Personally, in our company, and those of us around, we see it. I see it now at one step removed, but lower-income Canadians are really struggling with high gas prices. I think what ends up happening is that for those with lower incomes, the bottom 20% of income earners, they're spending.... In the United States, a study in the Wall Street Journal showed that 8.8% of their after-tax income was spent on fuel. That's too much. Especially when you have a high inflationary environment in food and fuel, it really slams them hard.
We see it. Luckily in the Maritimes we're small, and everybody's a lot closer, but people borrowing money to get gas to get to the hospital and things like that do go on. We operate cash-and-carry furnace oil, for gosh sake, and people on fixed incomes come and buy 20 litres of heating oil at a time. That exploded by 50% this past year.
It's troubling to see. I don't think our low-income supports are reflecting food and fuel inflation enough to support them in their daily lives. I don't know how to do that; I just go out and buy and sell gas. But if you could do something to help them, that would be great.