No giveaways at the pumps

By Joan Janzen

Everyone is talking about gas prices! And it’s not surprising, as prices currently range from $1.69 to $2.00 per litre in Canada. It’s a substantial cost considering the minimum wage in Saskatchewan is $11.81/per hour. However fluctuating gas prices are not new.

Gas prices from 1995 to 2006 ranged from 57.8 cents to 99.8 cents per litre, staying under a dollar. However the price jumped to a whopping $1.17 in 2008, dropping back down to 97 cents/per litre the following year.

Gas prices have been steadily rising throughout the years, along with everything else. Gone are the days when you would receive special gifts with your gas purchase. An advertisement in 1936 offered a free official weight rubber baseball with every purchase of five gallons or more of gasoline.

Four decades later, in 1975 gas cost 14.4 cents/litre. Canada had introduced the metric system, but it would take some time before gas stations converted the sale of gasoline from gallons to litres. Minimum wage in 1975 was $2.80 per hour, and (according to an advertisement in the Kindersley Clarion), a new 1975 Ford F100 truck cost $5,950.00.

Nine years later, in 1984, the price of gas in Saskatchewan was 39.9 cents per litre, and the minimum wage was $4.30 per hour. To get an idea of what a dollar could buy back then, partly skimmed milk cost 98 cents per litre, and a dozen eggs cost $1.37.

But in 1984, you were occasionally rewarded for filling your gas tank. An advertisement in a 1984 issue of the Kindersley Clarion revealed a give away at the pumps. Customers could get a set of glassware simply by filling their gas tank. Every time you purchased a minimum of 30 litres of gasoline, you would receive a coupon. Three coupons earned you your choice of a glassware to add to your collection.

Here we are almost forty years later, when gas prices have quadrupled since the days back in 1984. And not even the offer of free glassware would help to console customers.