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Letter: PM should bring gas companies to heel

Not building any new refineries is a dereliction of duty in my simple Canadian mind
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To the editor:

We are being told by the oil companies that the hurricane has interrupted gas supplies hence the necessary increase in prices. This, after we’ve been told as an explanation for the depressed oil stock market prices, there is a glut of crude oil and gasoline in the world with crude tankers sitting in the ocean, full of crude with no one to buy it. Now, we are being told Canada hasn’t built a new refinery since the 1980’s and Canada is suffering that neglect and hence the recent “overnight” price increase.

The oil companies need to be brought to heel. Not building any new refineries is a dereliction of duty in my simple Canadian mind. Comes down to greed and getting whatever they can from consumers before the oil finally disappears. Scientists tell us that is decades away yet. Who do we believe?

Oil companies blatantly collude with one another to set the price of fuel and no one calls them to task. They collude with supply and demand, to their own benefit. As Prime Minster, you are supposed to protect Canadians. You hold all the power, not the corporate world. But they walk all over everyone and anyone, government included. Business is business even if it means screwing over your own nation. It’s all about greed. How much profit is too much?

Patrick W. Olenick, West Kelowna