WATCH: The price of a litre of gas has risen to record highs in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It would be easy to blame the instability in Iraq, but some experts say that’s not the reason at all. Christina Stevens reports.
Gas prices in Vancouver have hit a record high just in time for the start of summer driving season. Analysts warn that prices will remain high until the holiday road-trip season winds down in September.
Average prices in the Lower Mainland were hovering around $1.55 a litre on Friday , June 20. That’s up around 12 cents from the same time last year.
Prices in Toronto were close to $1.42 on Friday, making Vancouver one of the most expensive places in Canada to fuel up.
READ MORE: Grilling gets pricey this summer as meat prices surge
Oil prices have spiked even higher than they are now, three times over the past five years. But in each of those cases, the price of gas didn’t rise this high.
According to analyst Dan McTeague, who runs the gas-price forecasting website Tomorrow’s Gas Price Today, speculators are the main catalyst for sky-high gas prices, even more to blame than the turmoil in Iraq and Canada’s heavy reliance on imports.
“It’s not based on reality. Reality is that demand is extremely low and supply is extremely high,” McTeague said.
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