Experts believe that the low gas prices on Vancouver Island may be due to the mild winter weather.
Department of economics professor Moshe Lander from Concordia University believes the lack for household heating and lower demand for air travel is the reason for the drop in price at the pump this year.
“When you have that milder weather you know everybody is not reaching for the thermostat in the same way, and so that’s going to be reflected in lower prices for all energy, including gasoline,” said Lander.
According to the gas price analysis website GasBuddy, the relatively low prices the Island is seeing are close to what drivers saw at the pump two years ago during the COVID pandemic.
Gas prices in Victoria dipped to an average of 1.62 cents a litre on Wednesday, which is the closest it’s been to the COVID-19 pandemic prices of 149.9 cents a litre exactly two years ago.
However, Lander doesn’t think we will hit the historic low prices that were seen during the pandemic and anticipates prices will go back up sometime in the new year.
“I don’t know that we are going to see lows that we saw, for example, during COVID when nobody was travelling, but I don’t know that we are necessarily going to see the highs that we saw just before COVID when we were talking about some pretty crazy prices per litre,” he said.
Ladner added that due to inflation, people wanting to make budget cuts will often try to reduce their transportation cost. This trend can impact the demand for fuel during the holidays, which can then lower the price per litre.
Despite the lower gas prices, B.C. is still the second most expensive place to buy gas in Canada this holiday season, after Newfoundland.
Victoria is also the fifth most expensive city for gas in Canada on Wednesday.
SEE ALSO: ‘We will not see snow’: Snowy Christmas unlikely on Vancouver Island
Tchadas Leo
