Fallout of latest gas shocker in N.L.
Jane Kendall of Ramea has three medical appointments coming up in Corner Brook — all on different days, and, thanks to another explosive uptick in the price of gas, the cost of getting there is going to hurt.
“This is the worst it has ever been,” she said.
“Gas is going and going and going. … Between the gas and food, it’s just as well to shut this down here and move somewhere else. (But) to leave here (sell your house) and go somewhere else and cover the cost of rent and everything else, it don’t even pay off. You are damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Medical appointments involve a ferry ride and then a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Corner Brook. Last time, it cost more than $100 in gas, Kendall said.
She could take a bus, but those prices went up as well.
The Public Utilities Board, in an unscheduled price adjustment effective 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, May 10, raised the maximum price of gas by 11.3 cents per litre, describing “the upward shift” as “extraordinary” but “warranted.”
Ramea, on the province’s south coast, was among the hardest hit, seeing gas go up to $2.29.7 per litre for the cheapest gas, regular unleaded. On the Avalon Peninsula, gas ticked up to $2.17.3 per litre, while the lowestpriced gas is in central Labrador at $1.62.1 per litre.
Extraordinary is a good word for the pain it’s causing people who don’t have extra cash to absorb the burden.
“Most everybody over here is on seniors’ (pensions),” Kendall said. “They might have a little bit saved, but that’s not going to last forever.
“When we was younger we was always working and we didn’t really notice the money going as much. Now on seniors’ pay you notice it.”
Darlene Rose was on her way to a doctor’s appointment in Ramea Tuesday morning, but she lingered long enough on the phone to offer her frustration.
“I don’t know how anyone thinks anybody’s going to live. My God, it’s awful. I don’t know what in the name of God they are thinking about,” said Rose, who heats her house with oil.
“What in the name of God are you going to do — are you going to pay your oil bill and not eat or what? … I’m getting depressed over it and a lot of people is like me.
“This is half what’s wrong with me.”
Going to appointments in Corner Brook costs a fortune between getting there and buying meals that are necessary due to the duration of the trip, she said.
“The other day it cost me $200 to get brought out with the price of gas. … How do they expect anybody to live? I can guarantee you, my dear, somebody is going to have some hungry tables, I’ll tell you that.”
Rose said she and her husband might be forced to close up their house and go live with their daughter next winter.
“And all they want is the friggin’ Come Home Year,’” she said of the government.
Frances Lushman of Ramea doesn’t drive. But transportation costs still affect her, because bus prices have risen.
Lushman doesn’t expect the prices to go down any time soon.
“I can’t see it going very far, not now. Then again, we never know,” she said.
The last time she remembers the cost of living crunching so many people was during the Second World War.
“Older people thought it was expensive back then,” she said.
When she has to go to an appointment, unless she can share a ride with someone, Lushman uses the Burgeo Bus and Taxi Service.
Kayla Young, who owns the service with her husband, Chris, said they had no choice but to raise fees recently — and that was before the latest gas price increase, but they did not want to do it.
“What used to cost us around $120 is now costing us $200 to go across. That’s a really big jump,’ she said.
“A lot of our customers, they understand with the price of gas.”
The Burgeo couple run a shared bus service five days a week, but also operate a private taxi charter three days a week along with other taxi calls. The fee for adults has gone from $40 to $45, and seniors and students from $35 to $40, on the 10-seat bus. Taxi fees went up as well.
She said if the price of gas continues to rise, they will be forced to do another increase. They haven’t yet hiked the price of carrying small parcels — things like eyeglasses people need picked up in Corner Brook or supplies for businesses such as car parts for mechanics.
“I got to say I am a little nervous the gas is not going to go down,” Young said. “I don’t think it will go down by very much. … It do affect us, very much so.”
She said the government should help businesses out more in coping with the costs, such as trying to find a way to lower auto insurance rates.
“With the cost of insurance and the Burgeo road in the state it is with the extra maintenance, it’s very hard to cover the cost of everything,” Young said of the fleet of four vehicles — a bus, two vans and a car.
The word extraordinary got kicked around Tuesday in Confederation Building.
“These are extraordinary times. People need their government to step up and help them. We have seen other provinces do it,” Progressive Conservative finance critic Tony Wakeham told reporters after question period.
“We’ve seen this continuous rise in gas prices — it has been happening now for a number of months. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are really suffering.“
Wakeham said the province is making extra cash off increased taxes, and should share that around.
“I would suggest it is time to find a way of having additional revenues you are collecting go back to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador,” he said.
But Liberal Finance Minister Siobhan Coady said 100 per cent of the gas taxes have gone to help seniors and low-income earners with the cost of living. Also, the province dropped the tax on home insurance and cut the vehicle registration fee by half in Budget 2022 (for a year) to help everyone, she said. She also noted the free bus passes for low-income people in metro St. John’s.
And she deflected the costof-living issue to the bigger picture.
“We are seeing it not only in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are seeing it across the country and around the world,” Coady said.
“It is challenging and very, very difficult for people. I am hopeful that sometime soon there will be some changes globally.”
She said expert projections have the price of oil slipping back to roughly $86 per barrel rather than the $108 or $109 currently.
“If that happens, that will be a relief for the people of the province,” Coady said.
If it doesn’t, Coady dangled a tentative carrot.
“If it stays where it is today, we are going to have to consider how we are going to help people with the home heat,” she said, noting retail sales are up and suggesting the province might look at some kind of break in the fall, if additional revenues give the province “leeway and latitude.”
Otherwise, she reminded reporters the province has a $350-million deficit this year, and is still $17 billion in debt.
“It is about that kind of balance. As we move through this year, if we think we can do more, we will,” Coady said.
As for dropping some of the tax on gas as the Opposition suggests, Coady warned that risks the federal government slapping more carbon tax on things that are now exempt — heating oil, fisheries, forestry and agriculture.
“All of these we have carb out right now,” she said.
“Maybe (the Opposition) don’t realize or misunderstand or are misinforming or are misinformed,” she said.
But Wakeham said if that’s the threat — that the feds would swoop in with more carbon tax if there are any provincial gas tax breaks — he’s questioning how the deal went down.
“My response to that is Minister Coady negotiated a very bad deal,” he said.