Motorists in the National Capital pay more for regular gasoline than almost anywhere else in Quebec, according to a report from the Régie de l’énergie published Wednesday. The higher price at the pump coincides with greater concentration of the market in the hands of just five players.
Five retailers shared 84% of the gasoline trade in Quebec, in 2022. Elsewhere, this proportion peaked at 70%, a sign of greater competition between a greater number of players.
” The famous gas bars that there was at the time, we have less and less, underlined the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon. So there is increased concentration in large groups. »
In the National Capital, the market is not only concentrated among a smaller number of merchants, but they reap a greater profit on the liter of gasoline sold than elsewhere in Quebec. Their margin has increased by 10.6 cents per liter (¢/l) in the space of five years to reach, in 2023, 15¢/l.
Only three regions, namely Côte-Nord, Nord-du-Québec and Bas-Saint-Laurent, have higher margins.
Dissatisfied with this observation, Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon summoned the five main retailers in the region to “obtain explanations”.
Couche-Tard, Pétroles Cadeko, Harnois Énergies, Costco and Sobeys will have to justify themselves to the minister. The latter also asks the Competition Bureau (BCC) to investigate the gasoline market in the National Capital.
“The concentration of gas plants is the most blatant,” Minister Fitzgibbon said during a press briefing on Wednesday. We have to decide whether this is why prices have increased. We can say yes, but we have to prove it. The Competition Bureau is heading towards that. »
A previous BCC investigation into gas price fixing found 33 people and 8 companies guilty of conspiring to establish prices in the Victoriaville, Thetford Mines, Magog and Sherbrooke markets. The penalties in this case totaled more than $4 million and 54 months in prison.
No price ceiling in sight
The Ministry of Energy is also considering a revision of the Petroleum Products Act. “I am going to add one or two experts who will help us review the law,” said the minister. Current legislation allows the government to set a maximum price at the pump, an avenue that Pierre Fitzgibbon, however, excludes.
I am going to add one or two experts who will help us review the law
“Setting a price ceiling, well, technically everyone goes to the ceiling,” he said. I won’t play on the price every day: that’s not the job I came to do, and it’s not up to the government to legislate either. »
The minister will also ask the Régie de l’énergie to “continue its work” to ensure that situations similar to those noted in Quebec are not repeated in other regions. In addition, he intends to clarify the Régie’s data to “present the information on a basis that is easier to access for consumers, to show the margins by region [et] so that the consumer can understand what is happening.
Chaudière-Appalaches also under the magnifying glass
The Chaudière-Appalaches region is also under the microscope of the Energy Authority and BCC investigators.
“The Competition Bureau was in Saint-Georges two weeks ago,” said Beauce-Sud MP Samuel Poulin, “and he confirmed the opening of an investigation. » The elected official underlines having directed “dozens of citizens who said they had information concerning the setting of the price of gasoline in Saint-Georges, often higher than elsewhere in Quebec”, to the BCC investigators.
The Energy Authority must produce a report “in the coming weeks” on the situation in Chaudière-Appalaches, a region “very concerned by the data we have today,” adds Samuel Poulin.
The Parti Québécois welcomed the approach announced Wednesday, while asking to entrust the investigations to the Office du consommateurs du Québec. “The Competition Bureau is sleeping on the gas and is not taking the situation seriously in any way,” tweeted chef Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on X. According to him, since “cartel-type practices” exist across Quebec, the minister should launch a “real investigation” into competition in the oil sector.