Mr. Speaker, things are crystal clear. Members on the government side refused to make this bill a votable item. So now everybody knows who wants to make it votable and who does not.
Let us put this debate into perspective. What is the situation on the fuel market? Over the last year or year and a half, there has been an exceptional increase of prices causing hardship to consumers. It creates inflation. Truck drivers, farmers, consumers and people using heating oil are affected. This crisis is ongoing and is costly for consumers.
At the same time, we have an industry making record profits and governments raking in huge amounts of taxes, especially the federal government, which collects taxes not only on fuel but also on oil companies' profits.
Let me add that the federal government will collect more than $5 billion thanks to the excise tax and will only reinvest 6% in the highway system. This is an incredible cash cow for the government; the high prices of gasoline, petroleum products and petroleum-based products is not a problem for the government since they generate additional revenues. However, for consumers, they represent a real loss of their purchasing power, and consumers are really feeling it.
Therefore, the issue is an important one. How did the government address the problem? It did two things. First, last spring it asked the Conference Board to review the situation. We have not yet seen the study; we will have it tomorrow.
I am announcing, and it is a scoop,that members will learn that, according to the conference board, the oil industry is doing fine. According to the versions of the report that are in circulation at this time, and of which we have a copy, we can see that it contains no criticism of the oil industry. Members should not expect great miracles tomorrow or they will be disappointed. In fact, this is not surprising since oil companies happen to be members of the conference board.
The second thing the government did was just before the election. What did it do? It decided to free up $1.4 billion so it could send $125 or $250 cheques to individuals or families to help them deal with the high cost of energy products, or so it said. One has to look at how the government did that. It decided to send a cheque to all those who receive a GST tax credit.
However, some people do not have an oil heating system, they have electric heating. Some do not necessarily use a car, they use public transit, and so on. This measure was strictly meant to help members opposite during the election campaign because I am sure people badgered them on this issue.
Members just had to say, “Look, we will mail you a cheque in January, we will help you”. We are talking about a $125 cheque for someone who has an oil heating system and who has seen his heating bills doubled. For some families, the increase can be as much as $1,000 with a long winter that started early in December and that seems to be dragging on longer than last year. That makes for incredibly high costs. These timid measures were not aimed at the people who really needed help.
Let us go back to the bill now before the House. What is the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik suggesting to solve the problem? It is a bill that says: “Here is our solution. We are going to ask the oil companies to post the prices before tax”.
I listened carefully to the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik to try to understand how his logic works. The price I am interested in is the price I have to pay. Even if the price before tax is posted, when I go fill up, I am still going to have to pay the same price if nothing is done to change the business practices in the industry and the fuel tax policy. The total price is going to be the same. Consumers want to know the price they are going to pay, not the price that will be posted. I do not see what good it would do to post a lower price.