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Competition Bureau mum on Metro Vancouver gas-price investigation

Francis Georgian / PNG
4-5 minutes



Prices across Metro Vancouver hit $1.73 per litre at many gas stations, with an absolute high of $1.79 per litre at one Delta location (which has since dropped its price to $1.74), according to crowdsourced reports to GasBuddy.com

Cracking down on gasoline price-fixing is a priority for Canada’s Competition Bureau, but the bureau, because of confidentiality concerns, can’t say whether or not it’s investigating what might be behind Metro Vancouver’s soaring fuel costs.

On Tuesday, Premier John Horgan called for consumer-protection officials to examine Metro’s soaring gas prices and said he would push Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take action on what he has termed as “gouging” by fuel companies.

“We recognize that gasoline prices are an important issue for Canadians and cracking down on anticompetitive conduct in the gasoline sector is a priority for the Competition Bureau,” bureau spokesman Marcus Callaghan wrote in an emailed response to Postmedia News.

Prices across Metro hit $1.73 per litre at many gas stations, with an absolute high of $1.79 per litre at one Delta location (which has since dropped its price to $1.74), according to crowdsourced reports to GasBuddy.com.

Since 2008, the bureau has levelled $6 million in fines and conditional sentences to 33 individuals and 12 companies found to be manipulating gasoline prices, Callaghan said, but cautioned that “identical prices (being charged in a market) in and of themselves are not evidence of illegal activity.”

The bureau constantly monitors all consumer markets looking for signs that there is a lack of competition and manipulation of prices, said Jason Parent, vice-president of the fuel-industry consulting firm Kent Group, and charges are still not that common in the fuel market. Parent said the cases that do come to light often involve one or a few stations co-operating to maintain prices. Wider-scale collusion, however, has been more illusive to prove.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news...-metro-vancouver-gas-price-investigation