Where are our politicians when Canadians really need them!?!?!?

It's just a couple of days after completing your income tax return for the federal and provincial governments. April 30 is always a painful reminder that as Canadians we each pay our politicians and bureaucrats thousands of dollars a year to work for us. But are they really working in our best interests?!?!?!

Sadly, big businesses seem to be winning the price war against consumers in Canada. And no one in power gives a damn! Just two Canadian cases in point: high gas prices by oil companies and ridiculous service fees by the oily banks. I'm sure you have many additional examples of corporate rip-offs, but I'll focus on these most blatant examples.

Why are Canadian gas prices so high?

New record fuel prices hit $1.28 a litre this week in Canada. Yet Canadians don't seem to be as angry as we were at the turn of the century when gas prices were just $.72. Have we just given up?

In 2000, angrier Canadians actually organized a ‘gas-out' protest that included boycotting  fuel purchases on certain days as well as picketing major gas stations such as PetroCanada, Esso, Chevron and Shell. One organization - Gas Busters - was set up to target oil companies over the Internet.

"Petro-Canada has their own refinery, pulls their oil from Edmonton," noted Smith at the time. "They are in a position to give us what they were designed to, which was made-in-Canada (gas) prices."

At the time, companies like Canadian Tire offered promotions that cut gas prices by 20 cents a litre. American border towns worked hard to attract Canadians back across the US border.

Bed and breakfast owners John and Marilyn O'Donnell in upstate New York gave away $25 USD worth of gas for every two-day vacation package. "We rely on the tourist market for the travel season so we started thinking, what can we do to share the burden of this unreasonable high cost of fuel?"

O'Donnell's idea caught on at the time. Three other hotels in Schoharie County offered similar deals, hoping free gas will give Montreal tourists another reason to vacation south of the border.

But while many Canadians are upset was the price of gas, no one seems angry enough to force a change. The GasBusters website no longer exists, although the domain name is still for sale.

Meanwhile, in the USA, Americans are going crazy even though average gas prices are just two-thirds of Canadian prices. American drivers are paying approximately $2.90 USD a gallon, or much closer to $.87 CAD a litre.

It seems nuts, since the United States is a net importer of oil, while Canada is a net exporter of oil. So how can our prices be so much higher than our southern neighbours? It's time to hold our politicians accountable for this injustice. Write your local, provincial and national elected officials. Do it today!

Demand they hold the gas companies responsible for escalating price hikes.

In the meantime, visit the North American gas tips website that gives up-to-date prices on cities and towns across Canada and the United States of America.

Why are bank fees and ATM charges so high?

Every few years, Canadian banks are called to Ottawa to defend their outrageous multi-billion dollar profits before the federal government's parliamentary finance committee. The focus over and over again is service fees, particularly those ATM charges which vary from $1.50 to $4.65 per transaction.

So here it is again - Spring 2007 - and Canada's big banks are feeling the heat again over the hefty bank fees they charge customers for using automated teller machines!

These national banks raked in $19 billion in profits last year. So it's hard to believe they need to levy such large fees to keep their ATMs up and running.

In a meeting with chief executives from the six biggest banks, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty discussed reducing ATM charges for low-income customers, including seniors, students and the disabled.

While these groups feel the sting of high fees more than most, all Canadians suffer. If Flaherty really thinks the charges are excessive, he should push the banks to reduce them for all customers. Everyone feels this pain.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, a federal watchdog, has calculated how much it costs Canadians to withdraw their money from ATMs. The results are outrageous.

Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper apparently agrees that the high fees "annoy" him.

If you use your own bank's machine, you likely will pay nothing on top of the monthly service fees most people pay to have an account. But if you withdraw money at another bank's ATM, "convenience" and "network" fees can add up to between $1.50 and $4.65. Non-bank ATMs, which outnumber bank ATMs by more than two to one, charge even more. But they do not fall under federal jurisdiction.

Yet even bank ATM fees can eat up almost one-quarter of a $20 withdrawal. That is too steep a price to give customers access to their own money.

The Canadian Bankers Association argues its members charge ATM fees to support their network of machines. Fair enough. Banks shouldn't have to operate at a loss. But nor should they use ATMs as cash cows to pump up already ample profits. Ottawa should push the banks to charge only enough to cover the costs of running ATMs, no more. End of story. Period.