Oil companies have us hooked
By JOE WARMINGTON
My SUV's gas tank is pretty low -- as is my tolerance for these fat cat oil companies and their treatment of us.
The sick reality is there are few businesses that have no supply but can still make as much profit as if they did. But there are not many businesses like the oil companies. We are the crackheads and they have the stuff. We know it and they know it.
They do what they want. We do what they tell us to. It's all about them.
Consider nothing in your life does not involve gas and oil. It had to get to you somehow. If you bought it, a gas-guzzling truck probably brought it.
How does that song Banditos by The Refreshments go? "I've got the pistols, so I'll keep the pesos, that seems fair." But my favourite line in that song is "everybody knows the world is full of stupid people." That is us.
We are hooked and we know who is boss. Hamsters on the treadmill. Stand in line and fill up. Even if the rodent on the wheel decided to complain who is going to listen?
Just accept it. Your job is to shut up, run on your treadmill and pay.
But then there's Dan McTeague -- a Liberal MP for Pickering/Scarborough who never shuts up. I hope he never does. The big oil wine-and- dine budget obviously hasn't come his way. He admits he has not been successful in this war (even when he was in the party of power) and admits he gets tired of hearing himself bitch too. "But somebody has to say it and I am not going to quit."
Just look at today's prices. In many places it's $1.03 a litre -- if you can find a station that has gas thanks to the supply problem because of a refinery fire which I believe is just a small part of what is really corporate greed and inept management which shows how vulnerable we really are.
"And they are not going to lose money," said McTeague of the oil companies. "If they do, all they will do is use this to write it off against profits."
Remember the wholesale price for gas per litre in Canada is 67.7c, compared to 57c in the U.S. What gives? It's more than 10c higher than it should be.
"That to me is unacceptable," says an angry McTeague. "There is no reason for it. They are making at least 5c a litre more and when you are talking about a million litres that could be an extra $2 or $3 million dollars. The windfall will be substantial."
No wonder the tax-hungry politicians don't complain. But McTeague says he wrote a letter to the prime minister asking for support in reducing the price of diesel for truckers. He'd also like to make "one change" to the competition act that would end the monopoly of the big four oil companies -- Petro Canada, Shell, Sunoco and Imperial Oil -- and force them to compete with some new players.
The hamster says why not? It's our country after all. Where are our leaders elected to protect us from this gouging? Where's Silent Stephen Harper?
There must not be a hockey game to his liking here? And how about Premier Dalton McGuinty who said "let's stay cool; let's stay calm; we're going to get through this together." Yeah, sure. Get through at $1.03 a litre.
"We've asked them to be as fair as they possibly can in distributing the limited supply they have," said McGuinty.
The oil execs must have chuckled.
But my favourite McGuinty line was "so it is from time to time going to inconvenience us as motorists and as families. It may require that we visit another gas station or two before we actually get the supply that we need." Yeah, he's a tough fighter. Big oil must be nervous.
If anybody sees that wimp hunting for a gas station this weekend ask him why he didn't ask the oil companies to keep the prices down during the crisis and implore them to ship extra supply by train and or truck from Montreal and even Buffalo? That would be leadership!
McTeague likes the Buffalo idea but says "the problem is the gas there is a different environmental standard." It's also cheaper.
As for those phony standards, if the gas is good enough for New York State, it's good enough for here for a couple of weeks while the refinery gets back on line.
See you at the pumps everybody.
Save some for me.