Bill C-14 (Historical)

Fairness at the Pumps Act

An Act to amend the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act

This enactment provides for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for contraventions to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act. It also provides for higher maximum fines for offences committed under each of those Acts and creates new offence provisions for repeat offenders.
The enactment also amends the Weights and Measures Act to require that traders cause any device that they use in trade or have in their possession for trade to be examined within the periods prescribed by regulation. That new requirement is to be enforced through a new offence provision. The enactment also provides the Minister of Industry with the authority to designate persons who are not employed in the federal public administration as inspectors to perform certain examinations.

Fairness at the Pumps Act

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Burlington and I sit on the committee together and we look forward to having more discussions about this.

The hon. member will appreciate the fact that I am concerned that this action is so infinitesimally small as to be virtually meaningless to Canadians. The reason for that is simple. The minister's announcement over a month ago, predicating this bill, attacked good independent gas retailers and called them chisellers. He forgot to point out that in his own facts and information 94% of all the random surveys of pumps in Canada were correct, 2% turned out to favour consumer and 4% did have an impact on consumers, 1 in 25.

The hon. member for Abbotsford suggested nothing had been done on the consumer side. The member will have to recognize that WestJet exists as a company in his riding as a result of initiatives by this member and this party to ensure fairness in the airline industry among other initiatives we have taken in the Competition Act.

Specifically is the member concerned about the fact that the regulation will require only two years of inspection? As he knows, in his riding, as in mine, the volume, the throughputs that many of those pumps go through are in the tens of millions. The breakdown and the probability of a breakdown that might occasion a civil response is serious. Would the member not consider an early term? Is this something to which he has given any consideration?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was honoured to speak to this point. I used to work in the retail gasoline business. At one point it was with Texaco Canada, which has left Canada, and then it was with Imperial Oil.

We need to understand the actual gasoline business. I can only speak mostly for urban areas. Oil companies own 99.9% of the fuel at gasoline stations in urban areas. Agents work there. They are not independent retailers. The fuel is owned by the company.

My first career out of university was as an auditor of gas stations. I would check the meters against the volume that the retailer said was sold. There was a dipping system and at one point I would dip tanks. That system is now electronic. As an auditor, I was always looking to see if those meters were accurate and to be frank, it was hard to tell. There was a variation in measurements. We were really looking for leaky tanks, to ensure that no gas was leaking and that the retailer was reporting sales correctly.

A two year time frame is appropriate for this. The quality of the pumping systems now is much greater than in the past. They are much more accurate. A two year time frame is an appropriate length of time for retailers to ensure those measurements are accurate.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-14 imposes rather stiff penalties. The hon. member also spoke of the fact that gas pumps and gas meters are quite precise.

Does the retailer have to exceed a specific margin of error in order to be found guilty?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That was an excellent question, Mr. Speaker. Off the top of my head I do not have the answer as to the amount of air that could be there, the variance. Gasoline expands and contracts with temperature. That is why the 15° is in the bill now. I assume that when our inspectors are trained, they will be able to deal within that variance.

We have to be careful when we say retailers will be facing the vast majority of these fines. Let us hope that nobody gets ripped off, that is the first goal. The vast majority of gasoline pumps are owned and operated by the gasoline companies, whether it is Imperial Oil, Shell, Sunoco. It will not be the agent who will be responsible. The oil companies will be responsible.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche, The Environment; the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster, Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleagues who have preceded me on the debate. I apologize I was not able to be here at the outset, so the parliamentary secretary and I did not have a chance to exchange a few ideas, but I am sure his colleagues will take it to him. I also want to thank our industry critic from Montreal.

I greet today, with some degree of trepidation, this legislation. Although much vaunted as being the panacea for all consumers in Canada, it is in fact significantly short on substance, short on proof and short on the deliverables. This seems to be one of the few things that could have been done, which would be, in some respects, a no brainer.

However, there are much more important issues dealing with the price of fuel and energy that should concern Parliament and the government. However, we need to consider the heat of the moment. An election campaign was triggered by the Prime Minister, who went back on his own word. In one evening gas prices went up 12.9¢ per litre. Most Canadians know that because this member and this party pointed out that the industry had become so monopolistic in the downstream that what took place was nothing short of tragic. The Americans had a major hurricane shut down refinery alley along the Texas Gulf coast. They witnessed a 6¢ a gallon increase at the most. I know that because I spoke to Ali Velshi, a senior correspondent at CNN, to get my information. In Canada it was 60¢ a gallon, converted to 12.9¢ to 13¢ a litre.

If that does not address the fundamental concern about just how clued out we are when it comes to the price of gasoline and energy costs, then I need ask members to look no further than the context in which that legislation was proposed two years ago. It took the government two years to finally come up with something and it said it would probably deal with one in twenty-five gas pumps which it thought was faulty, that it would call them pumps and that the likelihood was they had been tampered with. The minister referred to them as chisellers.

I can not think of an example that demonstrates such ignorance from a minister who obviously does not know anything about a gas tank, let alone how to pump it. Perhaps he spends a little too much time here with his driver and does not pump his own gas so he does not recognize that there can be mechanical failures.

The hon. member for Burlington talked about his experience working at a gas station. No doubt he will be familiar with the former 25, 30 year old equipment, which is used in many parts of the country that is not served by a number of gas stations. Very small communities may be using old electronics and very old equipment. It is very difficult to compromise and to break the electronic sequence that is in those pumps. What often happens, if there is an error, and that is assuming the error does not in fact benefit the consumer, is the product breaks down as a result of wear and tear.

That is why I asked the hon. member a very pointed question and I will ask the experts. In some communities pumps are not used as much. The introduction of ethanol could have an impact. Where we have higher use, there is a probability of breakdown. It is not someone's fault. That is the result of wear and tear on machines, and no machine is guaranteed to go forever, especially if it goes through sustained high use.

I am sure we will hear from Dresser Wayne, or Gilbarco, or Oppenheimer, which has been taken over by Dresser Wayne. We will hear from those individuals who work in the industry and who will pinpoint the shortcomings of their fuel.

Suffice it to say, my website, tomorrowsgaspricetoday.com, receives 30,000 or more hits a day. Out of those are generated hundreds of emails. I probably receive more emails on this subject than any member in the House combined, especially when the prices go up or when they go down and we see the fluctuation which is out of sync with world pricing.

I am concerned because this legislation is a distraction. It is a façade. It can be dealt with by regulation if indeed there is the presence of a problem. The minister has admitted that only 6% of pumps were found to be faulty. Of that 6%, 4% of the 100% that were done, did not favour the consumer.

If we are to prepare ourselves to embark on an idea of working to fix these problems, I want the committee, and I certainly want Parliament and the public listening right now, when we come to fairness at the pumps, there is a suggestion that there has been unfairness at the pumps. I can say with some certainty, it would be almost impossible for independent retailers or agents, as the previous member talked about, to trigger a mechanism that might make those pumps not work. It is very difficult to do.

More important, if we look at the way a pump is made and the way retailers take inventory, to skew the numbers to try to play games for a couple of days would only hurt their inventory. They would get a call saying, “You've used this much. How come you have this much left?” Unless, of course, there is a leak or a problem with the tank, in which case there might be some environmental concerns.

However, what it does not do is address the fundamental concern that I have, and I think many colleagues in this House should have, about where there is in fact a disconnect between consumer value for what they purchase and what in fact they get.

I can say with some certainty, with years of working on this file, that the last problem we have is accuracy in the pumps. If it were such a big issue, we would have had more than one conviction over the past three or four years. I am not saying it does not happen, but I am certainly convinced it is not because people are deliberately fixing the pumps. First, as I just mentioned, it is difficult to do. Second, it skews the inventory to such an extent that it becomes a self-defeating exercise. If they in fact do these things, they are only hurting themselves.

I received two emails this morning that dealt with a far more credible issue that the government could have addressed and may fall into the very same category that we had when we were in government. I note that the hon. member for Abbotsford and some of his colleagues said our government did very little about it. I want to encourage the members of the government to recognize not to make the same mistakes of fooling themselves into the belief that somehow what they provided here is a panacea. In fact, it is very much a tinkering, a glossing around the edges of a very serious problem.

By that I mean the following. In every region in this country today, every community has the identical wholesale price, and I see that the rack price is out as of just a few minutes ago. I cannot think of a more vivid example of the lack of competition than when we see the exact same price in any community across Canada. I will be glad to show members, for the purposes of their edification. If I look today, for instance, I will see that the rack price is identical everywhere in Ottawa. Everyone will charge the same thing tomorrow. It will be somewhere in the vicinity of 60.8¢ a litre; Quebec's will be 61.4¢; Montreal's will be 61.4¢; Toronto's will be 62¢. The hon. member for Abbotsford will happy to know his will be 66.8¢. The point is that the price is determined by one player. No one challenges that price at the retail level nor at the wholesale level. And so, what Canadians are faced with tonight is a 2¢-a-litre increase. That is above world prices as established at the NYMEX just 25 minutes ago.

So when members talk about a skew in a pump of 1% on 80 litres, which would be the average fill-up of most cars in my community, that is .8¢.

How about the 2¢ ripoff that is going to happen tonight?

Let us deal with some real issues in this House for once and not go around contenting ourselves with some idea that we have a better widget than the people who preceded us or than the ones who preceded them. The reality is far more serious.

I know that members on the industry committee should have the benefit of all the questions, not just Measurement Canada, but to look beyond this first step. I am hoping it is a first step, because members will recall that, in the 2008 campaign, the Conservative Party pledged to deal with the issue of potential problems at the gas pumps, which I might point out came from an Ottawa Citizen article during the 2008 election. That Ottawa Citizen article seems not to have a lot of people backing it. Certainly people at Measurement Canada have not verified it. So, it is interesting that we have erected today two years of investigation based on an article for which no one really wants to take credit. More important, why should they?

When the CBC national news runs with a story saying 75% of all pumps are skewed, what a great horror. Every pump we are using now, almost every one is going to rip us off.

Let us try to infuse some facts into a debate on something that is important to Canadians. For every penny they save at the pumps every given week, that could mean hundreds for a family at the end of the year.

As members will know, if someone can get away with having a monopoly in the gasoline industry, one might be able to have the same or near monopoly in the propane industry or the natural gas industry.

I will not get into the issue of arbitrage because that is not for the debate today. However, it is important for us to understand another ripoff, which the government fails to understand.

How is it possible that a wholesale price of 60¢ a litre for regular versus mid-grade at 62.3¢, which is a 3.25¢ difference, or premium, which is always 5¢ above regular, translates into a 13.5¢ ripoff?

Someone has to have a lot of control and a lot of power to be able to move prices from a wholesale differential of 3¢ to 13¢. I want hon. members in the House to understand that we are dealing now with not one penny or one-eighth of a penny or 1% when it comes to premium, when it comes to mid-grade, which many vehicles must run on, or when it comes to diesel. We are dealing with a wholesale margin translated to the retail level that could be in excess of 8¢ to 10¢ a litre. Then multiply that by 50.

I can guarantee that, when we look at those kinds of numbers, it is very clear that the government has either tried to distract the public with this legislation, a bit of smoke and mirrors, a bit of a smokescreen, or it just does not want to address the fundamental problem that exists with this industry, as it may with others.

I am not saying there is not a desire to change. Members know that I have built part of my career on trying to deal with this, but I am very suspicious of the context of this legislation. It is a quick fix aimed at the wrong people, which gives false hope that somehow people are going to see better prices at the pumps come this summer.

Let us be honest. Summer driving season is coming up. Although demand for fuel across North America is low and supply is very high, we now see prices heading north for no reason. If we had competition that would not be the case.

Every week the Americans provide what is called the weekly petroleum status report. Since 1979 the Americans have ensured that every drop of energy that they produce, that they use, that they anticipate using for inputs and refineries, is accounted for.

I see three citations in this document, which gives transparency to the Americans and to the world as to what the price should be every Wednesday morning at 10:30. I see three footnotes here from Natural Resources Canada. We supply the Americans with data to help them get a better understanding of the world, to protect consumers and to ensure transparency, but we will not do it for Canadians. Why?

There was an attempt to do this in 2006. The member for Abbotsford talked about what he did in 2006 during the election. Wonderful. We had a little proposal that said we would replicate the exact same thing, a weekly petroleum report, through something called the office of petroleum monitoring. We would give Canadians a better and more accurate understanding of how much is produced in this country, including the stock market, the commodities market. Why would we want to fly blind? The rest of the world wants to know how much they are producing. That makes sense. But no, the first act of the Conservative government was to kill the petroleum price monitoring system. I still have not received an answer.

Some anecdotal discussions with people in the industry, the downstream, have told me that it was really the folks at Imperial Oil who did not like it. Esso did not like it because it did not like it. That is funny; Imperial Oil's parent Exxon Mobil in the United States has been required by law since 1979 to furnish all data on supply and demand. It just makes sense.

I would have thought that the government might have actually dealt with that particular issue, but it did not. It chose instead to go to defective pumps and translate that and torque it somehow into greedy little retailers conspiring in the dark of night to wreck their pumps to make sure Canadians do not receive full value for that which they have worked so hard to obtain.

It is important for us to recognize quite a few things that have not come forward yet.

The margins and the racks that Canadians are forced to pay are substantially higher than those around the world. This means that the infrastructure in which so much taxpayers' money has been invested over the years, to build a pipeline to serve the entire country, energy self-sufficiency being one of the goals, has now been translated into virtually a network, a system, an infrastructure that is controlled by a handful.

I come from Toronto, and my region used to have three or four refiners. How many do we have today? None. Half the supply in my riding comes from Montreal because of the number seven line that was produced to push petroleum from the west to the east to create energy self-sufficiency.

My colleagues from the Bloc and all hon. members of the House are well aware that another refinery is closing. I told them that would happen in November. The declining number of refineries is worrisome. In 2007, a report indicated that the small number of refineries in Canada would create a supply problem. Even before the Petro-Canada and Sunoco merger and the proposed closure of the refinery in Montreal, regulatory officials were concerned.

To put this in proper context, if Canada is in a tight supply situation and, even though there is plenty of crude going around, we cannot produce enough, it puts us at a strategic disadvantage not only for our ability to ship abroad but, more importantly, to make sure premium prices are not charged to Canadians because we do not have enough refinery capacity in this country.

It is important for the government to recognize this. It can pay lip service to the idea that fixing the pumps is going to somehow prevent prices from going up unduly. Frankly, that is hollow. It is irrelevant and untrue.

I can say with some certainty that, if we do not deal with the issue of supply in this country, we are going to wind up as truckers did in western Canada. Yes, western Canada. I am speaking of Saskatchewan, Mr. Speaker, your very region. Truckers were scrambling for supply because of the way in which crude can be bent or configured and the way in which refineries are made. Some emphasize gasoline and some emphasize diesel.

It is very clear to me that we cannot afford a repeat of what happened in 2008. It seems to me that the first responsibility of any government is to ensure adequacy of supply, regardless of what party it is. It failed. It utterly failed, and it is important for the government to clue into that as well.

I will come to my last concern. I want to devote the last three minutes remaining to something far more serious, which Parliament appears not willing to understand, much less address. The government, in particular, must understand this in the context of the comments by the Minister of Finance and I am sure it must concern the Minister of Industry. That is the speculative and changing nature of our markets.

Ten years ago it was acceptable to see NYMEX, the New York Mercantile Exchange, as being the way in which prices were derived. A producer or consumer would go in and trade, and on a 30-day or 60-day basis, act on the deal, sell a bit of oil and take delivery of the oil. That has all changed.

With the growth of Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and over-the-counter derivatives, traders right here in Canada, in Winnipeg, through the Intercontinental Exchange, we have seen massive distortions in the price of fuel, which hurt industry, retailers and refiners. Bringing the price of crude up to $147 and then dropping it to $35 is in no one's interest. Yet it happened.

Whereas that happened two years ago, what happened just last Thursday? I know some are wanting to say there are fat fingers and someone made an error and put million or billion. The way in which trades take place today is that there are high-frequency traders on computers who, if they see something drop 1%, will suddenly sell everything they have. The market then closes and many companies are left in ruin.

We have a golden opportunity at the G20 and G8 next month to lead the charge to regulatory reform, which is at the heart of the cost of energy for Canadians and the price they pay for gasoline. I know what I am talking about on this subject. The Obama administration is trying to tackle this, and I think Canada can play a leading role at precisely the right time to signal to the rest of the world that we want real people consuming and producing. We do not want index investors or sovereign investors, people who go in high, bid, hold the product at a certain price and create volatility in the market, which destroys the market.

I call on the government to look a lot further than the nano or micro step it has taken with respect to regulation of gasoline pumps. Look at the bigger picture, stand up for constituents, hear what I have said and measure it against what we have seen around the world today. Stand up for Canadians and I think Parliament will have their support.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member says that Bill C-14 does not really solve the problem of the price of gas at the pumps. It is my understanding that he believes that competition is the solution.

Does my colleague believe that if the Competition Bureau had real investigative powers, it would foster more competition? We know that more competition often results in consumers paying the true cost.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. I still believe that the objective of people who draft laws such as the Competition Act may be to respond to or create a situation that gives an advantage to other competitors. We must recognize the power of that approach and also recognize that the Competition Act needs to be overhauled.

The last significant amendment dates back to 1986—I know one amendment was made two years ago—and was suggested by representatives of the oil companies, Imperial Oil in particular. It was a misunderstanding. Peter C. Newman said something interesting in his book Titans:

He states:

It was the only time in the history of capitalism that any country allowed anti-monopoly legislation to be written by the very people it was meant to police.

That is quite odd. I think the government could have gone in that direction but it did not and it wants to give the impression that it is doing something.

We must also find out about certification of the people who will be doing the inspections. Are these people certified? The bill says nothing about that. The bill before us states that the company must be certified. The people carrying out the inspections will not solve the problem. That is one amendment I would like to suggest.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for his presentation on Bill C-14 today. I certainly have supported his work over the last number of years on this particular issue, but in terms of this particular bill itself, it seems to me that increasing the penalties is something that is long overdue and should help in the situation. I think the member would more than likely agree with that.

Given that we are bringing in this bill to save basically $20 million, are we looking at the other side, which is the cost to the businesses?

The only time a Conservative government ever brings in consumer legislation is if there is an offset to business, and the offset to business here is that it is going to allow private people to get into the inspection business. It is going to let the inspection services be determined by market forces. That means that these little retailers, in some cases in the rural areas and up north, are going to have to shop around for an inspector, maybe at a cost of hundreds of dollars, to come and inspect their pumps.

It seems to me that with the random system we have right now, inspection by the government, there is no conflict of interest there and that is the system to have. Maybe we should be doubling the number of government inspectors and keeping the inspections on a random basis so that the retailer does not know when the inspector is going to show up.

This proposal says that they have to find their own inspector and that they are going to know when the inspector is going to show up to do the inspections.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona raises some very important concerns.

I am not in the business of giving false hope to people about what this legislation is going to do. Anybody who thinks that the complaints are going to stop because there are more inspectors is dreaming in Technicolor. What is important for us to understand is how one is doing the inspection.

We have demonstrated, time and time again, that the way in which one actually meters a pump, a slow flow, a quick flow, the prover that is used to compare what is said on the meter and what is said on the actual container requires several standard types of analyses. I do not think most inspectors are up to it. We are asking, in a very short period of time, very critically, that we get a tenfold increase in the number of inspectors. It is going to have an impact on retailers. There is no guarantee of certification.

As I said to the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, we have to ensure that the people who are there are also held responsible. They cannot go around saying as the hon. minister has said, “Your pump is wrong. It is your fault. You are a chiseller”.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague explained the situation very well. It is clear that the Conservative government has no desire to make things better. The system is in place. The Conservatives have formed the government for four or five years. We have had problems with gas prices in this country for a number of years, but the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing. Now they have supposedly come up with a solution, but the solution already exists. They form the government, yet they cannot even put rules in place and ensure that the system is properly checked.

Does my colleague agree that the Conservatives have had plenty of time to come up with solutions? They are trying to fool people by talking about rules and measures that exist but that they do not want to strengthen. It is as though they do not want to solve the problem of gas prices in this country.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Madawaska—Restigouche is quite right. Clearly, the government's position is not meant to solve the competition problem or reassure people that they are getting what they pay for, and it will not do either of those things.

I said earlier that if the government were serious, it would do away with the standard of 15 degrees Celsius, which is what the provincial Conservatives did when they approved the report I submitted in 1998. When you pull up to a gas pump, it indicates that the volume is corrected to 15 degrees Celsius. This means that the volume the consumer gets is lower, because this correction is far higher than the Canadian norm.

The average temperature in Canada is five or six degrees. Even with heat and global warming, it is not 15 degrees. The 15-degree norm is good for Hawaii.

I think this is wrong. If the government really wanted to do something, it could do away with this standard. The other thing it could do would obviously be to reverse its decision to kill the petroleum monitoring system that told us how much was produced in Canada.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, for many years Manitoba had a random system of inspecting vehicles. It was a case where the government inspectors would send out letters over a period of years. One never knew when one would get the letter but over a 10-year period the car would be called in for inspection. People trusted the system because it was a motor vehicle branch person who inspected the car. If it needed repairs, the owner was ordered to a garage to get them done.

About 12 years ago the Conservative government, under the guise of helping the consumer and under lobbying from the motor dealer association, turned the whole affair over to the private sector garages. Basically, it was a licence to print money. The price of used cars went up substantially when the legislation took effect. Garages were proven to be overcharging people because there was a conflict of interest.

We cannot have garages certifying cars when they are in the repair business as well.

Does the member think it is a reasonable idea that people would trust a government inspector, inspecting on a random basis, far more so than one where people had to shop for an inspector who also might have some other conflicts?

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would want to ensure that there are a number of regulatory organizations, TSSA being an example, that could qualify and ensure that the apprentices are properly trained. That would also limit the conflict of interest.

I understand where the member is coming from, but I want to make it abundantly clear that it is not who inspects. It is how many inspect and the credentials which they bring. Otherwise, there is no veracity to the system and we may be impugning people who ought not to be.

I want to remind the hon. member. Our party got rid of the GST as it relates to rebates for people on home heating fuel and other things. We were concerned about the price of fuel back in early 2000. We acted on those on two occasions.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the House for giving me this opportunity to voice my support for the fairness at the pumps act, an act that upholds the integrity of many Canadian industries, an act that boosts consumer confidence and promotes competition in the marketplace, and an act that honours the promise my hon. colleagues and I made to Canadians when we formed this government.

I urge members of the House to recall that promise now, to remember the events of two years ago. At that time, gas prices were rising steadily across the country. With each passing month Canadians were pressed to dig deeper into their pockets to drive their children to school, commute to work, and to purchase consumer goods transported long distances to local stores. By spring, the cost of fuel was reaching historic highs.

That is when the news hit. Some retailers were capitalizing on the hardships of Canadians fraudulently. Media outlets covered the story recalling that as a result of inaccurate measurements at the pump, many people paid for fuel they never received. Canadians cried foul and rightly so. The fundamental rights of consumers had been violated. The vital trust between buyers and sellers had been broken. The time-honoured principles that formed the very basis of this country's market economy had been dishonoured.

The Government of Canada took action immediately. We vowed then and there to amend the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act. We vowed to ensure that people across the country receive what they pay for at the pumps. We vowed to protect consumers in all trade sectors that depend on accurate measurements of goods.

We made a promise in 2009. Today, we keep that promise. We keep that promise through the introduction of the fairness at the pumps act, a piece of legislation that holds retailers accountable to buyers for the volume of product sold, that enshrines consumers' rights to know what and exactly how much they buy of any product, and that promotes fairness, honesty and decency. These are the values all Canadians cherish.

I am sure many members of the House agree with me. Such legislation is vitally necessary, but will Bill C-14 be effective? Will Bill C-14 accomplish the goals to which it aspires? Will Bill C-14 prevent fraud in the retail petrol sector? These are valid questions.

Too many well-intended laws lack the robustness needed to bring about real change. The Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act are proof enough. By virtue of these laws it has long been a criminal offence to cheat the measurement of goods and services and so deceive consumers. Still, many retailers fail to follow the letter of the law.

In 2006-07 Measurement Canada made it a priority to get to the bottom of the issue. Indeed, the special operating agency declared its resolve to address the problem of measurement inaccuracy in eight trade sectors, including the retail petroleum sector in Industry Canada's 2006-07 report on plans and priorities.

Since then, Measurement Canada has consulted extensively with industry leaders, small business owners and with members of the public. In each discussion one truth continually resurfaced. One truth that now provides the rationale for the specific amendments to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act presented in the fairness at the pumps act.

There are two types of non-compliant retailers. There are retailers who mislead consumers inadvertently and much more seriously, there are retailers who cheat consumers maliciously.

Let me speak first of all to those who mislead consumers inadvertently. By and large, these are honest retailers. These are decent, otherwise dependable men and women who through ignorance or negligence fail to monitor and maintain the accuracy of their equipment.

At present, the only means to punish even minor contraventions to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act is in the courts. Prosecution, however, is not always the most appropriate means to penalize careless retailers. After all, these are not necessarily felons. These are not people whose actions are so monstrous as to warrant a lifelong criminal record. These are people who should be warned, who should be disciplined, and who should be taught to be accountable for the distribution of their products and services.

For those retailers the solution is simple: more frequent inspections. Under the fairness at the pumps act, businesses would be required to have the accuracy of their gas pumps or other measurement equipment validated and certified regularly by the authorized service providers trained to meet Measurement Canada's performance criteria. Retailers found to be non-compliant with consumer laws would face monetary penalties in line with the severity of their offence.

What about retailers who cheat consumers maliciously? What about the second type of non-compliant retailer who knowingly undermines the accuracy of his or her devices so as to profit at the expense of others? Periodic audits of measurement accuracy are not enough to protect Canadians from such racketeers. Strong enforcement mechanisms are necessary.

Here is where the existing legislation falls flat. At present, the maximum fine for non-compliance is $5,000. A minor offence runs retailers a mere $1,000. The penalties are a pittance compared to the money dishonourable retailers stand to gain. Make no mistake. Tampering with the accuracy of measurements is not a crime of passion or revenge. It is not a crime of hatred or a crime of fear. It is a crime of greed. Money is always the motive. Therefore, let money also be the deterrent. Let criminal behaviour be made less lucrative. Let criminal behaviour be made less compelling.

The fairness at the pumps act would increase court-imposed fines up to tenfold and would add new administrative monetary penalties. Retailers who commit minor transgressions would pay for their non-compliance with a fine of $10,000. Retailers who are more conniving, unscrupulous and deceptive would face fines of up to $25,000 and could find themselves before a judge. Retailers who are found to measure fuel or other goods inaccurately more than once would risk a $50,000 and legal prosecution.

In this way, the fairness at the pumps act would provide what existing legislation lacks: a strong arm to enforce the law and deter criminal behaviour before it starts. For this reason, I am confident that Bill C-14 is not merely a mouthpiece for consumers. Bill C-14 is a champion of consumer rights, with the backbone to defend the interests of Canadians at the gas pump and everywhere else consumer goods are sold on the basis of measurement across this country.

I urge my hon. colleagues to also defend the interests of Canadians. I urge my hon. colleagues to contemplate the merits of the fairness at the pumps act and pass Bill C-14. Indeed, I urge my hon. colleagues to vote in favour of this act with as much conviction, as much determination and as much principle as Canadians did when they elected us as their representatives and entrusted us with the responsibility to protect the rights of consumers.