Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to put questions to my Liberal colleague from Laval—Les Îles for the simple reason that it is clear in everyone's mind that there are four factors affecting gas price at the pumps: crude oil price, refining cost, profit margin and taxes.
Everyone in the House knows that retailers cannot be asked to contribute more, since their profit margin is only 2¢ or 3¢ per litre. The price of crude oil depends on the market. We are aware of that. We, in the House of Commons, can have an influence on the two other factors: refining cost and taxes.
Regarding GST, there is certainly a price increase, therefore an increase in federal government revenues. As suggested by the Bloc Québécois, the government should think about giving back the money as tax credits to the most needy in our society. We all agree on this. However, the problem is that we disagree about the means. The government is dragging its feet as much as possible to save money. In the end, citizens who need it the most are not receiving anything.
The second factor is refining cost, which we find totally intolerable and unacceptable. Since 2003, the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Sciences and Technology has been saying that we need a monitoring agency. I quoted the numbers earlier.
In the last 30 days, oil companies cashed profits of 26.1¢ a litre on refining when we know that profits of 7¢ are considered reasonable by the industry itself. That means that in the last 30 days, they made $800 million more than for the same period last year. If the government continues to procrastinate and wait—even at today's price, which is reasonable—oil companies will cash $40 million a week over what they made last year.
That is why the Bloc requested an emergency debate. We ask the government to create a monitoring agency to bring the industry to heel. It is that simple. Oil companies are making profits on the back of taxpayers.
Today, we in the Bloc say that that must end. It is necessary that refining profits remain at a reasonable level of about 7¢ a litre. If that had been the case in the last 30 days, citizens would have saved between 20¢ and 35¢ a litre. Money would have remained in their pockets instead of going into those of the oil companies.
That is why we are asking the government to create the agency. Of course, we are also asking the government to use tax measures, for example, tax credits, to give money to the taxpayers who need it most as a means of compensating them for their losses in the last weeks.