UCP leadership candidate Brian Jean announced if elected premier he will use all regulatory tools available to prevent "gouging at the gas pump.".Jean said he is prepared to introduce legislation that would allow the government to set caps on retailer margins for fuel during times when retailers and distributors are "gouging.".“Inflation is running at generational highs,” Jean said..“Statistics Canada says that is primarily because of fuel prices. In Alberta, those fuel prices are no longer linked to the global price of oil, or the wholesale cost of fuel and the taxes. We won’t be able to get a grip on inflation unless we end the gas pump gouging that is driving up transportation costs across Alberta, making inflation worse, and hurting Albertans.”.According to Jean, in April Alberta dropped its provincial fuel tax to zero. That saved Albertans 13 cents per litre right then, but in the almost three months since then, retailers raised margins from 8 or 9 cents per litre to as high as 42 cents a litre at some stations in Calgary last week.."The retailers stole Albertans tax cut. That can’t continue,” Jean said..“As an example, wholesale fuel prices in Ontario are quite a bit higher than in Alberta and Ontarians pay more in fuel taxes per litre and yet for the last week the average fuel price in Ontario has been lower than the average fuel price in Alberta.".“That wasn’t caused by world oil prices or taxes, that was caused by gouging at the pumps in Alberta.”.Earlier in his campaign Jean put forward an “Owner’s Discount” proposal that would drop the wholesale price of gas and diesel in Alberta by as much as 15 cents a litre.."Many Albertans responded if we didn’t get a grip on retailer gouging that they would steal that discount like they stole the tax cut. I am not going to allow that.”.Jean said he's committed to creating enabling legislation that would allow the government to trigger short notice retailer margin caps when those margins substantially exceeded the margins charged in other provinces..Five Canadian provinces currently regulate retail gasoline prices. None of them allow retailer margins anywhere near the 32 cents retail margin which is the average in Calgary on Thursday.
