Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We do have a deck that I was going to walk you through. As well, we did send over a brief in advance, a three- or four-page backgrounder. I'll just walk you through the deck now.
Slide 2 shows that the purpose today is to provide an overview of factors affecting the price of gasoline in Canada. This is the analysis that our department has done, and it's particularly focused on the last couple of years.
Slide 3 underlines that Canada has a market-based approach to gasoline pricing at the federal level. The provinces own the resources. As a result, federal responsibilities mainly relate to interprovincial and international trade and pipeline regulations.
In 1985 the Government of Canada adopted a policy to accept a market-based approach to pricing gasoline, accepting global crude oil prices as the basis of oil and petroleum product prices in Canada. That's the policy we've had since 1985.
As a result, prices are set in competitive markets to provide signals to producers and consumers regarding production, investment, and consumption decisions. I have to underline that in our department, Natural Resources Canada, we do not exercise any control over petroleum prices except in the case of a national emergency. In the case of a national emergency, we would actually have emergency powers.
Now, some provinces do regulate the price of gasoline: Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. I should add New Brunswick to this slide as well; it's in the backgrounder, but it's not on the slide. New Brunswick also regulates the price.
As for the impact of these controls, it's generally done to reduce price volatility. Interestingly enough, in a Conference Board study done in January 2001, when they looked at controls, they concluded that this does not necessarily lead to lower prices.
The next slide shows that our department generally plays a role in analysis and information. As a centre of expertise, we deal with petroleum products markets and analyze data on gasoline and crude oil markets and prices. This means: recognizing the importance of providing transparency and understanding of gasoline markets; producing analytical studies on the energy and petroleum product security; and finally, producing information for Canadians via the Fuel Focus bi-weekly report. In addition, we provide programs and information on energy efficiency and conservation efforts.
Our role is primarily one of analyzing markets and making sure we understand them. There are a lot of people who use the information that comes out of Natural Resources Canada, including members of Parliament, the Competition Bureau, companies that purchase fuels in the marketplace, and the general public.
We have a fuel focus website, which is updated weekly, and Fuel Focus, a report that is produced every second week, so we track these things.
Fuel Focus provides information on gasoline prices and markets so that Canadian producers and consumers can make informed choices about energy production and usage.
Also, as I mentioned, the Office of Energy Efficiency offers a number of programs, websites, and publications to assist Canadians in reducing the cost of transportation by reducing their consumption of fuel.
What I'd like to do now is turn it over to Jeff Labonté, director general of the Petroleum Resources Branch, and get him to take us through the analysis of recent gasoline price fluctuation and some of the factors we've seen that are behind them.
Jeff.