Fueling Canada’s future by lowering diesel costs

Posted on 26 October 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Glen Motz

Diesel is the fuel that keeps Canada moving – from the family pickup truck and the farmer’s combine to the transport trucks that deliver food and essentials to communities across the country.

Like you, I have been shocked by the increased cost of diesel in recent months. Prices have increased 80 – 100 per cent over the past year. These rising costs affect the price of everything moved by truck or train and have a particularly significant impact on the agricultural sector.

The urgency of this situation hits close to home. I spoke with a cereal and pulse grain farmer in the riding who used over 300,000 litres of diesel just for the 2026 harvest alone.  That’s over $15,000 per day in fuel without the ability to increase the price of the grain that is sold.   

Meanwhile, a trucking company in our region consumes roughly 75,000 litres of diesel per month. They told me that prices surged from $1.05 in January 2026 to a whopping $2.40 in late September – an increase of nearly 130 per cent in just nine months.

I also connected with the owner of a construction company whose equipment consumes around 3.7 million litres of diesel per year. Their fuel costs have doubled year over year and, with many locked in contracts, they are forced to absorb those extra costs which impacts the ability to upgrade equipment when required. 

Fuel requirements differ from business to business, but in all these cases, increased costs are ultimately passed on to consumers. The result is higher prices for everything moved by truck, train or ship, worsening the cost-of-living crisis.

Businesses and millions of other hardworking Canadians need urgent relief from Ottawa. Recent concerns about the United States restricting diesel exports also remind us that Canada should not have to rely on other countries to supply the fuel we need when we have the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world.

That’s why Conservatives have introduced our Emergency Fuel Relief Plan. It would cut diesel prices immediately through sweeping tax relief and end our dependency on US diesel by bringing production home. It would increase Canadian refining capacity, remove federal barriers to new investment, cut federal taxes on diesel, and build a strategic refined petroleum reserve so Canada has its own supply set aside for emergencies.

Saving you on fuel

Global factors such as the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran affect global diesel supply and prices, but they don’t explain why Canadians are paying roughly 24 cents more per litre of diesel than our American neighbours and 31 cents more than the global average.

These increased costs are driven in large part by Liberal taxes and policies here in Canada. The Clean Fuel Standard (6 cents per litre of diesel), GST (13 cents/L), Industrial Carbon Tax (8 cents/L), and self-imposed barriers to investment all drive up the cost of fuel and contribute to the price gap with the US.  

Our Conservative plan will save you money on fuel by:

• Eliminating all federal taxes on diesel until at least Canada Day, 2027;
• Removing all diesel production taxes; and
• Eliminating the price gap with the US within 5 years.

Fueling ourselves at home

Currently, the US buys our oil at a discount and sells diesel back to us at a premium. Conservatives will work to end that practice. Our goal is to provide all Canadians with access to made-in-Canada diesel by 2032 by enabling the production of 1 million barrels per day (up from 730,000) and connecting that production with Canadian markets.

We will fuel ourselves at home through:

• Immediately scrapping C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill;
• Emergency pre-permitting for diesel refineries, storage and transportation through shovel-ready zones;
• Removing refineries from the federal impact assessment process while maintaining environmental safeguards on pollution, wastewater, leaks, and monitoring;
• Making all federal permitting decisions for refinery construction and expansion within six months;
• A 100 per cent year-one deduction for investments in diesel production and distribution;
• Building a strategic gasoline and diesel reserve to protect Canadians during major supply disruptions, providing long-term, government-backed demand for domestic production and storage; and
• Fast-tracking permits for projects that make it easier to move Canadian diesel to Canadian consumers, such as terminal expansions and port capacity.

Canadians have already seen the impact of Conservative pressure. Months of pressure pushed the Liberals to suspend the federal fuel excise tax and extend that relief beyond Labour Day. We fought for Canadians to keep more of their money, and we got results.

Our target is clear: through our Emergency Fuel Relief Plan, Conservatives will move immediately to remove barriers, cut taxes and red tape, and expand refining and transportation infrastructure to provide affordable Canadian diesel – supplied by Canadians, for Canadians.

Read the full plan on my website: http://www.glenmotzmp.ca/emergencyfuelreliefplan.