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CALGARY — Conflict on the other side of the world is expected to drive up gasoline prices here in Canada.

Roger McKnight, an analyst with En-Pro International, said Friday that he sees pump prices rising by more than two cents in the Toronto area on Saturday to around $1.42 a litre. Wholesale prices are also rising in the western part of the country.

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Canada-wide, the average pump price is currently at just under $1.36, according to price-tracking website Gasbuddy.com.

The coming increase has nothing to do with supply and demand in North America. Rather, McKnight said the culprits are traders on Wall Street who are nervously eyeing how sectarian tensions in Iraq could affect global oil supplies.

Al-Qaida-inspired militants captured two key cities in Iraq this week and are threatening to march on Baghdad.

The further south they get, it looks like the further north our prices go

“I get the impression that these traders are just watching these militants and seeing how far south they can go in Iraq because that’s where the oilfields are and the export terminals,” he said from Oshawa, Ont.