Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government is not looking at reducing gasoline taxes, despite a pledge first made in the 2004 election campaign.
The Conservatives changed that pledge in the last election, arguing broader tax relief by cutting the GST would be more effective.
Ottawa has since reduced the GST from seven per cent to six.
"We became convinced that, quite frankly, there was a limited amount we could do in terms of helping consumers specifically with gas prices," Harper said at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont.
"That's why, instead, we decided to cut consumption taxes more generally to help consumers in that way."
Harper has said the government will cut the GST by another point by 2011 at the latest.
"That puts a lot more money in consumers' pockets than a small cut in the gas tax," he said.
According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, taxes account for about 33 per cent of the price of gas at the pumps.
On top of that, GST is charged to the full price, including gas taxes, which makes it a tax-on-tax. For every 10-cent increase at the pumps, the government makes an increase of $175 million in GST revenues.
Harper blamed high gas prices on demand surpassing supply. He said a long-term solution would be to reduce the need for oil-based products, and urge consumers towards more sustainable fuels.
But he added he would not penalize drivers for buying gas.
"What we will not do is what the opposition has promised, and that's to bring in carbon taxes that would hike the price of gasoline by 60 per cent to be close to $2 a litre," he said.
On the same day as Harper spoke in Waterloo, an Ontario MPP introduced a private member's bill that would require retailers to give a 72-hour warning before raising pump prices.
Conservative MPP Joe Tascona said his bill grew out of the public's frustration with fluctuating prices and the high cost of gas.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said the bill is "worthy of debate," and that he has asked Ottawa why prices appear to rise faster than they decrease.
With files from The Canadian Press
