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There’s a kind of hard-working, steel-toe energy to it: pickup trucks, SUVs, work vans, hulking campers, none of which are safe from the smell of diesel fumes, breakfast sandwiches and black coffee.
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It’s a place where lottery tickets, chopped wood, windshield fluid, chicken tenders, energy drinks, propane and motor oil somehow all belong together.
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And this gas station in southern Alberta is also where hundreds of customers every day are forced to reevaluate how much they can spend on other parts of their lives after filling up.
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“It sucks,” Melaney Lietz, a mother of two, said while loading up her minivan with a fresh tank of regular at a station run by Gas King Oil Co. Ltd., an independent chain with a handful of locations in Southern Alberta.
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Like many other Canadians, Lietz is feeling the pinch as fueling up grows more costly during a global energy crisis.
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We are over 12 weeks into the biggest energy supply shock the world has ever seen, created by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping corridor for one-fifth of the world’s oil.
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To get a sense of how the resulting high fuel prices are affecting Canadians, The Financial Post, in partnership with The Calgary Herald, spent a day staking out one of the busiest gas stations in Lethbridge, Alta. — with permission, of course.
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In speaking with dozens of people, one thing became clear: sticker shock from high prices is hitting everyone differently. Some have the means to pay, while others are cutting back or simply doing their best to feed their families.
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For Lietz, filling her slick, sliding-door cruiser used to cost no more than $50. Recently, her eyes watered as the price trickled above $70, and she didn’t even leave with a full tank.
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“(We’re) paying the price at the pumps just to get to work to pay the taxes on everything else,” she said.
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‘Not going camping this year’: Canadians axe road trips, summer getaways
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Rising fuel prices have meant many airlines, trucking companies, railways and others have tacked on fuel surcharges, which can raise the cost of just about everything. And, for many, the sticker shock might mean cutting back on summer road trips or axing air travel plans.
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Lietz said that while her family has booked a vacation over the summer months, it may well be a staycation.
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“We’re not going camping this year, because our truck, it usually costs us a good $500 at least,” Lietz said. “I can’t even imagine what’s going to cost us to pull the trailer this year.”
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Last year, Lietz’s family travelled to Nanaimo, B.C., the province that has seen some of the highest gas prices since the crisis began, with major cities like Vancouver surpassing $2 per litre. Diesel has fared poorly too, with monthly prices climbing to an average of $2.18 per litre countrywide in May, according to data from Kalibrate.
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Lethbridge is no exception, with prices in the city averaging over $1.80 per litre for regular gas so far in May, almost a 45 per cent increase compared to May last year.
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A bit more than a third of Canadians polled in a recent TD survey said they plan to spend less this summer, with an even greater share reporting fuel costs are forcing them to cut back on travel. The results in Alberta were similar.
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While some cut back on trips, there are still holdouts — those who need to travel for work, or folks with the means to gas up for leisure.
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Jim Leitch, a retiree in Lethbridge, said that while he’s more comfortable with gas prices around $1.40 per litre, he’s not deterred from filling up — at least not yet.
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“If I have to spend an extra 10 bucks to go golfing, no problem, 15 bucks even,” Leitch, 72, said.
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He added that if he had to spend $60 to golf, instead of $25 or so, he’d probably cut back on tee times.
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“It’s still something I’m going to do, but I’m just a little more aware of the fact that it’s a higher price, and so it just cuts into your other savings,” Leitch said, adding he knows some aren’t as lucky as he is to have saved.
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Steve Ouellet, an assistant manager at Gas King, suspects many of his customers are living paycheck to paycheck, and he’s noticed it at the station.
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“I don’t think they’re filling up as much as they were,” Ouellet said, adding he believes some customers are waiting for payday before loading their tank.
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Kelly Klimchuk, Gas King’s district sales manager, said they’ve also noticed people are buying less in the chain’s convenience stores, which he says could be a sign that high fuel prices are deterring extra purchases.
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“There are extra dollars that maybe that discretionary spend doesn’t get used in store,” he said.
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Overall, when it comes to prices, Klimchuk believes customers are just shy of the tipping point.
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“When fuel can change overnight by, you know, five or eight or 10 per cent for no significant local reason, there’s concern expressed by customers,” Klimchuk said.
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‘If we saw over two bucks (per litre), it’d be heartbreaking’
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Despite its name, Gas King doesn’t have a monarchy over gas costs, which are — for the most part — tied to North American oil prices. Those have been way up, largely due to the massive shipping bottleneck on the other end of the globe.
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But Gas King’s busiest location, which borders an industrial area on one side and houses on the other, feels like a place where you can get a brief glimpse of everyone’s day just by looking at their facial expressions.
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Some squint at prices quickly ticking up at the pump, while others run inside the store, grabbing a pack of smokes, a coffee or packaged delicacies you’d seldom buy elsewhere.
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One even wore a T-shirt plastered with the print: “Work Harder,” an adage that seemingly encapsulates the hard-working, small-town vibe Lethbridge maintains, despite being a city of over 100,000. A vibe made more apparent by the number of pickup trucks, work vans and brightly coloured safety vests rolling or strolling through Gas King.
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For young parents Jordan and Brooklyn Lamb, it’s about rolling with the high prices — literally — as they deliver baked goods to businesses around town out of the back of their family-friendly SUV.
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Loading up on gas while supporting two young kids — with a third on the way — has become cumbersome for them.
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“It creeps up to almost 200 bucks a tank now, especially on these bigger vehicles,” Jordan said. “If we saw over two bucks (per litre), it’d be heartbreaking.”
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For regular gasoline, prices have kept below $2 per litre so far, in most cities. In some places, such as Vancouver, prices have bubbled over — climbing as high as $2.30 on some days.
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“We had to be more conscious, obviously, where we’re driving and deliveries and whatnot,” Jordan said.
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Brooklyn’s baking business — Hey Dough Cookie Co. — helps the whole family get by. Her softball-sized cookies are on the shelf in various places, including Gas King.
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“I’m a mom first,” Brooklyn said. “(Baking has) always been a hobby of mine, something that I’ve wanted to do; I still have a passion for it.”
