Some of it is taxes, right wing governments, both Provincial and Federal campaigning on low taxes who cut income taxes and then raise other taxes to make up for the shortfall but mostly because the oil companies can get away with it and our governments don't want to do anything about it including building refineries so we don't have to import our gasoline from Texas. They're business types who believe in maximum short term profits rather then sustainable profits that also employ more people.
 

West coast of Canada. Last week, it was still $1.10 or so a liter with 4.54 liters to an imperial gallon. This week it dropped to $1.03 in Vancouver. I'm just outside the metro area where the tax is 15 cents a litre less (no transit tax) and gas is 98.9 cents a litre.

Managed to get up to 38% of the people who actually voted last time, with a lot of close ridings and quite a bit of fraud, though they've changed the law so that in this election we'll never know about any investigations for fraud.
We have the tyranny of the minority due to multiple political parties.

Blame our ant-tax federal government. If you want to win votes by cutting (income) taxes, you have to raise (all other) taxes (and fees). Notice how gas is still almost $5 a gallon? That is so the feds can fund things like sports. Shit we even get taxed on the taxes thanks to our wonderful anti-tax government.

That would be great, free hookers and blow and a good job doing nothing to replace the job/business that is now gone after having too spend too much time in Washington, and all I'd have to do is vote a certain way.

It's only socialist when it helps the common man. If it helps the rich or other aristocratic type, then it is not socialist and therefore good.

Aren't you guys allies with Pakistan, the enemy of India?

You misunderstand. The idea is to move the bitumen to China as the Americans aren't willing to pay the world price for Canadian bitumen. The pipeline to Vancouver, the Northern Gateway and Keystone all are different plans to get the oil to China and planning started before Obama when we got the right wing Albertan centered federal government in 2006 and now that the Keystone has been delayed new plans are to reverse the flow of the pipeline to Atlantic Canada and to build a pipeline to the Arctic as well as shipping by train to all coasts.
Currently here in BC we have to import oil as all the Albertan product is earmarked for China and there is none available for the last refinery in Vancouver and if Keystone is ever completed, it won't be to sell Americans cheap oil, it'll be to put the oil on tankers and ship it to the far east. Being Canadian product, the rules about selling unrefined product that America has don't apply.

Work is starting on twinning the pipeline to Vancouver and the pipeline to Prince Rupert has been OKed but no-one is happy about the idea of tankers full of bitumen plying the rugged coastline shipping Canadian jobs to China so the oil companies (mostly Texan but our government doesn't have a problem with selling us out to China and Indonesia as well) can make a quicker buck. BC will get very little benefit from Albertan oil getting shipped to China and Indonesia.
They just want to ship as much product as cheaply as possible.

People, including the environmentalists want to build refineries in BC but the governments don't want to. Even better to build them in Alberta so that at least semi-refined product is flowing through the pipeline as it would be much easier to clean up then the raw bitumen and dilutates that need to be added to make it flow. The problem is right wing governments who want to run the place like a business, profits right now to drive up the stock price mentality rather then long term profits to keep Canadians working, productive and earning a living.
I've been to ex-copper mines and lead mines. After a hundred years they're still dead zones. Grew up around the terminus of a oil pipeline as well, miles of beach (much rocky) where you could dig down a few inches and find a tar like substance. Currently that refinery (Chevron in Burnaby) has to import oil even though the tankers load a mile away as the government has decided that it is more important to ship the oil to China then refine it in BC and maybe get our gas prices down below a $1.10 a litre.
Harpers stupid, if he wanted support for the bitumen industry, he could pressure the oil companies to sell the gas for a reasonable price and instead of using gas taxes to offset income tax and support sports, he could cut the gas tax or at least make the GST not apply to taxes.

It would be a lot safer to move at least semi-refined product. Bitumen is a bitch to clean up and the stuff they add to thin it down enough for it to flow can be nasty.

As the other poster says, steam was commonly used for heat and hot water until fairly recently. Steam engines weren't really replaced by diesel until the '50's.
Lucked out to be besides the tracks last year when a heritage steam train went by. There were some neat sounds as well as sight, there's something about a big steam locomotive that just screams pent up power.

Many of us Canadians wish that the bitumen sands were being used to add value to the economy through refineries but our right wing government is in the pockets of American, Chinese and Indonesian oil companies as well as having the business attitude of maximum profits now rather then sustainable profits for the future. And yes they're deregulating as fast as they can with the odd bump when a town gets blown up (or too many people are dieing of salmonella). Shit, the last refinery here on the southwest coast can't get enough oil and has to import it even though the oil pipeline terminates basically at the refinery.
Fucking right wingers are financially idiots who rather then paying off the debt that they created by blowing the surplus and running a deficit for the last 8 years while going on about how being Conservative means they're good with money would rather cut taxes now that an election is coming up. I'm probably old fashioned but I'd rather see the bills being paid off while the economy is good due to the high oil prices just in case the price of oil drops.

Mod points are to make good posts more visible and even ACs deserve to have their good posts upvoted so more can read them. I often use most of my points on ACs who make good points.

Is that the sentient beings that did genetic engineering, invented chlorophyll and wiped themselves in the oxygen catastrophe? Or perhaps those vaguely crab shaped ones that had the bad luck of a volcano? Or any of the other sapient beings that had bad luck?