for it, however it gets done.  
Offhand, nobody wants to pay taxes, and we may not agree entirely with how our tax dollars are spent, but at the end of the year I’m pretty happy to have earned enough to help our country’s education, roads, health care, law enforcement...and much, much more. Sorry if this view seems too positive on what is generally viewed as a bad thing.

Farmers pay a little tax on our purple fuel (which effectively lowers the cost of food to you) and regular tax on all of our clear fuel. The Manitoba government ( ie the tax payer) heavily subsidizes the drilling of new oil wells as an incentive towards the companies and investors. There are many thousands of abandoned wells in Canada that the tax payer will eventually pay to clean up.  
 
Edited by Farmergeorge, 2020-04-29 20:21:41

I agree that Canada is one of the best countries in the world and many of the things that give us a high quality of life is due to taxation. And I also agree that ultimately we, the taxpayer, is what funds government. Maybe what I should have said instead was that a full 2/3 of the federal budget comes DIRECTLY from our pockets, either as income tax or tax on goods and services.  
 
As a result, the money that goes into the infrastructure and programs that make Canada a great place basically goes out our pocket, through the government, where we pay public servants a lot of money to return the money to us in form of these mentioned services. I used to work at CRA and it's quite ludicrous how the money flows in and out, and the public service is the largest employer in Canada.  
 
Compare that to corporate taxation, which is only 15% of federal government coffers. Maintaining wells, including cleaning them up, is part of doing business in resource extraction - instead, we are bailing them out when they should be eating the costs. Does the taxpayer pay anyway? Probably. Or the government can insist that it comes out of the shareholder or corporate profits, as a business expense that they can write off anyway.

This large increase at JUST 1 supplier (at ALL 3 of their Brandon locations!) makes it pretty simple to conclude who to avoid when we require our next fill-ups.

Highway Esso is currently 86.9 on Gasbuddy

That is quite the viewpoint you hold there... and demonstrates a pretty simplistic view on how freight works.  
 
Freight rates don't rise and fall directly with the price of fuel. There is a slight reduction in cost due to the reduced fuel surcharge, but it still costs almost the same to have fuel shipped from Winnipeg to Brandon as it did pre-COVID, mostly because:  
 
A) Diesel fuel is still $1.129 most places, and it's diesel that trucks burn. Why is diesel so high? Because there is still demand for diesel to keep the trucks moving.  
 
B) The cost of fuel is only a portion of the cost to move a load from one point to another. You still have to maintain your equipment, pay your driver and pay your support staff.  
 
C) Freight rates are set when long term contracts are negotiated. They don't change with fluctuating market conditions.  
 
So if on December 1st, the cost to move the load was 12 cents per litre (a number that I have pulled completely out of thin air, BTW), then that cost is still going be at least 11 cents per litre now.  
 
But guess what? The freight is a much larger percentage of the pump price, since that cost of the actual product is around half of what it was...

I had figured out a while ago, with the help of a trucker friend, that the cost to transport fuel from Wpg to Bdn was about 3 - 4 cents per litre. Now, as gas is often close in price at Austin compared to Wpg, the cost for transporting fuel the remaining way to Bdn can't be much more than 1 cent a litre. So if Austin is 68.9, then Bdn should be..........

Gas jumped 7 cents per litre today. With some businesses reopening next week more people will be driving

Filled at shell a bit ago, was 73.9. Did notice other places were 80.9. I’m sure all will match that soon. Boo

barrel of oil is still rock bottom, the companies have so much on hand. But as soon as the "Big" announcements came out on the ease up on Covid so begins the gouging again...business are still not open just yet. What's the hurry?? People still don't have jobs to go back to, some don't have any at all now, and likely won't find anything in the near future. No one is traveling since there are still bans and restrictions. Do you still feel safe going anywere? Taking a bus? Taking a plane? Hells no....

Current price of gas in Brandon @ 80 cents is why I have no sympathy for the major oil company’s and their crying about financial difficulties. They have taken advantage of the world for too long from either shorting the market with product to drive prices up to just straight up gauging.

14 cents Manitoba  
10 cents Federal excise  
4.42 cents carbon tax  
5% GST on total amount (tax charged on tax)

Co-op is up to 83.9 Gasbuddy has Petro Canada at 89.9

it is what it is live with it same complaints about gas prices they should ban all topics about gas prices no one will ever be happy about fuel price

oil and gas executives need to pad their bank accounts. Few million in bonuses isn't enough they need every last cent they can squeeze out of anyone.

what the excuse is for raising them? The price of oil is still in the $20's, no one is travelling. There is an over supply of oil. We always hear there is a lag in oil price and gas price, but the lag only exists when the price of oil goes down. The moment it goes up, the price of gas goes up instantly.  
 
Seems like since no one is travelling, hence not many needing to get fuel the gas companies are loosing money. So they jack up the price. Before long it will be above $1.00.