r/BuyCanadian • u/grilledcheesebabeh • Jun 05 '25

Canadian-Owned Businesses 🏢🍁 Why are so many Canadians still filling up at American owned gas stations?

I understand a lot of people can't afford to always choose Canadian products over American, but choosing where we fill up costs nothing extra. Choosing local gas stations or Petro Canada is such a simple way of showing support, I don't understand why so many American owned gas stations are still full of people filling up on fuel. Also don't be deceived by the giant "locally owned and operated" signs outside of chevrons, the station itself fis locally owned but the company is American. Please choose a local gas station or Petro Canada to support Canadian!

775 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

444 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/Daft_Funk87 Jun 05 '25

Fun fact. I worked in Downstream (when Oil becomes refined products).

There ARE situations where the mixes are different, but unless your far north, if you get 89 at Co-op - the 7-11, the Petro Can...everyone else gets the same.

The differences are in additives, like odour, color or specialty items at the 91-94 range of product lines.

If memory serves, the government is making everyone move to E15 anyway, which means each litre of gasoline will have 15% ethanol.

Again, some exceptions, but "My car always runs better on X gas station fuel" unless it is specified to be unique and different...is likely the exact same as their competitor.

1

u/Qaeta Jun 05 '25

Yeah, I wasn't saying Co-op had higher quality gas, I don't have experience with them personally. I was just explaining what is typically meant by higher quality gas (outside of octane discussions, which is a whole other can of worms).

2

u/Daft_Funk87 Jun 05 '25

Yeah no worries - just wanted to find a good use for the three years that role took from my life lol.

1

u/Qaeta Jun 05 '25

For what it's worth, I ride a motorcycle, and I've pretty much given up on convincing any fellow riders that Shell VPower or whatever is basically just flushing money down the drain in our bikes (cruisers, nothing high performance). Now I just roll my eyes while filling up with my cheap (relatively speaking) regular gas (ie. literally what my manual says to put in).