Another day, another blame game as pump prices burn Horgan

Following the bouncing ball in Premier John Horgan’s gas-price blame-game gets more complicated by the day. Each day seems to produce another object of scorn for Horgan, as he blames everybody but himself for Metro Vancouver’s soaring gas prices, the highest ever seen in North America.

Some days Horgan blames Prime Minister Trudeau for buying the delayed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, instead of building a new oil refinery.

Other days he blames federal competition regulators for not cracking down on price-gouging by Big Oil.

And just last week Horgan called on Alberta to build more refineries to send lots of cheap gas our way. That last one really makes you question Horgan’s grip on reality since Jason Kenney, the incoming premier of Alberta, is already furious at Horgan’s pipeline opposition. Kenney, in fact, has threatened to cut off oiland-gas shipments to B.C.

Monday was yet another day of finger-pointing by Horgan.

“The average refining margin in Canada is 20.8 cents, in British Columbia it’s 42.7,” he said. “That’s a problem. We need to work together to fix it.”

The argument appeared to be lifted from a new report produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think-tank that has called for government regulation of gas prices. That’s something Horgan once called for himself, when he was in opposition. Now Horgan thinks price regulation wouldn’t help much.

If only there was something he could do himself, right? But wait! What about all those provincial gas taxes? The Horgan government collects 35 cents a litre every time you fill-up. Couldn’t he just cut gas taxes? Of course he could. But he won’t.

Horgan slammed Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson on Monday for suggesting a gastax cut.

“I was just looking at a list of projects that wouldn’t have been able to be funded if the leader of the opposition had given back gas taxes,” Horgan said, proceeding to list highway improvements in Liberal ridings. Horgan said the oil companies would just keep jacking up their prices anyway, even if he cut taxes. And he slammed the Liberals for increasing gas taxes when they were in power.

“Of the 16 cents in gas-tax increases that have happened since 2003, 14 cents of them came from that side of the House,” Horgan told Wilkinson in Question Period. “The party that increased the taxes the most says that taxes are too high!” It was an effective shot that stung the Liberals. But Horgan’s gas-price problems aren’t going away.

When he was in opposition, Horgan called on the Liberals to freeze the carbon tax at just 2.5 cents a litre. As premier, Horgan just jacked up the carbon tax to 8.89 cents, and it’s set to keep rising.

Horgan seems to want to do something. He just doesn’t seem to know what. And the Liberals love it.