They’ve been increasing since late last year, Statistics Canada data shows, and a significant drop might not come for a while, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.com.
“We are at all-time record highs across Canada in many areas,” he told Global News.
2:01 Fuel costs may keep summer plans close to home
Fuel costs may keep summer plans close to home
“Unfortunately, we continue to set new records almost every day as we make the transition to summer gasoline across Canada, and as we see oil prices continue to go up as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and escalations in that situation.”
At this time last year, the average price in Canada for regular fuel was $1.31 a litre, Statistics Canada data shows. The average price of regular gas in Canada on Friday was $1.86 a litre, De Haan said.
Statistics Canada data from December 2021 to March of this year show the average rise in regular gasoline prices in Canada.
Global News graphic
Gas prices began to increase in Canada starting in December, when the average price for regular fuel was $1.40 a litre, according to Statistics Canada. In March, one month into Russia’s Ukraine war, the average price for regular gas was $1.75 a litre, up from $1.56 a litre in February. Average prices for April are not yet available.
Of course, the price for regular gas varies across the country. In British Columbia on Friday, the average price of regular gas was $2.02 per litre, Gasbuddy.com said. On Wednesday in Metro Vancouver, the price at the pumps read $2.11 a litre.
Newfoundland saw the highest prices at the pumps on Friday with the average being $2.06 a litre, Gasbuddy.com said. Alberta had the cheapest fuel at $1.60 per litre.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed driving habits when lockdowns forced residents to stay home and commute less, De Haan said. Oil producers cut production early on in the pandemic to meet low demand, but have had trouble keeping up as demand increased, he added.
That, on top of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the West’s economic response to it, has driven gas prices sky high, De Haan said.
“The challenge is that there’s been a growing imbalance between supply and demand, and that imbalance widened even more substantially after Russia’s war in Ukraine,” he said.
1:55 GTA gas prices hit just under $1.95 per litre
GTA gas prices hit just under $1.95 per litre
Russia, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, launched a military invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 that has rocked global economies.
On Feb. 28, Canada said it would block all imports of Russian oil despite not having purchased any since 2019, the government said.
On March 8, the United States banned all imports of Russia’s oil, but announced it would help release millions of barrels of oil from strategic reserves. The move was aimed to help lower the prices at the pumps, they said, but also help nations dependent on Russian oil to move away from their products.
2:11 Biden authorizes release of 1M barrels of oil per day from US strategic reserve to tame gas prices
Biden authorizes release of 1M barrels of oil per day from US strategic reserve to tame gas prices – Mar 31, 2022
Many of those nations are in the European Union, which until now has resisted introducing a ban on Russian oil. But with the war showing no signs of slowing down, and the brutality reportedly getting worse, the EU proposed a ban on Russian oil this week with incentives for member nations who can’t dump the product straight away.
“As long as those sanctions are in place that can impair Russia’s ability to sell oil, we’re going to have an imbalance in supply and demand in the global market,” De Haan said.
“I really don’t think we’re going to see improvement for quite some time, and I would tie it to a resolution between Russia and Ukraine.”
Motorists fuel up vehicles at a Shell gas station in Vancouver, on March 8.
Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press file photo
With oil being a global commodity, Canada is at the mercy of world events, said Ian Jack, vice president of public affairs at CAA.
Oil producers are also set to switch to summer blends of gas, which costs more to produce than the winter blends currently on the market, Jack said.
For immediate relief, governments can likely reduce taxes on gas products, but the savings may not be much, given prices are so high, he added.
“There’s no way governments can magically return the price to where it was,” Jack told Global News.
“If you think about the price of gas being well under a dollar a litre … the government take (on taxes) could be reduced, could help a bit, but you’re not you’re not going to return those prices.”
Cutting taxes could also backfire and lead to more demand, De Haan said.
“Really, the only improvement is going to touch on one of those, either increasing supply, which appears impossible given the constraints of refineries and given the global market for oil, or reduce demand or reduce taxes,” he said.
“Reducing demand is very difficult. … You can’t ask people to stay home, so there’s not a whole lot government can do to decrease demand other than to allow the high prices to start causing demand destruction. So that and like I said, they can alleviate taxes temporarily, but that could make the problem worse as well by driving demand up.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
