It's been a year and a half now... so what does gas price regulation actually cost us? Media reports over the last year would have you believe somewhere between 0.9 and 2 cents per litre.

I've become more familiar with the Halifax -> Amherst -> Moncton -> Fredericton corridor over the past year, and there's lots to bug me about it. Merely crossing over the NB/NS border makes me wonder:

Why are gas prices so much higher in NS?

Gas prices went up another 6 cents/Litre this week. Gas prices are, apparently, 1.03 in Fredericton. So why do the stations in Dartmouth read 1.11+ ? Even accounting for the five cents/litre difference in provincial taxes this is stupid.

Each time I've headed up that corridor, gasoline is consistently cheaper just across the border. Noticeably cheaper. The highest price I paid for gas driving to Montreal was 1.08: and that was at a backwater station in the Middle of Nowhere, QC. At the time, gasoline was about 1.15 here.

Why, Rodney, why? It's not about saving money, according to the Conservatives: the reasoning behind regulation was price stability. But weekly price changes don't make prices more stable

Premier Rodney MacDonald’s rationale for regulation is gone. With the move to weekly price adjustments, he can no longer argue that consumers have gas price stability. Fifty-two possible price changes is not stability and provides no more consistency than the competitive market. For example, in 2005, there were only 62 price changes. In 2004, there were only 50 price changes.

It's not about saving money. It's also not about price stability. So why do we pay this extra cost? It's just a money sinkhole. And another reason why leaving this damn province is looking very, very appealing.

Update: Fixed my borked html

A while back my apartment complex got a new parking lot. It replaced one that had degenerated into weed-ville and pothole city.

When the lines were first painted in the blocks of spaces, the individual parking spaces were fairly wide, and had plenty of room to park a vehicle without worry about hitting other cars with the doors. The number of spaces? 13 per block.

That didn't last long.

Almost immediately, the old lines were scraped off (not a fun process to listen to...) and repainted. The new parking spaces, surprise surprise, were narrower than the old. Spaces per block? 15.

Picking up the paper this morning, I was hardly surprised to see the torrent of criticism targeted at Nova Scotia (and NS politicians in general) that we're backwards country bumpkins. One of the Chronicle-Herald columnists, Steven Maher, suggested that (among other things) that the bid was cancelled to maintain 'good graces' with the elderly in the province, and that the Commonwealth Games bid was unpopular only with the elderly. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sword-swinging fool, apparently. Donald has more details and also a comment from a CTV journalist looking for cell phone video.

Chock up another use for my new 'WTF' category.

Update: More facts are coming out. See the link above for more.