Flaherty Reluctant to Heed Appeal to Urge Oil Producers to Lower Oil Prices
Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty seems reluctant to pressure oil producers to lower prices as requested by France in a letter sent to members of the G-8 this week, which argued that soaring oil prices are a threat to economic growth.
Flaherty’s response was that gasoline prices are determined in world markets and are not the choice of a single country. Currently Canada’s economy has been sheltered from the US slowdown on the strength of those skyrocketing prices for oil and natural gas exports.
French FinMin Christine Lagarde’s letter suggests that when the G-8 finance minsters meet in Osaka later this year they could consider urging oil producers to increase production. Her sentiments are backed by the UK’s Gordon Brown.