Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne is pictured in this photo from his Facebook page. Coyne has started a petition protesting high gas prices in the rural B.C.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Spencer Coyne
May 01, 2020 - 2:30 PM
The mayor of Princeton is fed up with paying high fuel prices in his rural B.C. town when compared to the Lower Mainland and cities in the southern Interior, so he's started a petition to round up some support.
Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne started a petition on Change.org, April 30, and is seeking 1,000 signatures. He’s collected more than 500 so far.
Coyne argues rural B.C. gets hit the hardest when it comes to gas prices.
“It’s terrible here. We were paying $1.30 per litre when Penticton gas stations were selling for 90 cents,” he said in a telephone interview today, May 1. “It all comes from the same place. There’s no need for the price difference, with record lows for the price of crude oil, worldwide.”
In his petition he says southern Interior communities pay prices higher than, or comparable to Vancouver, which has a 51 cent transit tax added to the price of a litre of fuel.
“At the time of this poll, Vancouver gas price is 82.9 and Princeton is 107.9. In Osoyoos the gas price is 93.9. Princeton is 114 km closer to the bulk plant in Kamloops than Osoyoos; Princeton is paying 14 cents more per litre than Osoyoos and 25 cents more per litre than Vancouver, which has the transit tax,” Coyne says in support of his petition.
Rural B.C. doesn’t have transit options available in the big city, he argues, and rural areas use more fuel to conduct activities such as logging, mining, ranching and farming.
“Rural B.C. should not be paying more than urban areas. No more gouging rural British Columbia, we demand equality at the gas pumps,” he says.
Coyne says he will be sending copies of the petition to B.C. Premier John Horgan, as well as to the oil companies that serve Princeton.
“It hurts our economy. People will drive to other communities to save on a tank of gas, then get their groceries... too.”
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