Sunday September 4, 2005
Gas prices are getting to be a news item in Canada. And not just because they fluctuate for no good reason. That was the old news. On my trip back to Ottawa I stopped for gas in Perth. It was $0.99/litre and the cashier told me it was going up the next day. No kidding... it was $1.26 the next morning here in Ottawa.
The Ottawa Classic Rock radio station is staging a Suck My Gas Day in a few days. I was looking forward to trying to get the exact amount squeezed out of the pump, too. I've been staging my own protest by getting $5.00 worth at a time when it went through the roof. $6.21 is pretty close. And I do like the thought behind it! Sticking it to the government is not a hard sell for me. (Don't get all bent out of shape now - if you drive, you're probably thinking it would be fun, too :-)
I'd love to be part of the fun, really. But I won't need gas on the day they are staging this hippie like protest. And I'm not sure I want to buy gas when I don't need it even to stick it to those silly buggers everyone is pissed off with over this. You know, those guys who managed to give all that tax money to their buddies... yeah, they're the ones who are now saying they need the taxes from gas -- 44% of what you're paying goes to them -- so no, they aren't listening to talk of capping the price. Surprise. Maybe they'll change their minds when the cost of perishables trucked into our grocery stores doubles or triples or -- there aren't any because the trucking companies can't afford fuel either.
In my not so humble opinion it would be fair to expect the guilty parties to repay double or triple what they misappropriated. Some civilized places do that, you know, make the guilty party repay several times more than the actual amount of the damages sued for. Oh, wait - we're in Canada, the chances of us sueing our elected officials for underhanded swindling of the public are virtually nil. Anyway, the penalty "fund" could be used to discount gas to a reasonable number while they pick up the ball on alternative energy development.
But life's not fair it turns out. Check out the range of Ottawa gas prices here. Shameful. The link is good for more than just today I think, so you can play the Ottawa Gas Lottery if you wish.
Comparison shopping is a thing of the past since, shades of Y2K, the large display signs were only good for prices under a buck. Yep, only three spots for cards with digits on them and one of them is after the decimal point. There's another great reason for a cap on prices: you can't tell from the street how much the station is charging anymore. The pumps, of course, have no problem with four digit prices. Figures.
What you see on the display signs is something like this "[blank][blank].[6] /L" Hey, maybe they can be held to that? He he. That'd be a fun one, wouldn't it? There's already a (voluntary) Scanner Price Accuracy Code here in Canada.
Remind me to tell you how I came to have a shiny (well, the parts that have finish still are shiny!) Jeep with a full tank of gas next time we're here together.
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