Pricele #96: Natural gas (100 kWh) in Canada 🇨🇦
The puzzle for 4 October 2026 asked what 100 kWh of natural gas costs in Canada. Here is the answer and the context behind it.
The answer
Natural gas (100 kWh) · Canada
$3.50
4.8 CAD
About 10 minutes of the average local wage buys 100 kWh of natural gas.
Cheaper than 83% of the 31 countries in the game.
Source: GlobalPetrolPrices.com, December 2025.
About natural gas (100 kWh)
Gas is the one energy price that still depends on geography, because moving it needs either a pipeline or a liquefaction plant at one end and a regasification terminal at the other. A country at the end of a pipe pays something close to the wellhead price; a country buying cargoes on the spot market pays whatever Asia and Europe are bidding that week. The 2022 European price shock, and the year of bills that followed it, was that distinction becoming visible.
Where Canada sits
Of the 31 countries priced for natural gas (100 kWh), Canada ranks #26 from the top at $3.50, 64% below the median of $9.80.
Canadian dairy sits under a supply-management system that sets production quotas and import tariffs, holding milk prices notably above US levels. Most other groceries track the US closely, which makes the dairy gap stand out in the table. Tax does not explain it: basic groceries are zero-rated for GST, so the milk premium is a production-side policy rather than something added at the till. Canada is a useful control case for exactly that reason. It shares a border, a language and most of a retail market with the US, so where the two diverge, the cause is almost always a specific Canadian policy rather than a general cost-of-living difference.
What else costs what in Canada
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $5.54 | 7.7 CAD | 15 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $1.79 | 2.49 CAD | 5 min |
| Cappuccino | $3.80 | 5.33 CAD | 10 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $2.22 | 3.11 CAD | 6 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $3.54 | 4.96 CAD | 10 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $4.11 | 5.76 CAD | 11 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.17 | 1.64 CAD | 3 min |
| Diesel (1 litre) | $1.67 | 2.32 CAD | 5 min |
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $12.20 | 16.9 CAD | 33 min |
| Cigarettes (20-pack) | $9.95 | 13.74 CAD | 27 min |
| Beer (330ml) | $1.59 | 2.19 CAD | 4 min |
| Spirits (750ml bottle) | $23.50 | 32.45 CAD | 64 min |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $5.37 | — | 15 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $3.93 | 5.5 CAD | 11 min |
Go deeper
See the full table for natural gas (100 kWh) in every country or everything priced in Canada.