There are certain truths about the world we can’t really deny: water is wet, the sky is blue, and gas prices remain a dent in every car owner’s wallet.
By far, our province is probably the unluckiest when it comes to rising gas prices. B.C. isn’t the only province that has fallen victim to the absurdly high inflation rates—Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories, and Quebec have taken the hit as well, with B.C. reigning supreme as the most expensive province for gas prices across the entire country, leveraging at about 194.2 cents per litre to date.
It’s taken a toll on Canadians for the worse, with some residents forced to adjust the budgets of their living expenses at the demands of this record-high gas increase. There is an eerily dystopian attitude to the situation in having to ration your spending for the day once confronted with the choice: should I pay for gas or for food? Do I risk not making it to work tomorrow, or do I have to skip out on lunch for another day?
This is a reality for many Canadians working paycheque-to-paycheque, barely making ends meet with the necessities they need to live. No one should confront the painstaking decision of whether their hunger should go unchecked another night. But as gas prices increase daily by the dollar, Canadians are forced to deal with this reality head-on.
So, how have we reached this point? Why is gasoline so expensive?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t just impacted the political climate in Europe. While the war continues to devastate millions of homes, displacing families and taking over 1,000 civilian lives, its echo has ricocheted across the earth while proving just how damaging these events can actually be. Geopolitical tensions have caused a ripple in the world’s international supply chains, with Canada imposing heavyset sanctions on Russian oil. Not only do these penalties influence the rising number plastered on gas stations, but with Canada’s ban on any form of trade with Russian fossil fuels — the nation known for producing 11 per cent of the worlds total crude oil — there’s no surprise that prices go up and astonishingly up.
In fact, the worldwide effects are irreversibly harmful. Russia makes up about 7 per cent of the world’s global supply chain in crude oil, having honed 40 per cent of Europes’ gas under their provision. It’s like poisoning a water well and wondering why the nearby village is so sick the following day.
With claims that these intense oil sanctions are not actually harming Russia, but instead serving as a meaningless punishment for their rampant aggression, Russia will maintain its conflict with Ukraine as the nation decimates any worldwide relations with the west that it once had. The increase in gas prices isn’t the only inflation to come from this conflict, however; a global food crisis is being felt throughout the world as well. Russia and Ukraine are responsible for maintaining a combined 12 per cent of the world’s caloric intake in wheat, barley, and other agricultural goods.
This won’t be the end for some time, or the last we hear from our national economy fruitlessly adjusting to geopolitical disputes overseas. An increase in gas prices is one of the many, smaller consequences resulting from the Russian-Ukraine conflict. The repercussions of war are chaotic as they are inevitable, and we can only hope that the world doesn’t catch fire under its weight.
