In the past year, crude oil prices have tanked by 40%. But despite this precipitous drop, consumers are getting only an average 5-cent break on regular gas prices across the country. We're getting gouged, but the enemy isn't the OPEC cartel or the multinational oil companies.

Gas taxes, which on average represent about half of the national 52.5-cent-per-litre pump price on regular gas, do not fluctuate with the pump price. They are a fixed 10 cents a litre for Ottawa, plus varying from 9 cents per litre in Alberta to 16.5 cents in Newfoundland. Some municipalities get to tax, too. Vancouver charges an additional 4-cent-per-litre transit tax.

The fixed gas tax burden keeps pump prices high. While the price of gasoline - less taxes - fell approximately 12% from the national average owing to the drop in crude, the total pump price fell half as much. Only the GST rolls with the before-tax price.

If gas taxes were expressed as a rate, consumers would have felt the full benefit of the drop in oil prices. But the scenario represents poor optics for government. As a percentage of the 28.6-cent-per-litre before tax pump price, governments' 24-cent-per-litre share represents an astounding 84% tax rate. Suddenly, the GST seems modest in comparison.

Motorists have a right to be angry about high gas prices, but the resentment is misplaced. After meetings with more than 1,000 people across the country last year, a group of Liberal MPs investigating the gasoline industry found no illegal price fixing by Canadian oil companies. These price-collusion bloodhounds turned over every stone except one. They disregarded the scent that led to consumer gouging by governments.

Gasoline prices in Canada, apart from taxes, are at an all-time low. As Statistics Canada shows, gas prices, adjusted for inflation, actually fell by 26% between 1957 and 1995. Meanwhile, gas taxes rose 86% in the same period.

Governments make like thieves because gas taxes are hidden - out of sight, out of mind. Posting the full charge of gas taxes next to the retail pump price would lift the curtain off any misconception about consumer gouging by those evil oil companies.

To defend the tax burden, motorists are fed the myth that gas taxes maintain our highway infrastructure. Of the estimated $5-billion in fuel taxes collected by Ottawa, a mere 5% finds its way back to our roads.

A report by the federal and provincial transportation ministers found that the 25,000-kilometre National Highway System has not improved since 1988 and that a complete facelift would cost $17-billion. The report estimates that the average annual impact of such an investment would save drivers 84 million hours in travel time and 173 million litres in fuel.

That adds up to about $20-million per year in forgone gas taxes and GST to Ottawa. What better reason for politicians to shelve the report

Last month, the OECD cautioned that Canada's declining productivity would soon trail behind that of other industrialized countries. To boost Canadian productivity and competitiveness, Ottawa should reduce gas taxes to levels commensurate with road development only. The transportation industry and regular motorists could use the break.