Vancouver Posted the Highest Gas Prices Ever in North America

It there was any doubt that Vancouver is hellishly unaffordable, it’s now official.

On Monday, Vancouver posted the highest gas prices in North America – ever. According to GasBuddy, which collects fuel prices from more than 140,000 gas stations on the continent in real-time, the price of gas in Vancouver hovered at $1.62 per litre for most of the day.

That is not good news for a city that’s still in limbo over Uber, has a laughable public transportation network, and where biking downtown generally sucks.

The surge in prices is largely attributed to Canada’s weak dollar, limited refinery supplies, and recently implemented carbon tax – all of which won’t be resolved anytime soon. Oh, and it could get worse. Politicians in British Columbia have expressed their opposition to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline, which could result in a squeeze from oil-rich neighbouring Alberta.

“Vancouverites are paying about a third more than drivers in Honolulu, more than in the Cayman Islands which doesn’t have a single refinery and imports fuel on barges,” reports the Financial Times. “More, in fact, than any other major oil-producing country except Norway, which also heavily taxes fuel.”

And this despite the fact that Vancouver sits just 1200 kilometres from the oilsands, which account for about 60 per cent of British Columbia’s refined fuels.

Drivers, of course, are not pleased about dropping more than their phone bill at the pump.

The outlook for Toronto and Montreal isn’t too rosy, either. According to GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst Dan McTeague, Canada’s two largest cities will see near-record prices in Montreal and Toronto this summer.