Editor:
Many of us have made comments about the cost of gasoline and no one seems to care. The government doesn’t care, because they are making money on the taxes that are paid for gas. The gasoline providers don’t care, because they are making money. Both are screwing the consumer and neither cares.
I watched the price of gasoline at the corner of Fraser Highway and 216 Street go from $1.33 to $1.36 to $1.32 in a 24 hour period. No one can tell me that the upward change was because they received a ‘new’ tanker of gasoline, no one can explain why it suddenly dropped. This is nothing but out and out greed and screwing the consumer. And apparently it’s legal. Go figure that one.
Not one of the government representatives, municipal, provincial or federal, could give a hoot.
This affects all of us. I don’t have an expense account to ‘defer’ the cost to taxpayers (like municipal, provincial and federal government representatives do), and I certainly don’t have a salary increase to pay the difference in the expenses I have to pay in order to get to work. I am certainly not receiving a $2,000 bonus from my employer for turning up at work, like ICBC. That would buy me gasoline for my vehicle for almost two years. How nice is that?
This will all lead to a huge cost to the government. Soon enough people won’t be able to pay for the gasoline they need to get to work — and out in the Fraser Valley where there is little if no transit. Few people will be able to make it to work and then companies will start to suffer because employees can’t make it to work so there will be layoffs, and then the banks will be dealing with defaults on mortgages, and people will be trying to save their money to buy groceries that will now be more expensive because of gas prices, so they will start buying less and less and that will impact local grocers, and the tale goes on.
This government is quite happy to screw the consumer with high gas prices and allowing high credit card interest rates. These are the two biggest issues. Both of these affect the other issues identified in the current political races, such as health care, senior care and housing. Put more money in our pockets and the rest will take care of itself.
Debbie Atkinson, Langley