Gasoline prices near ‘the pain threshold’

The price of gasoline hit a record of $1.29 a litre in major Canadian cities this week, pushed ever higher by rising oil prices, and economists say the price at the pumps appears to be pinching North American consumers.

Retail sales in the U.S. in April fell 0.2 per cent, the U.S. Commerce Department said yesterday, as the sale of trucks and SUVs plummeted almost 20 per cent and gasoline station sales fell 0.4 per cent.

“It looks like, at long last, we’re seeing drivers respond to the surge in gas prices,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns. “We’re getting to the pain threshold for some people, where it’s beginning to affect behaviour.”

TheGlobeandMail