Gas prices in Hamilton and the southern Ontario average

A regional average, not a city one

The Ontario survey reports averages for a short list of markets (Toronto West and East, Ottawa, London, Windsor, St. Catharines, Peterborough and several northern cities) along with a provincial, a southern and a northern average. Hamilton is not on the list. The southern average is the published number that covers it, so it is the one used here. It blends many places, which smooths out local quirks: a Hamilton station can be cheaper or dearer than this figure on any given week.

Premium was 30.3¢/L above regular in the survey, diesel 86.4¢/L above. Those gaps are set by the refined products markets; the provincial tax per litre is the same on both grades of gasoline.

Hamilton against St. Catharines and Niagara

St. Catharines, a short drive along the Queen Elizabeth Way, is the closest market the province surveys by name. Its average can be set beside the southern Ontario average for each week where both were published.

In 13 of those 13 weeks Niagara came in below the southern average, and the mean difference was −1.9¢. Keep in mind what is being compared: one side is a single urban market, the other an average of the whole south of the province, so a gap may say as much about the rest of southern Ontario as about either city. The full Niagara picture is on the St. Catharines page.

How the Hamilton estimate moves

The southern average is a Monday number. Between surveys, the site follows the Régie de l'énergie du Québec, which publishes a Montreal price every morning; with its taxes removed, its change since Monday is a fair read of where the eastern wholesale market went, and it is applied to the southern average with HST. In the replay, nine weeks out of ten the error stayed below 5.4¢/L. The tomorrow page gives the same estimate for all cities.

Taxes per litre in Hamilton

Hamilton drivers pay the same taxes as everywhere else in Ontario: 9 cents a litre of provincial gasoline tax and 13% HST. No regional fuel tax is added on top, unlike the transit levies charged in Metro Vancouver or around Montreal.

On a 55-litre fill-up at this price, $16.04 goes to taxes and $80.32 to the fuel itself, its transport and the margins of the wholesaler and the retailer.

Recent southern Ontario surveys

For a national view, the city ranking lines up every surveyed market from the cheapest to the most expensive.