I think that's a great point! It also bears re-iterating that prices for fuel in Europe are more expensive because it's taxed more to fuel (in large part) their social programs, which consume a higher percentage of their governments' budgets than in the U.S. I'm not introducing debate as to whether that's a good thing or bad, but merely pointing out that this is why they pay so high a price. There's also a sense in which these higher fuel prices in Europe discourage car-ownership and encourage more dependence on government programs -- both of which go against Americans' traditional emphasis on self-reliance.

iampete's post was a good review of the differences between the US and Europe, and in many ways an even better review of why Canada is even more dependent on automobiles -- Canada is substantially less densely populated than the USA (roughly 33 million), and because there's a lot of land available, urban sprawl is the norm and in most places and public transportation to suburbia is fairly minimal.

Further, though, cities really don't have conservation in mind, no matter what they say. One of the main feeder streets near where I live has 6 streetlights in a busy mile of its length, and those lights are not coordinated in any way. Result: it is darned near impossible to move through that strip without being caught by one light to get on from the side, and one or two of the en route lights to get out and thus spend several minutes idling to get beyond the zone. The city is full of such examples. The lights are rarely set to recognize rush hours either. City traffic engineers simply don't think about those things.

What I can't figure out, though, is why Canadians seem to be so tolerant of such high taxation on their gas. Were the US gov't to tax gasoline at Canadian rates, they'd have a revolution (well, probably not literally) on their hands.

NovaScotian, I'm interested in hearing your take on the matter.

Exactly so. What I was suggesting is that anything we do around the edges in the 2, 5 or even 10 percent range will not reduce prices and will not make us energy independent. They will still have us by the throat.

It's time for a Manhattan Project/Man on the Moon style effort. If we need to build a whole new national infrastructure to support a new technology, then we need to be about doing that. Otherwise, our grand kids and great grand kids will be facing the same issues decades from now.

We can survive without plentiful and cheap energy (we're doing that now), but why would we want to? I think we owe it to the next generation to at least undertake a massive effort to see what the options are... perhaps a technology we don't yet know exists.

Yes we do owe it to the next generation, and it would be good for our economy now as well!

Free, universal health care consumes about 40% of the budget of most provinces, a large percentage of that cost incurred in the treatment of an aging population. Young folks drive much more than retirees do, so in part, that fuel tax makes the young pay for the health care of the old.

Further, Canada is a spread-out place as I mentioned. 80% of the population of Canada lives in a 100-mile wide band along the US border -- it's a string-bean country like Chile for all practical purposes, laid out East-West instead of North-South. At the same time, a 400-mile diameter circle centered somewhere around Niagara Falls (as I recall) encloses more than half the population of Canada and this region of the country is where a great deal of the distribution of goods to the fringes originates, so roads are long and important. A chunk of the federal part of that money funds the highway system and keeping it open in the winter.

Thanks, that explains a lot. I wasn't aware that those tax monies were considered as general gov't revenue in Canada.

Here in the US, the theory (definitely not universal practice though) at the federal level and many, if not most, states is that gas taxes are to be used in support of the transportation infrastructure only, and not as general gov't revenue. When gas taxes are raised (or proposed to be raised) people tend to resist passionately because they see little prospect for commensurate improvement of this infrastructure that the taxes are "supposed" to be paying for.