To the editor:
Kelowna gas $1.08 litre on Dec.15, 2015.
Ah yes, it happens again. A continual barrage perpetrated upon our person and pocket book.
Yet, we all sit here and take it with the slightest of whimpers and then go on our merry way. It continually amazes me, how, we in the Okanagan Valley, are taken advantage of every single day from gasoline suppliers to auto sellers to retail goods.
Do you realize Ontario is paying 88 cents a litre ? Winnipeg is paying 81 cents a litre. Kamloops is paying 98 cents a litre.
So I ask you, why are we the ones so fortunate to be asked to bend over?
My first guess, and it is a toughie, would be all these other areas outside the Okanagan Valley have competition. You know what I mean. It’s called free enterprise. What a novel idea.
Unfortunately we have a spineless provincial government that make sure they themselves are well looked after first. We have municipal governments and federal governments that make sure their needs are served first. I believe the reference in regard to these people is 'pigs at the trough.' How fitting.
Unlike the Okanagan Valley where gas prices are fixed by the distributor and/or fixed by oil company management, the fact is, there seems to be no one to stand up and stop these greedy bastards. Oil is at an all-time low, we have a global surplus and we are paying the highest prices in the country by 20 cents per litre.
Newfoundland, where everything is brought to the island by ship, is paying today [Dec. 16] 88 cents per litre. Our gasoline is brought from Kamloops. When asked, they say the difference is freight. What BS.
So, as I have written many times before, maybe it is time for people of this valley to start calling or writing our elected officials and tell them in no uncertain terms to get off their ass and start doing something about these inflated fixed gas prices here in the valley taking place right under their noses.
Ian MacLean, Kelowna