What to know
- Pierre Poilievre called on the Carney government to scrap the federal taxes on fuel until the end of the year.
- It comes as Canadians see record-breaking prices at the pumps.
- While the Conservatives recognize the high gas prices are due to the conflict in the Middle East, they say the Liberals can do more to help ease the burden for Canadians.
- A University of Toronto economics professor Walid Hejazi also has his own set of suggestions on how the government can turn lemons into lemonade.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on the Liberal government to scrap the federal gas tax for the rest of the year as he says gas prices have increased by 35 per cent across the country.
Canadian gas prices are nearly 20% higher than in the U.S. because of Liberal taxes on gas.
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 2, 2026
And Mark Carney's Liberals plan to raise them even higher.
Put ZERO tax on gas to save all drivers 25 cents-a-litre at the pump now: https://t.co/n5sYnbfWBD pic.twitter.com/tBX9cpD164
“To be clear and to be fair, the recent increase in gas prices is the result of the war in Iran,” the leader of the Opposition said at a press conference in Ottawa.
“But the long term, high costs in Canada are the result of Liberal taxes,” he continued.
Poilievre pointed to the 10 cents a litre excise tax on gasoline (four cents per litre on diesel), seven cents a litre fuel standard tax and the GST, which he says “actually collects more money for the government the more gas prices go up.”
He says suspending all those fuel-related taxes would save Canadians 25 cents a litre, “about $20 a fill-up and $1,200 for the average family of four between now and the end of the year.”
According to the Government of Canada, provincial governments also collect taxes on fuel – with “considerable” variance among provinces. In Vancouver, Victoria, and Montreal, municipal taxes also apply on gasoline.
Conservatives say they’ll pay for the fuel tax relief
Answering a question on what it would cost the federal government to scrap those taxes, Poilievre says the Conservatives have a plan to make up for lost revenue.
“I’ve already identified some areas that I think we can use to pay for it,” the party leader said.
In a media release, the Conservatives says it will implement a ‘dollar-for-dollar’ principle, cutting “wasteful spending on the gun buyback, bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid, and boondoggles” such as the Liberal government’s $90 billion ALTO, a high-speed rail project meant to connect Toronto with Quebec.
Poilievre blamed the Liberal government’s bureaucratic regulations for standing in the way of the country’s growth and the prime minister for “doubling” the nation’s deficit.
“People can’t fill their tanks with Mark Carney’s overseas speeches or fill their grocery carts with his photo ops,” Poilievre said.
He pointed to the difference in gas prices between Canada and the U.S. to support his party’s demand.
“We both face the same global circumstance,” the Conservative leader wrote on a social media post, pointing to the difference in gas prices in Canada and the United States.
Why are gas prices in Canada so much higher than in the United States?
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 1, 2026
We both face the same global circumstances. And Canada has an abundant supply.
Liberal taxes on gas make it more expensive to buy.
Liberal anti-development laws make it expensive to supply.
Mark Carney's… pic.twitter.com/CuHcBRDleS
The Opposition leader also spoke at length about the country’s potential in its oil reserves in a recent appearance on The Diary Of A CEO, a popular podcast.
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Why is gas cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada?
Last month, two weeks into the war in Iran, 32 countries part of the International Energy Agency unanimously agreed to unleash a cumulative 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves to “address disruptions in oil markets stemming from the war.”
When emergency stock is released, it is made available to the market of each participating country “over a timeframe that is appropriate to the national circumstances”. For the U.S., that meant releasing 172 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to be distributed over 120 days.
However, Canada, a member of the IEA, does not have a government-controlled reserve like SPR in the U.S. In fact, it is the only G7 nation without one. This is because Canada’s status as a net exporter exempts it from sufficing the IEA requirement.
According to the federal government, Canada’s oil sands are the “fourth-largest proven oil reserve in the world” – accounting for 98 per cent of the country’s 163 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
A carrot on a stick, Walid Hejazi, a professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at the University of Toronto, describes.
“That’s all privately owned,” Hejazi tells Now Toronto.
“That’s different from Saudi Arabia and Russia and Brazil, where it’s all government owned. Even though Canada and the U.S. have a lot of oil, it’s not like they’re going to give it to Canadians below world price.”
Hejazi says Canadian companies will sell to the highest bidder regardless of how the gas prices at home are affecting Canadians at home.
“They’re not going to say, ‘Oh, you’re Canadian. Show me your passport and I’m going to give you a 25 per cent discount.’ That’s not the way it works.”
“Because we export oil, [oil-producing industries] will be happy,” he says. “Demand for oil will go up and the price of oil is going up, so the oil economy in Canada will be better off.”
Despite oil reserves in Canada being privately owned, Hejazi says there is a way Canadians could indirectly benefit from a robust oil economy. That is, should the country invest more into making use of its natural resources.
“Just imagine, right now, if we had the infrastructure in place – the ports and the pipelines and the relationships – all of the oil that would be going from the Middle East to Asia that’s now interrupted, [Canada] could fill that,” Hejazi says.
For now, though, Hejazi says Canadians will have to endure the pressure at the pumps.
“It’s going to really hurt a lot of people,” he says.
“What should the government do? That’s sort of the big question. … I don’t exactly know what the right tool is but what we should be thinking about right now is helping those who are going to be most impacted by the cost of energy, help them overcome this very real burden.”
