Drivers in southern Ontario awoke to find gas prices up five cents on Friday morning, as stations were charging on average $1.409.
That is close to the record pricing in the area, according to Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
The former Liberal MP said that while prices remain high, the record for most of Ontario was set in July of 2014, when prices got as high as $1.439.
“So we’re not there but we’re awfully close,” McTeague noted.
On Wednesday, he warned consumers on Twitter to fuel up as he predicted that prices were headed in this direction.
“I usually try to give people a two-day heads up so that they know that it went up to five cents, tomorrow it goes down two (cents) and Sunday it may very well go up two (cents),” he told Global News Friday morning.
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“If you didn’t gas up yesterday, the best day to gas up is tomorrow.”
He says that we may see prices continue to rise for the next several months.
“Very simple economics, which is that supply continues to trail behind demand and it’s doing so consistently and may actually get worse,” McTeague explained.
“Which suggests to me that the price, although it may appear to drop or be turning in that direction, there’s a greater likelihood of prices going up over the next several months than going down.”
He says a tropical storm headed toward the Gulf of Mexico could also affect prices, while the rise and fall of the Canadian dollar also has an impact.
McTeague also points to COVID-19 as a determining factor.
If cases continue to rise, he told The Canadian Press, people can expect prices to hover at that current level. But when cases drop, he expects more sharp increases.
—With files from the Canadian Press
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