The changes will bring New Brunswick’s petroleum product pricing law closer to Nova Scotia’s law, while that province is “looking at” changes to make it more like New Brunswick’s, says Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland. Under the changes, New Brunswick’s EUB will no longer set the weekly maximum price on Thursdays, but will do so on Fridays, as will Nova Scotia. “The main focus of this bill will be to harmonize the regulations and laws within which EUBs operate in Atlantic Canada so that we can see some consistency in pricing back and forth, particularly with Nova Scotia,” he said. The price of a liter of diesel fuel jumped 68 cents in New Brunswick on November 4, while the Nova Scotia price jumped just 15.1 cents. Natural Resources Development and Energy Minister Mike Holland said the amendments will bring New Brunswick’s petroleum product pricing law closer to Nova Scotia’s law (Jacques Poitras/CBC) That’s because of differences in the two provinces’ break clauses — parts of their laws that require price changes outside of the regularly scheduled weekly adjustment. Nova Scotia’s law gives the province’s regulator more discretion to “wait and see,” Holland said, in case a spike is a brief market fluctuation. In New Brunswick’s case, the stop clause gives the EUB no such discretion and requires it to reflect the entire spike immediately. “When we saw diesel go up 68 cents, New Brunswick had to go up immediately based on our legislation,” Holland said. “The Nova Scotia legislation has more flexibility and allowed them to say, ‘Hold on here, let’s see where this goes.’ The difference has resulted in a huge price gap between Sackville, New Brunswick and Amherst, Nova Scotia, just minutes away. Holland says his department did an analysis of gas prices from January to September that found New Brunswick’s price per liter was 1.7 cents per liter higher during that time.
