Dan McTeague believes the price of gas will drop significantly if the Conservatives form the next government and follow through on Pierre Poilievre's promise to axe the carbon tax.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, the next government will be a Conservative government,” said McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy and a Liberal MP from 1993 to 2011, by phone on Wednesday.
“If they kill the carbon tax, both the first and second one, two things are going to happen.
“One, an immediate drop of about 22 cents a litre in the price of gas. So if you don't like paying $1.57, maybe you'll be a little happier paying $1.33 or $1.32 per litre,” McTeague said.
The second thing that could happen is that “a new government will likely bolster the value of the Canadian dollar versus the U.S. greenback.
“Why is that important? Regardless of the tariffs and whatnot, all of our commodities like gasoline, oil, diesel, food, etc., mostly are priced on the U.S. dollar.
“On a day like today, when the Canadian dollar is struggling at 144 pennies to get one U.S. dollar - that's about 25 cents per litre of gasoline.”
If the Canadian dollar was trading at par with the U.S. greenback, there would be a substantial savings of up to an additional 25 cents per litre.
McTeague isn’t saying electing a Conservative government would bring the dollar to par, but it could knock 10 to 15 points off the U.S. dollar in favour of Canada.
“That could result in 120 or 125 pennies by the U.S. dollar with confidence in the new government, which would likely lead to another 10 or 15 cent decrease in the price of gas.
“Make no mistake, if you don't like the price of diesel and gasoline, your choice in the next election will be very, very important,” he said.
“Either you can continue with these prices or change the government.”
The former Liberal MP said he believes it will be a Conservative government, “in which case, you can expect prices to drop as much as 30 cents a litre for gasoline and diesel.”
For more information on the price of gas visit gaswizard.ca.