Bill C-454 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Competition Act to authorize the Commissioner of Competition to inquire into an entire industry sector. It also provides for the imposition of an administrative monetary penalty in respect of cases of abuse of dominant position, and for an increase in the amount of administrative monetary penalties in respect of deceptive marketing cases. It repeals all provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry and criminal provisions dealing with price discrimination, predatory pricing, discriminatory promotional allowances and geographic price discrimination. The enactment also provides that the court may make an order requiring a person who made a false or misleading representation to compensate persons affected by that conduct and may issue an interim injunction to freeze assets where the Commissioner of Competition intends to ask for such an order. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Competition Act

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in the House on Bill C-452, An Act to amend the Competition Act (inquiry into industry sector) introduced by my colleague from Shefford.

Bill C-452 proposes to amend the Competition Act to give more power to the Competition Bureau. I would like to start by congratulating my colleague for this fine and very important private member’s bill. I think this is a subject that is dear to his heart and I want to salute the quality of the work he has done.

The amendment proposed by my colleague from Shefford will allow the Commissioner of Competition to initiate inquiries of his own accord into fluctuations in the price of gasoline, if there are reasonable grounds for doing so. It will therefore no longer be necessary to wait for complaints to be filed before making an inquiry. If this bill is enacted, the Competition Bureau will be better equipped to combat companies that might profit from their dominant market position to pick consumers’ pockets.

Every time gas prices rise, the governments hands us the same answer: nothing can be done, the Competition Bureau has concluded there was no agreement among the oil companies to fix prices. The truth is that there are a number of flaws in the present act. It does not allow the Competition Bureau to initiate inquiries. And when there is an inquiry, the Competition Bureau cannot really do anything with them because at present it cannot compel the production of documents or protect witnesses. Bill C-452 would eliminate these flaws by allowing the Bureau to initiate inquiries and allowing the federal Trade Tribunal to protect witnesses and seize relevant documents.

If the act is not amended, gas prices will continue to fluctuate with no justification, as is the case at present. And it will again, and still, be consumers who will continue to pay for the more dubious practices on the part of the oil companies.

Gas prices fluctuating is one thing. It is another thing when they rise stealthily and without justification. Recently, prices at the pump rose because of the political instability in north Africa. In just a few hours, prices rose spectacularly. That is completely bizarre, when we know that the events that occurred in north Africa had at that point not yet had any impact on the cost of refined gasoline that was already in Quebec. That practice is nothing more nor less than a way of making even more money on the backs of consumers, and there is a lot. It is estimated that because of collusion, retailers have overcharged Quebec consumers by as much as $100 million.

The Bloc Québécois recently supported Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act, to fix price errors at the pump. But that bill does not solve the problems of collusion like the ones recently disclosed in Quebec and does not prevent sudden increases in the price of gas. The Conservative government claims that its initiative will save the public a lot of money. Gas consumption in Canada, calculated over a full year, is so high that it is completely foolish to think that bill can have any impact on consumers’ wallets. That is why we in the Bloc Québécois believe that in order to respond effectively to gas price increases, Bill C-452 must be enacted. This bill is the only thing that will have a real impact on prices at the pump.

For years, the Bloc Québécois has been pressuring the federal government to finally take action to address the rising cost of petroleum products. It has dogged the Liberal government of the day so that it would follow up on the recommendations made in 2003 by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. In October 2005, just before the election, the federal government finally listened to the Bloc Québécois' arguments and decided to amend the Competition Act through Bill C-19. That legislation broadened the Competition Bureau's authority to investigate and increased the maximum penalty for conspiracy. However, Bill C-19 did not follow up on all the committee's recommendations. As we know, that legislation, which was only an election ploy, died on the order paper with the election call, and we certainly could not count on the Conservative government to bring it back.

In 2007, the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-454, which also died on the order paper, when the election of 2008 was called.

In 2009, the Conservatives took part of the bill and included it in the budget implementation act. However, they did not see fit to allow the Competition Bureau to initiate investigations. That is why the hon. member for Shefford came back again with Bill C-452. The recent years clearly show that neither the Conservatives, nor the Liberals acted to protect consumers. By contrast, the Bloc Québécois is taking action.

For the Bloc Québécois, the only effective way to deal with the rising cost of gas is to use a global strategy. That strategy is three-pronged: to bring the industry into line, to make it contribute, and to reduce our dependency on oil.

First, we must bring the oil industry into line. The initiative of my colleague for Shefford supports that approach. It is also necessary to set up a true monitoring agency for the oil sector.

Second, the oil industry must make a contribution. With the increase of costs and oil company profits, it is important that the latter pay their fair share of taxes. How can we accept that consumers are getting poorer, while oil companies are getting richer?

Despite the recent recession and despite the rise in the price of gas, oil companies are posting record sales. In 1995, the Canadian oil and gas sector posted combined sales of $25 billion. By 2008, this figure had climbed to $148 billion. That is an increase of nearly 600%.

Now let us talk about profits. In 2003, Canada's oil sector made $17.6 billion in profits. In 2008, it made $79 billion. In other words, the net profits of Canada's oil sector more than quadrupled in just five years. The Bloc members feel that the party must end for the oil companies.

But obviously the Conservatives do not feel that way. In 2003, they supported the Liberal government's move to reduce the overall tax rate for oil companies from 28% to 21%. With the changes brought in by the Liberals, supported by the Conservatives, taxes for Canada's oil sector became more advantageous than in Texas.

But that is not enough. In 2007, in their economic statement, the Conservatives introduced tax cuts for oil companies that would see their tax rates drop to 15% in 2012. These tax cuts will enable the oil companies to pocket approximately $3.6 billion in 2012. These figures make it clear that the federal government chooses to give priority to the interests of the oil companies, at the expense of consumers.

I do not know how the Conservative members justify this to their constituents, but I know that when I meet my constituents from Compton—Stanstead, not a single one tells me that the gifts to the oil companies are justified. On the contrary, the people I meet feel cheated by this Conservative government, a government that is in league with an industry that exploits consumers' dependence on oil.

The third component of the approach proposed by the Bloc Québécois has to do with reducing consumers' dependence on oil. This makes sense and it is perfectly in line with Quebec's efforts to fight global warming. The less gas that we consume, the less money the industry will pocket and the better off our planet will be.

Fairness at the Pumps Act

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

How can investigative powers be given to an institution when it must bow to the will of the minister or when this institution is only able to take action after receiving a complaint?

The Bloc Québécois wonders why it takes a complaint and a request by the minister to set the wheels in motion. If the Competition Bureau has information pointing to collusion, it should be able to initiate an inquiry immediately.

Still in 2003, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology concluded its study on fluctuating gasoline prices with some recommendations. The first was to create a petroleum monitoring agency. The second was to toughen up the Competition Act.

According to the committee, this agency would have been able to clear up confusion among the general public regarding the price of gas by providing existing data to the public. The agency would have overseen all aspects of this activity.

That same year, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology spelled out the changes it wanted to see made to the Competition Act.

Obviously the Bloc Québécois agrees with this recommendation and it pushed for the government to respect the work of the committee and agree to implement this monitoring body, something it did not do. In response to the committee, the government of the day said it did not feel it was necessary to create this monitoring agency and it argued for the status quo.

In 2005, the Liberal Party of Canada had proposed, through Bill C-19, amendments to the Competition Act allowing for measures to mitigate rising gas prices. Note that, once again, the government did not incorporate the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology into its Bill C-19. The committee had recommended reversing the burden of proof to address agreements between competitors and to make it possible for the Competition Tribunal to award damages to parties affected by restrictive trade practices, where applicable.

The purpose of the first recommendation was to make it the responsibility of the parties wishing to enter into an agreement between competitors to prove the ultimate social value of that agreement. The second recommendation of the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology would have made the pendulum swing back the other way since measures restricting the business practices of the guilty parties could have been imposed.

You can guess what happened. Bill C-19 died on the order paper since it was introduced just before the election. That is why, in 2007, the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-454. That bill made it to second reading stage, but another election saw the Bloc Québécois bill scrapped. In 2009, a little more recently, the Bloc Québécois noted that the Conservative government had adopted part of Bill C-454. Nonetheless, the government does not think it is necessary for the Competition Bureau to initiate its own investigations.

It is clear that in 2010 nothing much has changed. The flow of information has not improved much and there is no agency governing the attitude of the oil companies, quite the contrary.

The government must deal with problems of fairness swiftly and I want to know what it is waiting for to take action. Consumers are sick of bearing the cost of fluctuating prices at the pump.

Opposition Motion--Finance

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Madam Speaker, first off, I would like to point out that I will be sharing my time with the member for Jeanne-Le Ber.

I am pleased to speak today to the motion by the New Democratic Party to introduce comprehensive legislation relating to the problem of credit cards.

Bearing in mind consumer vulnerability in the current crisis, the Bloc supports the motion. However, when the government introduces this legislation, it will have to make sure it respects the areas of jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. In Quebec, consumer protection legislation has been in force since 1971. It sets out strict requirements regarding contracts for credit cards of all sorts. It will be important therefore to respect Quebec's expertise and jurisdiction. Once again, the Quebec nation has taken the lead over the Canadian federation in protecting its merchants and its consumers. In addition, the organization known as Option consommateurs sees that the rules are followed.

In order to understand the development of credit cards, we have to understand the principle of habit, almost obligation, created by the major credit card companies.

And what of Quebeckers' and Canadians' financial situation? It is true that debt is a major problem in the country. According to a survey done by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada in the spring of 2007, 84% of Canadians reported being in debt, 14% of all Canadians reported a significant increase in their debt and, most notably, 40% of Quebeckers and Canadians in debt believe that their debt hurts their chances of being financially secure in the event of unforeseen circumstances. In the spring of 2007, the current recession was just starting. The current government did not even realize that there was a recession. Let us not forget the remarks by the Prime Minister during the 2008 election campaign.

The level of Canadians' and Quebeckers' personal savings has decreased hugely since the 1980s, dropping from a high of 20.2% in 1982 to a low of 1.2% in 2005.

It is true that the spread between the Bank of Canada's key lending rate and credit card interest rates is growing. To help Canadians and Quebeckers, the Bank of Canada lowered its key lending rate several times to today's level of 0.25%, the lowest in Canadian history. Recession oblige, you might say.

In the case of the major credit card companies, a credit card should be a matter of choice for individual consumers, but is that really the case? Just try to book a hotel room without a credit card. This is just one example.

Because of cuts by the federal government to transfers to the provinces, Quebec has had to cut funding to home economics organizations, many providing information on credit.

However, business oblige, and the major credit card companies, MasterCard and Visa, not to mention any names, are working miracles to make access to supposedly easy credit all the easier, but in tandem with a rate of interest to consumers often over 20%. Consumers increasingly use credit cards as a method of payment. We should therefore expect credit card charges to drop.

Despite increased volumes of sales, reduced fraud, lower interest rates and improved technology, credit card rates continue to rise. It seems that the main problem involves information and awareness about the benefits and the risks of credit.

A survey by Nanos Research has revealed that 55% of Canadians have a poor understanding of the costs of credit cards—63% think that the charges increase without a corresponding increase in terms of value and 67% think that the credit card companies do not explain their charges clearly.

Another survey ordered by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that 82% of Quebec card holders support having the credit card industry more strictly regulated.

And what about merchants? The credit card companies charge those who accept a credit card from customers doing business with them. Approximately 10¢ is currently charged merchants on average for each debit transaction, regardless of the amount of the purchase. Credit card transactions average $45 per transaction. The credit card companies are preparing to increase transaction fees charged retailers. The consumer does not see these fees. They currently represent about 2% regardless of the amount of the transaction. Applying a hypothetical charge of 1% would represent, then, 45¢, an increase of over 400%. Who, but the consumer, do you think, is going to pay this dizzying increase?

On top of that, Canadian retailers have higher hidden costs than do retailers in other industrialized countries. True, the major banks and financial institutions reap a significant profit from this. In 2007, alone, the fees amounted to $4.5 billion in Canada.

Most credit cards are issued by a limited number of companies. Visa and Mastercard control close to 85% of the credit card market, and this gives them total freedom to impose charges and conditions on retailers. One might therefore wonder whether the hikes in hidden fees might not be a sign of abuse of a dominant position. In order to ensure that there is no abuse by issuing companies, the Bloc Québécois contacted the Competition Bureau this past January in order to have the commissioner examine the issue. The Bureau's powers are limited, however.

This is why the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill to reinforce the Competition Act during the last parliament, Bill C-454. That bill would have given the Competition Bureau the power to carry out its own real investigations into the industry. At the present time it cannot, on its own, do more than general studies that have no clout. With its own investigations, it will be able to summon witnesses and protect them. If the companies conspire together on price-fixing, they will leave no proof of having done so.If witnesses cannot be summoned and protected, it is very likely that no anti-competitive practice will ever be proven. When businesses want to enter into agreements with their competition, they will have to prove that such agreements are in the public interest. At present, these agreements with competitors are allowed, unless it can be successfully proven that they are contrary to the public interest.

This is not all the Bloc Québécois has done. Following on representations by the Quebec coalition of merchants opposed to the increase in transaction fees on credit and debit cards, my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain and I got the following motion passed by the Standing Committee on Finance.

That the Finance Committee conduct a study of the various debit and credit card transaction fees imposed on merchants as well as the standard and transactional practices that justify them and report its observations and recommendations to the House.

This study will be undertaken shortly, in the next few weeks. It will make it possible to hear from a number of witnesses as well as various stakeholders. This will enable the committee to formulate its recommendations to the government. These could then serve as the basis for the legislative measure called for in the motion presented today by the NDP.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois is therefore in favour of the motion, because consumers need legislation to ensure they are protected. The Bloc will, however, ensure that this legislative measure introduced by the government fully respects the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I'll just go through the three items that the subcommittee agreed to. It was agreed that the committee travel to Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal, Sydney, Boston, and Washington; and we will try to go Halifax, and to Sydney for sure. It's for the period, September 15 to 19, 2008, for the purposes of visiting sites and hearing testimony related to the study of science and technology in Canada.

As for the second item, it was agreed that the committee hold meetings for the purpose of receiving testimony relating to Bill C-454 at meetings scheduled for October 7, 9, 21, and 23, 2008.

In the third and final item, it was agreed that the Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Pricing meet on Wednesday, August 27, for two separate two-hour panels, and that possible additional meetings be scheduled as required.

Is the subcommittee report agreed to?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Gasoline Prices

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the citizens in my riding are exasperated by the rising price of gas. The people of Haut-Saint-Maurice have taken action to make the government aware of this.

Jacques Bouchard from La Tuque is circulating a petition. More than 1,900 names have been collected, and I salute this initiative.

People in the so-called remote regions do not all have access to public transit. They sometimes use more than 30% of their net income to buy gas to get to work. People who are planning their summer vacations are worried. The tourist season may be jeopardized in a number of regions, such as Haut-Saint-Maurice.

In order to support this civic action, I also launched a petition in my riding, calling on the government, among other things, to quickly adopt Bill C-454 introduced by the Bloc Québécois. I will be presenting this petition shortly.

Competition Bureau

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the Bloc member does not understand his own bill. Bill C-454 would do nothing to lower the price of gas.

The government is taking action because we will not tolerate high gas prices. If we look at what the Bloc proposes in its platform, it is a $500 million increase in taxes for petroleum companies. As always, the Bloc members say one thing, but their platform says the other.

We will not tolerate high gas prices.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if these are the first charges since 1955, that is proof that the law is not working. The Bloc Québécois wants to give the Competition Bureau some teeth through Bill C-454. Having the ability to shed some light on an entire industrial sector will reduce the risk of price fixing. The Prime Minister knows all too well that this situation is not unique or limited to service stations. He must pick a side: consumers or oil cartels.

Will the Prime Minister finally commit to supporting Bloc Québécois Bill C-454?

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

Chair, more headlines this morning are suggesting that a barrel of oil will be at $250 by December. Energy costs are going through the roof. I realize that we have set a date of August 27 to discuss this urgent matter, and we may be able to dovetail it with Bill C-454. I'm suggesting that if it is at all possible, with consent, we as a committee try to at least give a couple of hours to what is a growing concern.

I don't know if it's speculators on the markets or if it's in fact rabid competition for scare resources that's driving this, but clearly there has been no Canadian response, very little in the way of anything by this committee, and certainly nothing from a governmental point of view, addressing what I think is the most critical issue facing the country, regardless of where we are in the political spectrum.

I leave it to the committee that we try to have at least a day well before that. I realize that some of us have great obligations, but if we could at least find a day well before August 27, which is about two and a half months from now, I suggest we try to delve into that for at least a day. I realize it's very onerous on members, but I think all of us are getting the letters; all of us are getting concerns.

As for the issue of Bill C-454, we're prepared to go as soon as possible, even if that means sitting during the summer.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, does that work, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday? We'll find a room.

We need to decide on the travel, and we also need to decide on Bill C-454 in terms of the timing of the work plan.

Mr. McTeague, you wanted to make a point on energy.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call the meeting back to order. We have two motions before us today.

I want to touch upon two items before we go to the motions. As those of you who were on the trip know, at the end of the trip, on the bus, I read out the main topics emerging in this study we're doing on science and technology. The research document has been put together by Eleanor and will be e-mailed later today. I'd like members to review the list. This is something we'll constantly review as we go through the study. If there are any more topics or any questions, please ask Eleanor. I think it's an excellent way to keep the main topics at the top of our minds.

Second, there will be a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday, June 10, at 10 a.m. There are at least two issues I want to discuss there, and if you have more items, please let me know. We should talk about Bill C-454. We have to report the bill back by October 26 or 27, so we need to decide exactly how we'll handle it.

We should also talk about travel and doing the central and eastern parts of the trip in the fall.

If anyone has any further items, you can let me know after the meeting.

Now we'll go to the motions by Mr. Eyking and Ms. Nash. You should have them both before you.

Mr. Eyking, we'll have you introduce your motion.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I believe I misspoke earlier when I talked about pretending to take action or something along those lines. That is not what I meant. We can take some concrete steps. The Competition Bureau is an organization that exists, and we can ask that organization to take certain specific actions.

In my opinion, that is something that is done and that we can do. There is a bill. I don't know whether Mr. Arthur read Bill C-454 or whether he has looked at the references to the Competition Bureau. Mr. Arthur will be the first to ask why we, in Canada, are not capable of doing things on our own. The impetus always comes from the United States. I have regularly heard him serve up that line to this Committee. Today, however, he is making the opposite argument, saying that we should wait to see what they do in the United States before jumping on the bandwagon and taking action on our own. Are we not capable of doing something ourselves? Are we not capable of deciding something by ourselves? Why do we always have to wait for someone else to do it?

At the present time, we have a major problem, and when we find ourselves faced with that problem, all we do is sit around the table and wait for the price of gasoline to go up again, saying that it's a terrible thing and that we really don't know what to tell the people we represent. So, we just sit and wait until the price goes up to $2 a litre. And we wonder what caused that increase. But whether it's Peter, John or Jack, it won't change a thing in our own lives, because the price of gas is going to continue to go up.

The point is not to find out who is responsible for the rising price of gasoline, but rather, to look at what we can do to stabilize the price.

Can it be stabilized? Would it be possible to bring down the price of a barrel of oil? Could we do something to ensure that, at the refining stage, at the very least, the price does not go up further, so that a litre of gas at the pump does not cost even more? The only way that could be accomplished is with the Competition Bureau. It simply isn't possible for the price to increase by 28¢ a litre overnight. That's my own view, and I think the most effective way of dealing with this would be to work with the Competition Bureau. That is the only concrete tool we have at our disposal, and yet we are not using it, because there is no interest in doing so.

Thank you.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. McTeague, for certainly an interesting issue, which we would clearly have to take a look at as to how we might proceed in the future. I think it's a separate issue but one that might be deserving of this committee to consider.

However, the item in front of us is the proposal that has been put forward, really, to give Bill C-454 essentially one day of review, line by line, on a bill that has potentially broad-reaching implications on an act that is a fundamental piece of legislation for business in our country. In the interests of trying to simply do something quickly to somehow satisfy an expectation that Parliament is responding to the particular circumstances that gas prices happen to be fuelling--sorry for the pun--and the angst that has been created in society about gas prices, I think it would be misleading to suggest that a one-day review of this bill would in any way satisfy that. At the same time, it might have the potential, without proper time to review it, to have other unintended consequences for business, and we would be stepping into that trap by doing so, so quickly.

I similarly don't favour doing this as the motion has suggested, with the greatest of respect. I suggest we continue to get our study wrapped up, continue to forge ahead on S and T. All of these other suggestions for committee business in the future I'm sure the subcommittee will take in stride and bring forward some suggestions as we move ahead into the fall.

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

I just want to say that I fully understand the intent behind Ms. Brunelle's motion. It is important to let the public know that we are making progress and that we are looking at what is a very important issue for the vast majority of Canadians. It is no accident that, when we were in the Prairies, we saw that prices are much higher there than in Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia. And yet, these are the oil-producing regions of the country.

So, I think the Committee could certainly look at this, even though I believe there is an even more important matter we have to act on.

If I could be permitted, Chair, and I won't be long on this, many of the proposals in Bill C-454 were ones that I have fought for over the years. That's also one of the reasons why those are near and dear to my heart.

The reality is that the current price structures we're seeing go through the roof--not just for oil and natural gas, but for all sorts of other commodities--are very much the product of a problem at the investor end, the stock market end. It is not at the downstream at this point; we can deal with that.

But I think if you want to give real expectations and give an answer to consumers, to Canadians, on why the prices are where they are and where they're going, if anything, this committee should be spending every spare minute it has--and I don't think it has any--looking at the question of energy market manipulation and at how commodities markets have been used, not in a malicious way, but certainly as the focus for numbers that consumers now have to pay, with no end in sight.

My colleague Mr. Eyking had a Maclean's magazine, and on the front cover it said, “Life at $200 a barrel. You won't be able to eat, travel or live as you do now. Say goodbye to the age of plenty.”

This is not to quash what Madame Brunelle has said, but as I suggested before, there is a bigger issue here that we are going to have to confront one way or another. It is that the excuses of supply or the problems around the world can now be magnified and distorted beyond recognition.

I'm suggesting to the committee, as I have...and Madame Brunelle, I think I made this available to several of the members of the committee in their travel last week. These are the inventory stats from the United States, which consumes 52% of all the transportation fuel of the world. Add Canada to that and it's 58% of the world's transportation fuels. Supply has been in a fairly good position over the past five years and demand is down. On that basis alone, normal commodity markets would reflect that and the prices would be at $75 a barrel, not $125 or $126, whatever it was just a few minutes ago on Bloomberg.

I'm not quashing the idea, but I think the idea that you have in your bill here is a little late, and having fought for many of those things, I'd suggest that if the committee wants to do something pragmatic and deal with something that is contextual to the problem today, the actual problem, if we're going to spend any time, we ought to be looking at the concerns that are being raised about the adverse effects of an unbridled futures market in which capital investors who have no business being there...when neither producers nor consumers are driving the price up beyond oblivion.

Where does Canada stand in that regard? That's a good question.

Are the pension funds that are being accumulated in this country at unprecedented levels part of the problem? Are the mutual funds that are being generated in this country and around the world part of the problem? Those are questions we would have to address.

I'm suggesting to Madame Brunelle that I won't support this, simply because I don't think it is proper and I think it gives false expectations to Canadians that this is going to somehow help address the more fundamental issue of a stock market...of energy markets that are now the subject of speculation. If we don't address that, we're going to continue to talk about tinkering at the other end.

The problem is not the downstream. The problem is even before the upstream; it is those who are distorting the markets. I would suggest that this committee--and I want this on record--at its earliest opportunity do give consideration to the far more fundamental and crucial part.

I know I've said a lot, Mr. Chairman, and colleagues, thank you for this. But I think it's important that we get this on the record and that at least someone who is out there listening recognizes there is a far more fundamental problem that we have to tackle.

Price of Petroleum Products

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am taking part in tonight's debate primarily because everything the Conservative members had to say has really made me shudder. They have tried to take the debate down another path. This debate was and is something that the people of my riding wanted. My riding, which is just north of Montreal, might seem rich, since there are many new construction projects, but there are also areas in the riding where the people are older and the houses date back to 1945, 1950 and 1960, and many people there would benefit from subsidies or assistance to heat those older houses.

My own house was built in 1950 and I have renovated it. I was not rich; I did not have an MP's salary at the time. Still, even though my house is empty most of the time—I live alone now—this year it cost me $600 more to heat it. The price of heating oil—I will refrain from naming the company I use—has risen to 94¢ a litre. I have a son who last year bought a small house that was built around 1965 and it cost him $1,200 more to heat it. He also lives alone. This is not because our houses are poorly insulated; on the contrary. Since we are knowledgeable about these things, we were able to upgrade the insulation in our houses. But our oil suppliers increased their prices. Since we have oil furnaces and oil fired hot water heaters, we are forced to pay more.

I could also describe my riding as a bedroom community. People live there but work outside the riding, mainly in Montreal. On the weekend, I again talked with people who told me that they were spending $1,000 more on gasoline. Because our roads are in such poor condition, road work is required, creating traffic congestion that means we spend more on gas.

So when I hear my Conservative friends say that the debate should be restricted to the carbon exchange or past Liberal programs, I feel that they are getting away from the real problem that people want to talk to us about.

I feel it is important that the Bloc Québécois requested this emergency debate this evening. I do not mind speaking at a quarter to midnight when I am speaking on behalf of my constituents who need dual energy programs to reduce their heating costs, who need assistance programs, if only to improve public transit, and who, because they pay taxes, also should be able to receive grants and support so that they can continue to have a certain quality of life.

My colleague, the Bloc Québécois member for Montcalm, introduced Bill C-454. I feel it is an extremely important bill. When we talk to people, they ask us to reduce gasoline taxes. It is important to understand that the current situation is hurting the public not necessarily because of the taxes, but perhaps because of the fact that no study has been done of the extent of competition in the oil industry, because of the game played by the oil companies, which claim rights for themselves, enjoy huge shameless subsidies from this government and the previous government, make exorbitant profits and pay no attention to what the public really needs.

The Bloc Québécois wants the Competition Bureau to have real investigative powers in order to see exactly what goes on, explain how the industry operates, get to the bottom of things and, especially, try to discipline this industry. Businesses make agreements with their competitors; we know that many oil companies make arrangements with one another. It is not rare to see one oil company suddenly raise its prices and on the next corner, where another oil company has a gas station, see that the price has soared again. These companies stick together. The Bloc Québécois wants the oil companies to prove that the agreements between them are not detrimental to consumers.

In the Bloc Québécois, we think that many measures could be put in place. We could focus on energy efficiency to rapidly give some leeway to Hydro-Québec, on one hand, and help consumers, on the other hand. I previously talked about dual energy. Before my present house, I had a house that we converted to dual energy. This change actually was helpful. I live in the old part of Terrebonne and I had houses that needed this type of heating system.

We also believe that the government should promote programs to encourage alternative energy so that people can take advantage of programs for wind, geothermal and solar, among others. It should also do something to help people struggling with heating costs. Proposing such programs, even on a pilot basis, could reduce the cost of fuel and heating for some families.

Our industries are also suffering because of rising fuel costs. We must not forget that to be unable to predict how much heating will cost means uncertainty for businesses that are left wondering what will happen to them. We could curb increasing fuel consumption for intercity transportation. We could also reduce the use of trucks for intercity transport. We could curb increasing fuel consumption for local freight transportation by increasing the load that trucks can transport.

I see that I do not have much time left. I know I talked about my own personal perspective, a perspective I share with many families in Blainville, Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines and Terrebonne. I am one of them. I pay for gas and heating oil, and I buy it from the same company that everyone else on my street buys it from. I am doing well because, as a member of Parliament, I get paid well, but the same cannot be said for my neighbours, who earn $35,000 or $40,000 a year, who have to commute, who have to pay for gas, and who have to listen to the nonsense we have heard tonight from the current government, nonsense that does not even offer a glimmer of hope for a way out of this. That is just terrible.

Last weekend, people knew there might be an emergency debate. This evening, I called some people and told them to watch their members and to keep an eye on the ones who rose tonight. I hope they will not forget this government's indifference.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member from Terrebonne—Blainville.

During these 10 minutes, I would like to speak in this House about this emergency debate that was obtained by the Bloc Québécois thanks to the efforts of the member for Trois-Rivières. It is very important to tackle the issue of the price of gasoline and to find solutions. In our society, every problem has a solution. We need only make the effort and, in this case, have the political will to correct the situation. That is what we are hoping to do.

The Bloc Québécois proposed this debate because people from all segments of society have told us that we must deal with the issue, that it is important and that it is affecting consumers' lives, businesses' finances and the most disadvantaged in our society, such as seniors who, in rural and urban areas, are experiencing difficulties. Today, our public transit systems in urban and rural areas are inadequate and we have to find solutions to these problems.

I have found it very discouraging this evening that the government has no proposals and no plan. Its sole intervention is to state that market forces prevail. It says that we must live with very high prices and that we cannot solve the problem. Yet, the Bloc made some very constructive suggestions.

Barely two weeks ago, Bill C-454 was adopted in this House at second reading in order to send the bill to committee as quickly as possible and to give the Commissioner of Competition the authority to conduct an inquiry without having to prove that there is collusion. The current legislation has serious limitations that require proof of collusion in order to proceed with an inquiry. We believe that if the Commissioner of Competition were given the right to inquire in this area, we could make recommendations or suggestions to change the market organization and to find ways of dealing with the matter before us. This bill would give us a chance. This evening's debate will also give us an opportunity to talk about difficulties experienced and to encourage the government to propose solutions.

Last week I invited Frédéric Quintal, a specialist on gasoline issues, to come and give a talk in my riding. I invited the public, and about 50 people came. We had an excellent discussion. The title of his talk was “Faire le plein ou dormir au gaz”. In other words, do we stay deluded, decide to do nothing and believe that there is no way to change anything, or do we take the steps to bring about change? During this talk, I also invited a representative from ACEF, an organization that helps people with financial troubles. They run the Éconologis program, which gives residents concrete ways to reduce their heating costs in apartments and private homes.

They provide concrete measures and actions that can be implemented. They also dispel myths. It is often said that we should lower taxes in order to solve the problem of gasoline prices. In the past seven years, taxes have risen by about 55%, while gasoline itself, without taxes, has risen by 550%. There is a problem. Either we find a way to control how the market works so that there is healthy competition with useful results, or we find another way to tax oil companies who are making record profits. We have helped them out in recent years. In the last budget, their taxation rate was lowered again. This year is the ultimate year for oil companies. They are selling gasoline at record prices and, at the same time, their taxes are being reduced. Once again we are left out in the cold, and are expected to accept and tolerate the situation, without taking any action.

In my opinion, the Bloc is making a heartfelt appeal today. It is saying that the petroleum monitoring agency that was recommended by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, and the bill the Liberal government introduced before the Conservatives took office, have to be implemented. There also needs to be the will to decrease our dependence on oil. The profits made by oil companies have to result in the development of new renewable energies in order to decrease this dependence on oil. We have the means, we just need the will. The government needs to get the message and take appropriate action.

I hope that in the coming days many people in Quebec and Canada will call their MPs and say that they listened to part of the emergency debate the Bloc Québécois requested and that they will ask their MPs to take appropriate action.

I put out this call to create a broad coalition to resolve this issue last week and I have already received some responses. I will read one quickly: “In the local papers on the weekend I read of your intention to create a coalition against the rising price of gasoline. As a representative of the Parti Démocratie Chrétienne du Québec, riding of Kamouraska-Témiscouata, at the provincial level, I would like to join your cause. Are you taking action against the government or the oil companies? In any case, we have to look for solutions. Thank you for your cooperation.”

That is the kind of spirit I would like to see in this House. We saw it in the opposition parties today. Not everyone had the same solutions necessarily, but at least they had ideas. We did not see this in the Conservatives, not even those from Quebec who know all about this dependence on oil. They instead tried to tell us that nothing could be done about this.

We must end this inaction and start implementing concrete projects that can produce results. This evening, I am also appealing to all those who are watching us. Join our coalition and express your desire to see the government establish a concerted action plan to deal with the rising cost of gasoline.

Solutions have been sought for many years. Work has been done on this issue and many options have been put forward but a comprehensive solution has yet to be found.

I was spurred into action a few months ago when I met some people at my two constituency offices, in Montmagny and Rivière-du-Loup. It was the end of winter, and the price of heating oil was very high. These people told me that something should be done, that I had to set out on a mission and go ahead and put solutions forward.

That is what is behind tonight's emergency debate requested by the Bloc Québécois. It pervades the entire debate that will go on all through the evening until midnight. But come tomorrow, we will have to carry on the fight, and find ways to move forward and pull away from that dependency.

We have one more reason to act today. It is not just a matter of paying less for gas, but organizing tomorrow's society so as to foster sustainable development. We have to ensure that our children will be dealing with an acceptable energy situation, where there is room for sustainable development and renewable energy sources. We have to put an end to the polluting that is going on right now.

In the past, things like that were accomplished. At the end of the 19th century, London, England, was probably the most polluted city in the world. That pollution was due to the use of coal. Today, the air in London is cleaner than it was 100 years ago. Why? Because actions were taken. There are means to remedy the present situation and we must take them.

It may be possible to do what we want at a reasonable cost. I am all for paying taxes on gasoline if, in the end, we get services. I am in favour of oil companies making reasonable profits but today they are unreasonable. We have not yet devised the tax tools that would return that money to good use for the benefit of society as a whole. We must succeed in doing that.

We could give a lot of scientific explanations, but tonight, the message we must all understand is that we must convince the government to act. It must adopt a carefully planned strategy to get control of the gas price issue. That is necessary for our society. We must do our part for the future. It is also a better way to distribute wealth.

I call on my colleagues to continue the work. Building on the initiative of my colleague from Trois-Rivières, the government must put forward concrete solutions in the days and weeks ahead.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to know whether the hon. member is going to make representations to his party to ensure that Bill C-454 gives the Commissioner of Competition the ability to launch inquiries, without necessarily having to supply proof of collusion.

Will he support us so that this bill is passed at the earliest opportunity, thus providing us at least with a tool to deal with price increases and obtain recommendations on the measures that should be taken?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was a bit surprised to hear my Conservative colleague criticize the Bloc's Bill C-454, since his own party voted in favour of it. It asked to have the bill referred to committee to be examined.

The Bloc's intention is not to say that this is a cure-all, but it is a tool. The Bloc is taking action to try to solve this problem with gas prices. One possibility is to give the commissioner of competition the right to conduct investigations without having to prove collusion among companies, in order to analyze the market, make recommendations and come to the House to propose changes. The member and I are from ridings where the manufacturing sector is currently experiencing economic difficulties, and where the price of gas and delivery costs to the United States are making businesses less competitive.

Could he not participate in this debate today and say that we need to move forward with measures that will help us take control of the situation? It is not about controlling the prices. It is about making sure that we take control of the situation so that once and for all we are no longer dependent on oil, and so that we can move forward, help our industry, help the people who are struggling, and find ways to show our citizens that we are there to solve the problems they are facing and not just to look at them in the mirror.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today during this emergency debate on the price of gas. I will be sharing my time with the member for Tobique—Mactaquac.

Obviously the high price of gas is of concern to all Canadians and all members of this House. We all know that rising gas prices are having an effect on the economy and on Canadians, both individuals and businesses. Motorists, truck drivers, taxi drivers—everyone is affected by gas prices. No one wants to pay more for gas, or anything else, for that matter. But as parliamentarians, we need to be clear about what we can and cannot do about this.

First, I would like to note that the federal government does not directly regulate retail gas prices, except in the case of a national emergency. The provinces have the power to regulate gas prices. As I am sure everyone knows, four provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, have decided to limit retail gas prices. At the same time, Quebec has chosen to set a minimum gas price.

In addition to not wanting to interfere in a provincial jurisdiction, our government believes in competition and the market forces that have allowed our economy to prosper. Competition leads to innovation and economic growth. Canada has achieved sustained economic success thanks to privatization, free trade and deregulation. By relying on competition and market forces, our economy has grown.

Our government is determined to create the type of competitive environment that will make Canadians more prosperous. Nonetheless, we know full well that governments are not the source of prosperity. In our opinion, it is our government's job to create the conditions that will allow for innovation and entrepreneurship. Within such a framework, it is the private sector that will innovate, take risks and create wealth for the good of all Canadians.

Our government is fully committed to ensuring economic leadership for a prosperous future. To achieve that, we have developed our long-term economic plan, Advantage Canada, and other initiatives such as our science and technology strategy.

As we indicated in our recent economic statement, we will build on this by introducing important new measures that will help Canadian companies remain competitive, attract new investment to Canada, increase productivity and create more and better paying jobs for Canadians.

I also wish to point out that in July 2007 our government announced the creation of the Competition Policy Review Panel. This group's mandate is to examine two Canadian laws, the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act. The panel must submit its report by the end of June 2008. We look forward to receiving their recommendations, which I am sure will help us ensure the effectiveness of Canada's policies on competition and investment and allow us to promote even more foreign investment and create more and better paying jobs for Canadians.

I just mentioned the Competition Act. Every time we talk about the price of gas in Canada, the Competition Act and the role of the Competition Bureau inevitably are mentioned. Since their roles continue to be misunderstood, I think it would help to take a moment to explain what the Competition Bureau is.

The Competition Bureau is an independent agency that contributes to the prosperity of Canadians by protecting and promoting market competition, and allowing consumers to make informed choices. Led by the Commissioner of Competition, the bureau investigates anti-competitive practices and ensures compliance with the laws under its jurisdiction. The commissioner is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Competition Act. The act contains criminal and civil provisions that deal with mergers and abusive behaviour by those in a dominant position, for example.

With regard to gas, the Competition Bureau examines wholesale and retail gasoline prices to determine whether those prices are the result of market forces, especially during times of major fluctuations in prices. With respect to the petroleum industry, or any other industry for that matter, the bureau tries to determine whether the Competition Act has been violated. If there is sufficient evidence to show that the act has been violated, the bureau investigates and takes the appropriate action.

Over the years, the Competition Bureau has undertaken six major studies on the gasoline industry. The Bureau's investigations resulted in 13 criminal trials linked to gasoline and heating oil prices. Eight of these trials led to convictions.

In other words, the Competition Bureau intervenes when a factor other than market forces influences the price of a product such as gasoline. In general, by allowing supply and demand to determine prices, we obtain optimal resource distribution, which sends the right messages to producers and consumers. Higher prices indicate supply restrictions, encouraging producers to produce more and consumers to consume less.

Regulating prices or setting other restrictions would cloud these indicators and thus lead to poor resource allocation, which ends up hurting all consumers.

I would like to speak briefly about a Bloc Québécois private member's bill that is currently being studied by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Bill C-454 proposes a number of amendments to the Competition Act.

The Bloc has made a clear link between Bill C-454 and the issue of high gasoline prices. In addition, the Bloc has stated that adopting Bill C-454 would solve the issue of high gasoline prices. That is not the case. None of the current amendments contained in Bill C-454 would impact gasoline prices as the Bloc has said.

Allow me to quickly give an example. At this time, with prices rising, the Competition Bureau often receives complaints from consumers who feel exploited by prices they feel are too high. Businesses are usually free to set their prices based on what the market will bear. Just because prices are rising does not mean that there has been an offence under the Competition Act or that someone must intervene to regulate prices.

High prices concern the bureau when they result from anti-competitive conduct contrary to the Competition Act, such as a conspiracy to increase prices. As I indicated earlier, when the Competition Bureau finds evidence of violations of the Competition Act, it takes the appropriate action. The Bloc included a provision in Bill C-454 to deal with price gouging. The Bloc indicated that this was needed to deal with gasoline prices that are considered too high, regardless of the reason for their increase. As we all know, there are various domestic and international factors that affect the price of gasoline.

Despite everything, the Bloc decided that there should be regulation of the gasoline sector with respect to prices and profit margins. The provision put forward in Bill C-454 would effectively mean that the federal government would be responsible for the regulation of gasoline prices.

As I said at the outset, the federal government has no jurisdiction over the direct regulation of retail gasoline prices except in the event of a national emergency. The provision in Bill C-454 would mean that the Competition Bureau would have to determine every day whether the price of gasoline was fair or too high.

As well, under Bill C-454, the Competition Bureau would have to make the same determination for practically every other product on a daily basis. Mr. Speaker, does that sound like a really effective solution to you?

As for the Liberals' suggestion to bring in a carbon tax, all that would do is drive up the price at the pump.

Although I believe that some members of the House would like the price of gasoline to be lower, we must be very careful that the proposals put forward do not have unforeseen consequences by opening huge sectors of the economy to price regulation by the federal government.

In conclusion, in contrast to the Bloc, I would like to make a helpful suggestion to Canadians. The Competition Bureau website contains information to help consumers understand the gasoline market. For additional information, I recommend Natural Resources Canada's website, Fuel Focus. This site provides clear, timely information about fuel prices and markets and ways to manage energy costs. Current, factual information on changing prices will help Canadians understand how world oil markets affect their lives.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Indeed, as far as the Competition Act is concerned, we introduced Bill C-454. The purpose of the bill is to be able to investigate to ensure that competition is healthy and that businesses do not make unfair profits. We therefore hope that this bill is quickly returned to the House and that, when it is, it has everything needed to help us resolve this complicated issue of the price of gas, to help us parliamentarians take appropriate action and ensure that oil companies do not rake in unfair profits.

Furthermore, it is a fact that the price of gas has an impact on all goods. Today's news reported that even boarding schools, cafeterias and other schools are being forced to increase their menu prices because of the rising cost of food. Of course, all the transportation costs involved drive up the cost of all consumer goods.

The people of Trois-Rivières are wondering what they will do when they are forced to choose between filling up their car and feeding their children. We must consider the fact that as costs rise so quickly and dramatically, with family budgets so tight already, it is becoming even more difficult for families to make ends meet. Of course, as parliamentarians, we must send a clear message to show that we do not want to let this situation continue.

Last year, we had the same debate just before the summer holidays were about to begin and still nothing has been resolved. We must really tackle this issue in various ways to try to find some solutions. We must really look at where the problems lie and discipline the industry, but also force the population to consume less energy.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, the price of gasoline has reached record highs. A litre of gasoline has never been this expensive: in 2002, it cost 61.3¢; in April 2005, it cost $1, a psychological barrier we never thought we would reach; and yet, in May 2008, it has reached $1.40 in Trois-Rivières.

This situation threatens the financial stability of households. Citizens are calling on us to take action. That is why the Bloc Québécois has asked for this emergency debate. It is time to act as quickly as possible and before the situation deteriorates and leads to a serious economic crisis. The economic outlook is increasingly grim and every analyst is talking about a slowdown or even a recession, but Quebeckers must not also bear the brunt of the oil industry's greed. Every dollar a Quebecker spends on fuel impoverishes all of Quebec.

Let us remember that the government does not get richer as the price of gasoline climbs. Quebec imports all the oil it consumes. Every time the price of fuel increases, more money leaves Quebec and that impoverishes our nation.

The Bloc Québécois is proposing concrete actions. We are proposing a three-part response to this problem.

First, we need to keep the industry in check with Bill C-454, which was introduced by my colleague from Montcalm, and which strengthens the Competition Act with respect to oil companies.

Second, we need to make the oil industry contribute. We have to put a stop to the flow of wealth from Quebeckers and Canadians to big oil companies. Ottawa must include oil revenues in equalization formulas. The federal government must put an end to tax breaks for oil companies. The government must also cap greenhouse gas emissions and support the creation of a true carbon exchange.

Third, we must reduce our dependency on oil. Oil is making Quebec poorer, and we have to put an end to the blood-letting. The Bloc Québécois wants Quebec to become a leader in clean and renewable energy. Now I would like to elaborate on each of these points.

I began by saying that we need to keep the sector in check. Our first response to the problem is based on simple logic: a competitive industry is more efficient economically. The Conservatives, staunch defenders of the free market and the virtues of competition, should agree. The oil industry, both in Canada and around the world, is anything but competitive.

The Competition Bureau has to be able to use the Competition Act to protect citizens from being taken advantage of by an industry that is reaping the benefits of a non-competitive situation. Every time the price of gas skyrockets, the government says it cannot do anything because, according to the Competition Bureau, oil companies are not involved in price-fixing.

The problem is that the Competition Bureau has never conducted a full investigation of the oil industry. The bureau cannot conduct an investigation of its own accord. The minister must call an inquiry, or citizens must complain. And it is very difficult to find evidence.

Our competition bill sought to force disclosure of documents and to protect citizens during a review of this matter. The bureau has these powers when conducting an investigation. However, investigations must be ordered by the minister—which is highly unlikely when the minister is on the payroll of an oil company friendly party—or following complaints.

That is why the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This bill was adopted in the House, at second reading stage, on April 28. It gives the Competition Bureau the authority to conduct its own inquiries into the industry. As I was saying earlier, it can summon and protect witnesses during these inquiries. It can increase fines significantly, henceforth making them a deterrent. If there are agreements among oil companies, they will have to prove to the commissioner that they are not detrimental to consumers.

However, despite the Bloc's and my own efforts to speed up adoption of the competition bill at the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, no other party in this House wanted, in committee, to support our motion that the bill be passed as is by the committee and be submitted again to the House for adoption before it broke for the summer.

We know that, oddly enough, the price of gasoline always increases at the pump with the onset of summer vacation. I would remind my colleagues that the price of crude oil has increased by more than 30% since January and that it has doubled since last year. The Bloc Québécois does not understand why the other parties are refusing to add teeth to the Competition Act before the summer, thus giving our citizens some breathing room. When we return to our ridings, all we hear from our constituents are complaints.

Bill C-454 is a first step in the right direction and we must take this step as quickly as possible given that, traditionally, oil companies have no qualms about increasing prices when summertime rolls around.

The second part of our solution consists of having the industry make a contribution. We know that the oil industries are making record profits and that the higher gas prices only benefit the industry. Since the beginning of this year our economy has been suffering while the oil companies are profiting. This is a direct transfer of the public's wealth to an industry that is shamelessly taking advantage of the situation.

How do we believe we should limit this transfer of wealth? By adopting a tax system that stops being so generous to the oil companies. We have to put an end to the tax giveaways. The industry has to pay its fair share of taxes. That is what a responsible government must do, but the federal government is doing precisely the opposite.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are responsible for the current situation. From 1970 to 1999, Ottawa paid the equivalent of $79 billion in direct subsidies to the fossil fuels industry; and even though those direct subsidies have been decreasing since the late 1990s, the oil industry is benefiting from a more generous tax system. This situation makes the industry exempt from paying hundreds of millions of dollars in tax—hundreds of millions of dollars. I wonder how consumers and our economy can keep carrying this burden.

Whether we are talking about the Liberal government of 2003 with Bill C-48, which favoured the oil companies, or the current Conservative government with its accelerated capital cost allowance for the tar sands, this industry has always had a formidable ally in the federal government. And even though the accelerated capital cost allowance will gradually come to an end by 2015, the oil companies will have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in tax by then.

How do we justify this to our fellow citizens? How can I justify this to the people of Trois-Rivières to whom working far from downtown without public transit is an incredible burden? This takes a bite out of their paycheque and their family budget.

When the price of oil per barrel is closing in on $140 U.S. and the price per litre is around $1.40 in Trois-Rivières, how can we justify having a tax system that is so generous to the major oil companies? What message is the government sending to the people of Quebec?

The federal government is doing very little about the crisis in the forestry and manufacturing industries, but it is using our taxes to subsidize an industry that has been padding its pockets for years. Need I remind hon. members that every litre of gasoline consumed in Quebec is imported; that every increase in the price of fuel is a collective impoverishment for Quebec; that the federal tax system benefits the oil regions and the oil industry and does nothing for Quebec? This is a ludicrous situation.

While Quebec gets poorer because of gas prices, the Conservative government is giving tax breaks to oil companies out west. From 2008 to 2013, oil companies will line their pockets with approximately $8 billion in government giveaways.

The Conservatives even have the audacity to finance the cleanup of these major polluters of the planet—$250 million for a carbon storage pilot project. It is beyond belief. Quebeckers and Canadians endure the oil companies' greed, endure the pollution of these major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and on top of that they have to finance the oil industry's cleanup.

The Bloc Québécois is saying that it is time to put a stop to this travesty. We are proposing that there be no more giveaways to oil companies; that there be no subsidies to help with pollution they create themselves; that the Liberal bill which unduly benefited oil companies be repealed and that the accelerated cost allowance benefit in the oil sands, which is supposed to last until 2015, be cancelled.

In addition, we are proposing a reform of equalization payments. Rising gas costs do not affect everyone equally. Quebeckers are getting poorer while oil-rich regions are getting richer. It is a true transfer of wealth—devastation in Quebec is benefiting other regions. Equalization can correct this situation.

Currently, Quebec is being penalized in four different ways by the government's policies. First, rising prices for petroleum products are costing Quebeckers a great deal of money and making them poorer while at the same time benefiting oil-rich regions. Second, the rise in value of the petrodollar is making Quebec companies less competitive, which is making Quebec poorer. Third, the tax breaks the government is giving the oil companies are being paid for by taxes on all Canadians, which is making Quebeckers poorer. Fourth, oil revenues are half-excluded from the equalization formula, but hydroelectricity is not, which is making Quebeckers poorer.

We also propose to create a carbon exchange. It is another way to offset the impoverishment of Quebec, which has opted for clean energy and chosen to comply with the Kyoto protocol. Quebec companies have made a valiant effort to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and Quebec has also opted for hydroelectricity, which is clean energy. A carbon exchange would enable Quebec to reap the benefits of its energy choices.

We are holding an emergency debate because the current situation demands that we take action. I would like to quote some figures. The price of a barrel of crude oil was $26 in 2002; in 2006, it was $65; in 2007, $71. Between January and April 2008, it rose to $111, and on May 14, 2008, it was $120. This is a major problem.

As for oil companies' refining profit margins, we know that refining costs from 3¢ to 5¢ a litre. We were told that when it cost 4¢ to 7¢, the companies were doing good business. In May 2007, the refining profit margin rose to 28¢ a litre. Today it is 9¢. We must therefore pay attention and monitor companies to make sure profit margins remain reasonable.

The combined net profits of six major integrated oil companies in Canada—Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, Husky Energy, Petro-Canada, Suncor, etc.—were $12 billion in 2006, up $5 billion or 70% from 2004. This is a huge increase.

What are the answers? There are many answers, some of which were mentioned earlier. We also need to think about energy conservation. Certainly, we need to increase public transit use. We need to increase home energy efficiency. We need to reduce the number of homes and industries that heat with oil. We need to reduce the size of transport vehicles.

We definitely have a problem , but as parliamentarians, we can find solutions, make a start, show that we are concerned and that it is important to really do something about the price at the pump. Our constituents demand it.

In conclusion, I want to say that our economy is starting to falter. Some people are even fearing a recession. It is not acceptable for some companies to get richer at the expense of Quebeckers and Canadians.

We all lose when gas prices are high. If this government believes it is more important to protect the interests of the big oil companies than to take care of the concerns of the people, my colleagues and I will pass the message along to our constituents. We will tell them that we have had enough with oil companies making huge profits. We think we need to discipline this industry and take the necessary action to rectify the situation.

The Bloc Québécois is proposing a number of solutions. I can answer questions and speak more about what we have in mind. The Bloc Québécois wants all of our colleagues from all the parties to remember that we are here to represent the people in our ridings and that we should in no way be enabling a small group of oil companies to get rich off our constituents. People have had enough, and they are right. It is up to us to act; it is up to us to react.

Gasoline Prices

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-454 is in front of committee. That is what the hon. member, who had proposed the bill, had requested. It is being studied by committee.

We will take the measures that we took yesterday with respect to Measurement Canada to ensure there is honesty at the gas pump.

In addition, one thing we will never do is succumb to the sort of Liberal leader's gasoline tax being proposed by the party opposite.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in order for it to go into effect by summer vacation, the Bloc's Bill C-454, which seeks to strengthen the Competition Act and expand the powers of the Commissioner in order to keep oil companies in line, must be adopted quickly.

Does the Minister of Industry agree that Bill C-454 should go into effect before the summer?

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Certainly.

I remind you that Bill C-454 amends the Competition Act. This bill was examined during the last Parliament. The Bloc Québécois supported the proposed legislation, although it found the provisions rather meek. It proposed some amendments, but the bill died on the Order Paper.

In our opinion, the Competition Act needs to have more bite. We have a duty to intervene, even if it doesn't resolve the gas pricing problem fully. Since this bill was passed in the House, we could deal with it quickly with a view to disciplining the industry. In our opinion, it is rather unusual for the oil companies to supply each other with gas, rather than compete head-to-head. In order to prove collusion, we need to have the necessary mechanisms. Since we agreed on the principle of the bill, my motion calls for us to take action quickly in an effort to come up with some solutions.

Competition Act

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should have risen earlier last Monday to prepare and move his motion. Now it is too late. Bill C-454 is before the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology, where it will be examined. Once that is complete, there will be discussions. But now, today, it is too late.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons unanimously passed, at second reading, Bill C-454, which strengthens the Competition Act and gives greater powers to its commissioner, which would make it possible to keep oil companies in line.

Does the government agree to pass this bill through all the stages so that it can be implemented before the summer?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

That's fine, but I will comment, as it is my prerogative to do.

The person who moved the motion in fact is no longer here, because as chair I've allowed us to go ten minutes over time. I stand by my ruling that it's not related to the study of science and technology. I would encourage members: if they want to bring motions forward, that's fine. But on this study I would encourage us to stick to a study of science and technology policy in general. That's what scientists and researchers and institutions across this country want us to do. It's certainly what I've heard as the chair of this committee.

I think that's a valid public policy question. It will be brought forward in a motion, but with respect to the rules, and I'm advised by the clerk, it is a substantive motion and needs either 48 hours or unanimous consent. It did not get unanimous consent; therefore, it will not be considered today. If Ms. Nash submits it, it will be considered, I suspect, on Tuesday.

I'll also remind members that we have a subcommittee meeting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, so Monsieur Vincent or Madame Brunelle—someone from the Bloc—will present Bill C-454.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I think it was on division, but it was adopted by the House.

The bill has been referred to the committee, but this is a substantive motion with respect to discussing when we are going to look at Bill C-454. So I need direction from the committee on whether they want to bring this up today.

We have two panels today of fairly substantial witnesses. Does the committee want to do this at the end of business? I guess this would be at the end of panel two today.

Mr. Carrie.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

This is Bill C-454, and it was adopted by the House on Monday.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I would like to add an item to the agenda. I would like us to discuss Bill C-454, that deals with the Competition Bureau, at the end of our meeting today.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand. Things like that can happen in the House; it is called democracy. I was waiting patiently.

I am pleased to participate once again in the debate on Bill C-33, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. I have already made two or three speeches on this subject. To avoid repeating what I have said, I will focus in this speech on the need to reduce our dependency on oil, which obviously also has to do with the use of biofuels.

The bill itself does not contain any standards. It authorizes the government to adopt regulations, which is basically how biofuels would be monitored, with respect to standards and their impact. In the medium term, this bill can help us reduce our dependency on oil and significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, depending on the type of biofuel used and, of course, the type of transportation used with these biofuels.

The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions are produced when petroleum products are burned. To reduce these emissions and fight climate change, naturally, we also have to reduce our oil consumption.

Of course, Bill C-33 is not a binding instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; it is a measure to promote the development of alternative fuels. The best instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the only binding one, is the Kyoto protocol, which the Conservative government unfortunately rejected out of hand. Instead, this government is helping the oil companies, which have responded with a price at the pump that is close to $1.40 in the Montreal area. The other day, I saw $1.37. A litre of regular gasoline is selling for nearly $1.50.

In Canada, the oil companies, which recently again announced profits in the billions of dollars, pay less tax than in Texas. When we see that, we wonder what this government's real intentions and real priorities are.

Between 1970 and 2000, the hydrocarbon industry received $66 billion in direct subsidies from the federal government. For your information, Quebec developed hydroelectricity all on its own, without the federal government's help.

The Bloc Québécois suggests that the government stop giving special treatment to the oil industry, which has no need of government tax breaks. It is not a matter of shutting down the oil industry. We all understand that we need oil, but the idea behind this sort of policy or concern is to stop giving tax breaks to companies that do not need them in the least.

I have a few figures that prove this. Petro-Canada's net profit for the first quarter of this year was $1.1 billion, an 82% increase over the same period last year. This is no laughing matter. In 2007, Shell, the second-largest oil company in the world, had a net profit of over $30 billion. A net profit of more than $30 billion for a single oil company, even one that operates all over the world, is quite something.

Instead of helping the oil industry, the federal government needs to levy a surtax on oil extraction and production industry profits. The revenues from this surtax should go toward measures to promote reduced consumption of petroleum products. This would be a smart policy if we really want to reduce our oil use.

One of the ways we could be less dependent on oil is by improving energy efficiency and using cleaner modes of transportation to move goods. Take trains and ships for example—these two types of transportation account for 8% of oil consumption, compared to trucks, which account for 92%. This is an absolutely incredible difference.

The benefits of increasing our use of trains and ships include reducing our consumption of oil products and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which we will come back to. What is more, when we take greater advantage of our seaways and rail system, we scale down traffic by reducing the number of trucks. We have all been stuck in traffic. I am not saying that the problem will be fixed immediately, but cutting down on the use of trucks will certainly improve the situation.

We must also move away from fuel oil and favour cleaner energy sources, for individuals as well as businesses. We have been looking at all kinds of alternative fuels and alternative energy sources. Now we must promote the use of these products in order to keep reducing our use of fuel oil, a serious pollutant.

In Parliament, the Bloc Québécois is actively trying to minimize the impact of the rising price of gasoline. This is not the first time we have done so. We are once again on the attack. For instance, this week, we moved forward with deliberations at second reading of Bill C-454, introduced by my colleague from Montcalm. The bill made its way to second reading this week and was the topic of debate. The bill aims to give greater powers to the Competition Bureau.

I would also like to touch briefly on the objective of Bill C-454. It is absolutely crucial that the government strengthen the Competition Act in order to better combat the exorbitant increases in gas prices that average Canadians must face every time they fill up. To achieve this, the government must give greater powers to the Competition Bureau so that it may conduct a real investigation, particularly of the refining sector.

At present, the Competition Bureau does not have the power to launch an investigation on its own initiative. The legislation must therefore be changed. When it does conduct a review, its mandate does not allow it to discipline the industry, but simply to determine how it generally operates. Furthermore, it cannot force the disclosure of documents or protect witnesses during such a review. Thus, clearly, it is very broad and above all very fluid. This does not impose many restrictions.

In short, the Competition Bureau has its hands tied and is in no position to fight the oil companies, which are unscrupulously fleecing consumers. I have more examples. Profit margins in refining can reach 20¢ per litre of gas, which represents $10 for an average fill-up of 50 litres. And 50 litres is exactly the capacity of my car's gas tank. That is definitely excessive—not my gas tank, but the profit margins in refining as high as 20¢ per litre of gas. I would like to reiterate that this means as much as $10 for the average fill-up.

Generally, it is businesses, taxi drivers, farmers—since we are talking about the bill studied by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food—and consumers who pay the price. Oil companies already benefit from preferential tax treatment.

Obviously, in light of all this, oil company executives are laughing merrily. In fact, the Competition Bureau does not have the tools to ensure that prices are not artificially inflated. When a very few companies almost completely control a market as large as the gasoline market, someone has to keep an eye on them. You see the same signs when travelling through cities, villages, or almost anywhere. There are only so many oil companies. We are referring primarily to the major oil companies that control the market.

Oil refining comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Thus, it is up to the House of Commons to ensure that the Bloc Québécois' Bill C-454 is passed as quickly as possible in order for the Commissioner of Competition to take the necessary steps to prevent excessive gas price increases and oil company practices that are contrary to the public interest.

With the approach of summer it is possible that consumers will once again suffer because of the inordinate price of gas. Our bill must proceed quickly and unimpeded if we want it to be in force before the summer holidays. Not that we are in a hurry for them to arrive—but they are coming. We know that gas prices escalate suddenly and mysteriously in the summer.

Our dependence on oil is also a contributing factor to Quebec's trade deficit. Between 2003 and 2007, Quebec exports rose from $64 billion to $70 billion compared to imports, which rose from $64 billion to $81 billion. We therefore have a trade deficit of $11 billion.

What is Quebec's largest import? Of course, it is oil. In 1998, Quebec imported $2.5 billion worth of oil and last year it imported $14 billion worth, which is an increase of 457%. The price per barrel of oil explains the astronomical increase. Last year, in 2007, not long ago, the price per barrel was roughly $70 and now it is over $100. It was $119 last time I checked. Unfortunately the price goes up more often than it goes down.

Quebec has a policy goal that all fuel sold will include 5% ethanol by 2012. It has already invested $6.5 million in building two cellulosic ethanol production plants in the Eastern Townships, one in Westbury and the other in Sherbrooke. That is not so far from my riding. Cellulosic ethanol is the way of the future. I have already talked about this, as have a number of my colleagues in this House. The process promotes the use of agricultural residues, such as straw, and forestry residues, such as wood chips, along with trees and fast growing grasses, such as switchgrass. Bill C-33 will allow the emergence of this new generation of biofuels.

Biodiesel is another type of preferred biofuels. There is a biodiesel plant in Sainte-Catherine, Quebec.

Beef producers currently have to dispose of their specified risk materials. That is a Canadian standard beef producers have to comply with. We are not against it, but we would like to see reciprocity with U.S. standards. But that is for another debate. One thing is certain for now, producers have to get rid of these materials, which end up in the landfill. Often, unfortunately, producers have to pay out of their own pockets to get rid of these animal materials that can no longer be used, not even to make feed for other animals.

If we gave these materials added value by turning them into biodiesel, we could kill two birds with one stone. We could turn these materials into fuel. That is what sustainable development is all about. Instead of throwing out the material, burying it or paying to have it removed, we could pay for it once it has value and turn it into biodiesel. The technology already exists and this is already being done. Biodiesel is currently being made out of animal fats.

The Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec has studied the feasibility of setting up a plant to process animal carcasses and slaughterhouse byproducts into biofuel. Strategic partnerships and help from the government are needed to get that kind of project of the ground.

We have Bill C-33, but we will have to go much farther than that in developing a policy to promote biofuels that have few negative environmental impacts, or at least far fewer than petroleum and fewer than the foods we could use to make biofuels.

According to the Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec, we have to ensure that the life cycle of renewable fuels offers true environmental and energy benefits compared to oil products. That is why we should support the federation's project.

I have also talked about the training and recycling centre, CFER, in Victoriaville in my riding. In cooperation with 10 restaurants, this organization recycles used oil, the kind used for french fries, among other things. They are recycling it to make fuel. A pharmacy in Victoriaville even uses this kind of fuel in its delivery vehicle. Here in the House, I joked about how when one is driving behind the delivery vehicle, one does not necessarily get a smell of french fries.

Obviously, that is an important way to use it, a way that will not necessarily consume more energy in transportation. If the vehicle that collects this used oil goes to each of the restaurants and runs on used oil, itself, and if they manage to sell that oil at the pumps one day, that will be a huge energy gain. They are not yet at that point. It is still experimental, but the vehicle works very well.

Let us take this one step further. For example, sludge from sewage treatment plants can also be transformed into ethanol. Quebec's national scientific research institute came—once again—to Victoriaville.

I do not know if they did a very exhaustive study, but one thing is sure: the institute said that sludge from the Victoriaville sewage treatment plant could be transformed into ethanol. This is the kind of project we should be encouraging if we really want to reduce our oil dependency.

Gasoline Prices

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-454 is at committee and will be dealt with at committee in accordance with the industry committee procedure. It will be studied and analyzed. A number of interesting provisions are in the bill and it will, in due course, form part of the discussions.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, curiously, the price of gas starts going up every year as soon as vacation time approaches. Yet we could have an instrument in place this summer to better monitor the petroleum industry, if the government would only cooperate with Parliament for once, as it expressed its unanimous support on Monday for our bill, Bill C-454, which strengthens the Competition Act and gives greater powers to its commissioner.

Will the government agree to pass our bill at all stages, so it may be in full force by this summer?

Competition Act

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to thank the Gaudet-Pilon-Morin-Venne team and all the bowlers and enthusiasts who raised $13,200 on Saturday night for Leucan for children with cancer. I wanted to publicly thank them.

This being National Volunteer Week, I would like to thank all the volunteers in my riding for the good work that they do.

We will soon proceed to a vote on Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. Although we already have a Competition Act, it has some major flaws that need to be fixed in short order. I would like to show that it is necessary for the House of Commons to intervene in order to improve the current Competition Act and vote in favour of this bill.

Every time the price of gas skyrockets, the government invariably says the same thing, that its hands are tied because the Competition Bureau has found that there is no collusion between the oil companies to set the price of gas and therefore no problem. The Competition Bureau has never conducted a proper investigation into the matter because it has never had the power to do so.

The bureau does not discipline the oil industry and does not encourage the government to intervene either. The flaws in the current act prevent the Competition Bureau from doing any real work. The Competition Bureau cannot initiate an investigation of its own accord. What is more, the Competition Bureau cannot compel disclosure of documents or protect witnesses when it does a general industry study.

The Competition Bureau is therefore limited in what it can do. Furthermore, the price of oil products keeps going up and the refinery margins vary remarkably. The refinery margins are twice, even four times higher than can be reasonably expected. When the oil companies decide to make their profits soar, the Competition Bureau will still not be equipped to conduct a true investigation, unless the House of Commons passes Bill C-454.

I need not remind hon. members to what extent the oil companies are shamelessly taking advantage of this situation. They are posting record profits. The flaws in the current Competition Act are a constant source of discussion in parliamentary committee, where a reverse onus of proof is being recommended to address the agreements between competitors and determine whether there is a conspiracy.

Here is what Konrad W. von Finckenstein, the Commissioner of Competition, said during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry on May 5, 2003:

—while the bureau's mandate includes the very important role of being investigator and advocate for competition, the current legislation does not provide the bureau with the authority to conduct an industry study.

It seems to me that it would be preferable to have a study on the overall situation carried out by an independent body that would have authority, that would be able to summon witnesses and gather information. It should also have the power to protect confidential information that someone is not necessarily going to want to share, but which would be vital in order to reach a conclusion based on the real facts.

These statements prove that the existing Competition Act does not allow the Competition Bureau to conduct real investigations into industrial sectors. Bill C-454 will make it possible to implement a comprehensive strategy that will enable us to do something about the rising cost of petroleum products.

It is high time we fixed this problem and gave the Competition Bureau the power it needs to do a proper job.

Bill C-454 to amend the Competition Act is critical to undertaking real investigations into the oil industry. Passing this bill will give the Competition Bureau the vital powers it needs to fulfill its mandate. Both the government and the oil industry must be transparent.

The people of Quebec—and the people of Canada too, I imagine—think that the ruling government and the oil companies are in cahoots with each other. In light of the tax cuts and other benefits being given to oil companies, people have the right to wonder about this. In my opinion, Bill C-454 would meet the people's needs, and I hope that it will be passed.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-454. This is not the first time such a bill has been tabled. If my colleague does not understand why this was necessary, he should take a look at the other similar bills that have been introduced.

They were introduced because gas prices have been going up year after year. Everyone, from consumers to those working in the transportation sector—including rail transportation—is affected by this explosion in gas prices. The explosion in gas prices has led to an increase in the price of consumer goods. When gas costs more, the consumer price index will surely rise as well.

This issue has an important impact. The government always has the same response. The member who spoke before me once again said that there was nothing to be done because the Competition Bureau had concluded that there was no agreement among the oil companies to fix prices, so therefore there was no problem.

However, the Competition Bureau has never conducted a formal inquiry into this issue. All it has done is study how the industry operates. When the Competition Bureau conducts a study, it has almost no power, because it does not have the power of inquiry. It can examine how the industry operates in general, but it cannot discipline the industry.

What factors are behind the increase in gas prices? There are four: the price of crude oil, the refining margin, taxes and the retail margin. What everyone in my riding and in every riding in Canada wants to know is why gas prices are going up so much. Why is gasoline so expensive? What has happened to cause another increase in gas prices?

Absolutely nothing has happened. The retailers' profit margin fluctuates between 3¢ and 6¢ a litre. It stays about the same from one year to the next. The retail margin is always the same. Things have to be done differently.

Looking at the four factors, we have to assume that the oil well operator has a profit margin on the price of crude oil.

In my opinion, companies make money from the refining margin. A company makes billions and billions of dollars from refining. The price of crude oil is fixed and even listed on the stock exchange, and it varies very little. Of course, the “blueprints” determine the price of supply and demand. The taxes are relatively unchanged. The GST is 5% and applies to the price of gas before the QST. The QST is 7.5% and applies to the price of gas after the GST. This is unchanged.

As I said earlier, the taxes are still the same, and retailers still have the same flexibility. Only the GST and QST increase with the price of gas, but they account for only a small portion of the price increase. The taxes are essentially fixed. They are not making gas prices go up; the oil companies are making gas prices go up.

During the 2004 election campaign, the Conservatives presented a bizarre plan to fight gas price increases. Their proposal did not target oil companies; they proposed to decrease gas taxes. We do not believe this to be a wise course of action. If taxes are lowered, the price charged by the industry may rise and absorb the difference. The state needs the taxes to fund expenditures, namely to reduce our dependence on oil. The state does not make money when the price increases. It actually loses because it is a large consumer of gas.

With regard to refining, North American oil companies significantly streamlined refining operations in the 1990s.

As you are signalling that I only have one minute left, I will present the Bloc Québécois' three-pronged approach.

The first thing would be to discipline the industry. That is the goal of Bill C-454, which strengthens the Competition Act. We should set up a monitoring agency for the oil sector.

The second would be to have the industry make a contribution in light of the soaring cost of energy and oil company profits. The economy as a whole is suffering while the oil companies are profiting. The least we can do to limit the devastating effects is to ensure that they pay their fair share of taxes.

The third thing would be to decrease our dependence on oil. Quebec does not produce oil and every drop of this viscous liquid consumed by Quebeckers impoverishes Quebec and contributes to global warming.

Therefore, Quebec is proposing to reduce dependence on oil.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the bill and to welcome all members back after a long, hard, working week in the ridings. I enjoyed the opportunity to spend the week in St. Catharines and I worked pretty hard on making a couple of announcements with respect to the environment.

Today I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act. I listened closely to my colleague about the positions with respect to the non-competition act, which is a pretty complicated bill. It has a number of aspects to it and I will address a couple of them in my remarks today.

First, Bill C-454 contains a provision that would allow consumers to seek restitution for harm they may have suffered as a result of deceptive marketing practices.

Second, the bill would alter the administrative monetary penalty, or the AMP. It is a scheme for deceptive marketing practices. This would be done by increasing the maximum amount of financial penalty that the Competition Tribunal may impose for deceptive marketing practices and by providing for an additional penalty to remove any profits for that activity.

I will begin with the issue of restitution.

Bill C-454 proposes to allow the Competition Tribunal to order a company that has promoted a product through false or misleading advertising to pay restitution to the consumers who purchased that product.

However, the Bloc bill actually gives very little guidance as to how this process would work. In fact, the only direction that the Bloc thought to provide was to instruct the Competition Tribunal to appoint an administrator to manage the restitution fund and process consumer claims. In fact, the proposed wording is extremely broad and vague and could actually cause more harm than good. The language in the bill says that the amount of the restitution is to be distributed “in any manner and on any terms that the court considers appropriate”.

The problem with the Bloc's “throw the ball in the air and maybe we'll get it into the net” approach is that it severely lacks the precision necessary for legislation that actually underpins Canadian business and international competitiveness. I would hope that, in the course of this debate and at committee stage, we will obtain more clarity as to how exactly this proposed restitution scheme would actually function.

For the moment, there are a number of questions that stand out for me.

For example, the issue of unclaimed funds needs to be addressed. There would almost certainly be unclaimed funds every time restitution would be ordered. Not every affected consumer would be aware of a judgment in his or her favour nor would every affected consumer be able to prove that he or she actually bought the product in question. Then there is a good chance that some consumers would simply not bother to pursue their claim, in part, if it is only for the small amount of, say, a few bucks. However, even a few dollars multiplied by thousands or tens of thousands of people, or perhaps more depending on the product, could quickly, as we see, become a great deal of money.

What will become of these funds if they are not claimed? Obviously, such money could not simply be returned to the offending business because that would actually counter what the bill is trying to accomplish. Hopefully, the Bloc has thought through its political rhetoric on this and will be able to answer this important question because I assume that everyone would want to fully understand the answers to these questions.

The second matter that I will address today concerns a provision within Bill C-454 that would allow for increased penalties for individuals and businesses engaging in deceptive marketing.

From a justice perspective, we on this side of the House are in full agreement. When there are serious crimes that require minimum sentencing, we will always be in support.

The current maximum penalty for individuals is $50,000 for a first order and a maximum of $100,000 for each subsequent order. Bill C-454 proposes to raise these amounts to a maximum of $750,000 for the first order and a maximum of $1 million for each subsequent order.

For corporations, the current penalty is a maximum of $100,000 for the first violation and a maximum of $200,000 for each subsequent order. The provisions contained in Bill C-454 would actually replace these amounts with a maximum of up to $10 million for the first violation and a maximum of up to $15 million for each subsequent order.

Bill C-454 also proposes to give the Competition Tribunal the ability to order a second penalty in addition to the one described above. This second penalty appears to be intended to take away profits generated by the deceptive marketing practices.

The nature of these provisions with two separate penalties raises a few questions. First, I would find it useful to get some explanation as to how and why it was decided to propose two types of administrative monetary penalties. What are the reasons for adding this extra layer? Why is a single penalty not adequate? It is not clear to me why they would both be needed.

It would also be very helpful to hear exactly how these two penalties relate to each other. For example, could the Competition Tribunal order the second penalty only after there had been an order for the first one? If the second penalty could be levied on its own, could the tribunal do this in all cases or only in some cases? Has the Bloc actually thought through these issues?

Finally, there is also the issue of how or even whether the restitution scheme I described earlier relates to these penalties. Is it the intention of this bill to have all these provisions apply at the same time? Again, there are a number of questions that do not seem to have any answers within the context of this very complicated bill.

There may be answers to these questions but the Bloc did not answer these essential questions within its legislation. Putting forward half-thought through policy for the sake of some weak political rhetoric is not the right way to go about this. It is my hope that we will get the answers to these very important questions as deliberations on Bill C-454 continue.

The Competition Act is a very complicated piece of legislation. Likewise, Bill C-454 is lengthy and complex. A number of substantive policy questions arising from this legislation, such as implementing “price gouging” or “price regulation”, are provincial matters. I find it interesting that the Bloc raises time after time the issues it faces from a provincial perspective and yet, within the context of this bill, actually surrenders some of that provincial responsibility.

These provisions could be potentially damaging to supply management and should make members wonder whether this is just political wrangling rather than sound legislation as is required for the amendments to the Competition Act.

I trust that during committee stage there will be a complete and thorough review of this bill and that the federalist parties will actually protect the jurisdiction of the provinces because it seems that in portions of this bill the Bloc is not prepared to defend provincial jurisdiction on portions.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-454. I would also like to thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for identifying some important concerns we share about the shortcomings of the Competition Act as it stands today.

The current act fails to defend consumers in a number of significant ways. My colleague is seeking to address those failures with the introduction of this bill. I too will be introducing a private member's bill in the following days on the subject of the Competition Act, because I believe there is a growing consensus here in the House of Commons that the act as we know it today has serious shortcomings.

I think most Canadians would agree that our free market economy is not in fact a free market. It is manipulated in many ways that are detrimental to the consumer and ordinary Canadians. The Competition Act and the Competition Bureau, which holds the tribunals when we believe there is no free competition, are supposed to be of some comfort to Canadians. They are supposed to assure us that somebody is watching out for our well-being and that we have somebody in our corner representing our views in increasingly complex industrial sectors.

Canadians have an instinctive gut feeling that they are getting hosed by some industry sectors. Perhaps the most pointed example is the daily reminder, irritant and frustration of the appalling and irrational price fixing associated with gas at the gas pumps. It is critically important that Canadians have a champion for their cause.

Competition tribunals have been struck about five or six times under the Competition Act to try to determine if there is price fixing in the gas and oil sector. They have been unable to do so every time. Canadians get optimistic and tell the government to go for it and defend them and make sure they are not being hosed, but the tribunals have failed. Canadians want comprehensive investigations done, but the limitations of the Competition Act are such that the tribunals, no matter how well meaning, have failed to satisfy their frustrations.

I note in the private member's bill put forward by my colleague in the Bloc Québécois, Bill C-454, that a comprehensive rewrite of the Competition Act would be done to hopefully give greater ability to the tribunals to give some satisfaction to Canadians.

I note that the bill would repeal all the provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry, another area in which there has been some frustration and irritation felt by users.

Bill C-454 proposes to eliminate the criminal provisions and replace them with new ones dealing with predatory pricing and geographic price discrimination. This is a regional frustration in a country as vast as Canada. We do not really know sometimes if shipping and handling is being used as an excuse to jack up prices or to fix prices, et cetera.

Another irritant that brings this to the top of mind for a lot of Canadians is the price of cars in regard to those in the United States. Even though our dollar is now at parity with the American dollar, and was even higher for a period of time, the price of cars has not dropped in any corresponding way.

This seems to be right across the board with all car dealerships. None of them reacted to the reality that the Canadian dollar actually purchased more. There was no justification for a price differential of $5,000, $6,000 or even $7,000 for a Chevy sold in Detroit and a Chevy sold in Windsor. It is this kind of thing from which we want our watchdogs to protect us and to defend our best interests in the most aggressive way possible.

The amendment that I will be introducing in my private member's bill would I think complement my Bloc colleague's bill. I believe it should be up to Canadians to invoke an investigation by a competition tribunal. It should not be left solely to government. My bill would trigger an investigation by a tribunal if 100 or more Canadians were of the opinion that an arrangement or relationship in any sector might constitute an offence under the Competition Act.

I say it is complementary because I notice in my Bloc colleague's bill that the investigation would not necessarily be limited to an individual company. Part of the reason we have not had satisfaction from the competition tribunal investigations is that the tribunal's hands are tied in the sense that it depends so much on the question put to it. If we are accusing two oil companies of price-fixing, the investigation is very narrow in investigating those two companies.

It is almost impossible to prove collusion. I am not accusing anyone here, but if there were some kind of informal arrangement whereby one oil company phoned the other, fixed the price for that day and undermined the competition, how could we prove that beyond any doubt and then apply any kind of punitive measures?

We would like the competition tribunal investigative body to be able to expand the scope of its investigation to look at the sector as a whole, even to be proactive in its investigation, to follow the money, as it were. We would like it to go from the narrow complaint, which may have dealt with two individual companies, to looking in a more general sense at the sector as a whole and then to trying to put some reason and logic to the inexplicable fluctuation in oil and gas prices, and I do mean inexplicable. The best minds in the country have tried to figure this out. The conclusion that most Canadians come to is that we do get gouged and we do get screwed.

The Canadian government does not even track gas prices any more, never mind trying to regulate or to make sure that we are getting fair pricing, never mind fixed pricing. The only consultant in the country the government members ever go to is this M.J. Ervin guy, the self-professed authority, the self-professed expert, who is actually a consultant to the oil companies. It is a fox in a henhouse situation. He never seems to see anything wrong with anything the oil and gas companies do. That is his meal ticket. I am critical of that.

We would like to think that there is somebody in our corner to make sure we are getting fair pricing even if we fall short of the burden of proof, of proving absolutely that there was price-fixing between two companies. If there is no defensible reason for the price to be jacked up arbitrarily, that is predatory pricing, and that is the language my colleague from the Bloc uses in this bill, where he notes that evidence of “predatory pricing” is required. Predatory pricing means taking advantage of people.

I have an elderly aunt who wanted to have four rooms painted in her little 600 square foot house. The guy charged her $10,000. We took it to court. Sure enough, the court ruled that the person had misrepresented the value of the service rendered. He painted the rooms, but he misrepresented the value. That is the kind of logic we would like extrapolated to industry sectors.

Canadians do not mind paying the real prices of things even if they are going up due to world forces or domestic forces, but they do not like being gouged. They like being able to trace and track how the pricing was arrived at so that they know the real value of the product they are buying. Nowhere is this more self-evident, I believe, than in oil and gas.

Let me give one more example in the minute I have left. When Colin Powell announced the invasion of Iraq, with the shock and awe campaign about to start, the price of gas went up 10¢ a litre within one hour. No one can tell me that was for gas the companies bought at a higher price. The market anticipated a problem with the flow of oil and gouged consumers an extra 10¢ in anticipation of problems that companies did not even know would happen.

That is the kind of thing we need protection from as consumers. That is why we are going to see a flurry of private members' bills coming forward along the lines of improving and enhancing the authority of the competition tribunals, underpinned by a new and reformed Competition Act. I support this bill. I wish my colleague well in its success.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am asking the House to support the Bloc Québécois' Bill C-454, which seeks to dust off the Competition Act and enable the Competition Bureau to conduct real investigations into the oil industry under its own authority.

I said “once again” because we have to remember that the Bloc Québécois has already put forward two motions on this subject in the House. The first motion, which was put forward on June 1, 2006, called for the Competition Act to be strengthened. Unfortunately, the vote was 77 in favour and 204 against. The second time, on May 2, 2007, I myself put forward an amended motion based on the idea of setting up a petroleum monitoring agency, as recommended by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology in 2003. That time, there were 159 votes in favour and 122 against. Let us hope that things will work out this time.

Around this time last year, skyrocketing gas prices were becoming a problem again. The Bloc Québécois had put forward a motion asking the government to give the Commissioner of Competition the power to investigate the real reasons the price of gas was going up and to create a petroleum monitoring agency, among other things. Substantial amendments to the Competition Act are critical now that a barrel of crude is selling for around $130 U.S.

Many people in my riding and throughout Quebec have been writing to me and contacting me to communicate their concerns about the constantly rising price of gas, which has been as sudden as it has been inexplicable. People want their elected representatives to do something to protect them from these senseless price hikes. When people have to spend more on gas, their buying power decreases and they do not buy as many other goods, other goods that also cost more because of the cost of transportation, as we know all too well. Every time the price of gas goes up, everyone pays to make oil companies richer. Everyone gets poorer, including governments, which, as I should point out, consume vast quantities of petroleum products.

With summer fast approaching, the oil companies will not think twice about increasing gas prices, as they do every year. As soon as people decide to go on vacation, prices at the pumps start going through the roof. Consumers will once again be lining the pockets of the rich oil companies, while the government does absolutely nothing. This government is on the same side as the oil companies, so it protects their interests. Also, the Competition Act does not make it possible to conduct a full inquiry on the real reasons for the price increases.

Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, would make it possible to fix the problems with the current legislation.

In its current form, the Competition Act does not enable the Competition Bureau to launch its own inquiries. It acts when it receives a complaint or ministerial request. Furthermore, the Competition Bureau does not have the power to compel disclosure of documents or protect witnesses, when doing general reviews of the industry.

The Competition Bureau does have this power when it is conducting an inquiry. But as I said before, only a complaint or minister's request can give it that power.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to file a complaint of collusion. There needs to be evidence, and that evidence is very hard to gather. Bill C-454 would make it possible to protect witnesses and compel disclosure of documents. Since these are not currently possible, the oil industry has been able to avoid this provision of the current legislation.

I remind members that no minister has yet dared to request an inquiry on the oil industry and the constant, cyclic and periodic rises in gas prices. I do not think a minister from western Canada, in a Conservative government, which looks out for the interests of oil companies, would make such a request.

The Conservative government is hiding behind the Competition Act to justify its failure to act. They tell us nothing can be done, since the Competition Bureau concluded that there is no agreement among petroleum companies to fix prices. Obviously, the government can reach this conclusion, since, as I pointed out earlier, the Competition Bureau is incapable of gathering information, forcing the disclosure of documents or protecting witnesses.

Thus, the existing act does not protect citizens from a situation that allows oil companies to rake in billions of dollars in profits every year. They are a very small group of players, within an immense market, for a product on which our entire society is unfortunately dependent. The answer to this equation is clear: abuse is a real possibility and the government must act. It must stop protecting the interests of the rich petroleum companies and start protecting our citizens from the greediness of this multi-billion dollar industry.

Finally, oil and gas pose an environmental, economic and social threat. No one wins when the price of gas goes up to $1.30 a litre, which is currently the reality in Trois-Rivières. No one except the petroleum companies.

Some people would have us believe, just as the government tried with its bill to reduce gas taxes, that governments are profiting from this situation. That is false. To a large degree, gas taxes are fixed taxes that do not fluctuate with the price. I must remind the House, as I was saying earlier, that governments and municipal administrations consume a lot of gas. They also pay the price.

We all lose, especially Quebec, which does not produce oil within its borders. Quebec chose clean energy: hydroelectricity. Every dollar spent on gasoline in Quebec is a complete loss. Every time the price of gas goes up, more money goes out of Quebec and into the pockets of the petroleum companies.

Bill C-454 would at least give the Competition Bureau the tools it needs to shed some light on the exact reasons for the sudden rise in the price of gasoline.

Our citizens, who are paying top prices for gasoline, must have answers, clear answers. That is why I urge the members of this House to vote in favour of this bill.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate on Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

In my remarks today, I would like to discuss some of the misconceptions surrounding Bill C-454 and the impact the bill would have on the issue of oil and gas prices.

Last night I had the opportunity to visit my grandmothers, my grandmother Wallace and my grandmother Gray, who are both in their nineties and have issues with gasoline prices. I appreciate their paying attention to the issues facing this government and the country today.

The Bloc has very clearly linked Bill C-454 to the issue of high oil and gasoline prices. Furthermore, the Bloc is saying to Canadians that if passed, Bill C-454 would be a solution. With respect, this is just not the case. There are no proposals currently in Bill C-454 that would impact the price of oil and gasoline in the way the Bloc claims that they would. To demonstrate my point, later in my remarks I will discuss one example of the difference between what the Bloc says the provisions of Bill C-454 would do and what the real impact would be.

Obviously, high gasoline prices have a significant impact on Canadians, both consumers and businesses alike. None of us wants to pay higher prices for gasoline, or for anything else for that matter. However, as parliamentarians we would be doing our constituents a disservice by suggesting to them that there is a quick and easy solution to this complex issue.

To clarify matters, it would be helpful to review the role and mandate of the Competition Bureau. The Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency that contributes to the prosperity of Canadians by protecting and promoting competitive markets and enabling informed consumer choice. Headed by the Commissioner of Competition, the organization investigates anti-competitive practices and promotes compliance with the laws under its jurisdiction.

The commissioner is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Competition Act. The act includes criminal provisions against price fixing and price maintenance and non-criminal or civil provisions dealing with mergers and abuse of a dominant position, among other issues.

The Competition Bureau actively follows wholesale and retail gasoline prices to determine whether they are consistent with market forces. When it comes to the gasoline industry or any other industry or sector of the economy, the focus of the Competition Bureau is on whether there has been a violation of the Competition Act. Where there is sufficient evidence of a violation of the act, the bureau routinely investigates and takes appropriate enforcement action.

As I am certain hon. members are aware, the Competition Bureau has looked into the gasoline industry over the years and has conducted six major studies. In addition, bureau investigations have led to 13 criminal trials related to gasoline and heating oil prices. Eight of these trials have resulted in convictions.

When it comes to matters within its jurisdiction, the Competition Bureau has taken action. However, there are matters that are not within the bureau's jurisdiction. At times like these when prices are rising, the Competition Bureau often receives complaints from consumers about price gouging, that is, that people feel the price is way too high. While price increases are not easy for anyone, high prices and high profits in and of themselves do not constitute a violation of the Competition Act any more than low prices do.

In a market economy, businesses are generally free to set their own prices at whatever levels the market will bear. Just because prices go up does not mean that there has been a violation of the Competition Act or that someone should step in to regulate prices. Absent extraordinary circumstances, governments should not determine what is an appropriate price or profit margin.

High prices are often a concern to the bureau when they are the result of anti-competitive conduct contrary to the Competition Act, such as a conspiracy to increase prices.

As I indicated earlier, when the Competition Bureau finds evidence of violations of the Competition Act, it has taken the appropriate action.

I have noted that the Bloc has included a provision in Bill C-454 to deal with price gouging. The Bloc has indicated that this is needed to deal with the gasoline prices that are considered too high, regardless of the reason for their increase. The Bloc has said that there should be regulation on the oil and gasoline sector with respect to price and profit margins. The provision put forward in Bill C-454 would effectively mean that the federal government would be responsible for the regulation of gasoline prices.

It should be noted that the federal government has no jurisdiction over the direct regulation of retail gasoline prices except in the event of a national emergency. Only the provinces have the authority to regulate gasoline prices. Four provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, have opted to set maximum gasoline prices. There are three provinces, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, that have opted for minimum gasoline prices.

Allowing market forces of supply and demand to determine prices leads to the optimal allocation of resources by giving appropriate signals to both producers and consumers. High prices are an indication of tight supply. They send a signal to producers to produce more and to consumers to consume less. Price regulation or other restrictions distort these signals leading to misallocation of resources, which ultimately harms consumers.

To compound this, the proposed provision to deal with price gouging set out in Bill C-454 is not limited to the gasoline industry. As I mentioned earlier, the Competition Act touches on virtually every sector of the Canadian economy. Therefore, the Bloc's proposal as it is currently drafted could result in the Competition Bureau being responsible for regulating prices for virtually everything Canadians buy, not just gasoline, but automobiles, food, televisions, furniture, clothes, dairy products, almost everything. I do not need to get into a long discussion about the impact such market regulation would have on supply management.

Is this what the Bloc wants, a federal agency determining what it thinks is an appropriate price for almost everything consumers purchase, and to punish those who charge more than that amount? I would appreciate any guidance the sponsor of Bill C-454 could provide on this matter, specifically how such an approach would be workable.

Essentially, every time there was a complaint, the Competition Bureau would have to determine whether the given price on any given day was the appropriate price and was not too high. How vast a bureaucracy would have to be created in order to monitor prices in all industries all the time?

While I believe all hon. members of this House want to see lower gasoline prices, I fail to see how the proposed provision to deal with gas price gouging would accomplish this. Rather, as I read it, this provision would create more problems than it would solve. At a minimum I imagine that the provinces would not be happy with our getting involved in their jurisdictions.

Time does not permit me to discuss the details of any other provisions of Bill C-454 which the Bloc claims would help deal with high gasoline prices but would actually do nothing of the sort. I would hope that the committee would ensure that there was a detailed and thorough review of Bill C-454.

As I stated at the outset of my remarks, we are all concerned with the impact of high gasoline prices on Canadians. However, gasoline prices are a result of a complex set of domestic and international factors. We must be very careful that any proposal put forward will actually do something to help deal with gasoline prices. As such, we must carefully scrutinize the provisions of Bill C-454. We would be failing to do our duty as Canadians if we did otherwise.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-454, introduced by the member for Montcalm. I think it is a timely discussion for us to have in the House.

Bill C-454 is an act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. We will support the bill at this stage because we believe it is important that it should go to committee to be discussed.

Other members have spoken about some of the things that are contained in Bill C-454. I want to address some of those, but I also want to talk in general about why it is important that we as parliamentarians take our responsibility seriously when it comes to competition.

I filled up my car on the weekend in my home riding of Dartmouth and the price was $1.32 a litre. That is pretty high and the big concern is not what it does to my pocketbook. As a member of Parliament I get paid well to do the job that I do. I have an awful lot of constituents who cannot afford gas at $1.32 a litre. It may be in fact that the price of gas is going to continue to go up. That may be a simple fact of life.

I think Canadians have the right to expect that their government, their members of Parliament, takes seriously the fact that in a free market economy we nonetheless have a responsibility to make sure that competition is real and open, and that in fact it is a free market and not a closed market.

In a previous life I used to run a home heating oil company for the Irving family and I can recall, and I am actually probably younger than I look, but I can recall when the price of heating oil in Nova Scotia was 26.3¢ a litre, which was the posted price for home heating oil in Nova Scotia on or about 1986, just some 22 years ago. The price of heating oil in Nova Scotia now is I think somewhere around 90¢ a litre, so we have gone from 26.3¢ a litre to somewhere around 90¢ and on top of that of course the new government disbanded the EnerGuide for low income houses which has made it even more difficult for families to heat their homes.

If we look at the basics of life, home heating oil in a province like Nova Scotia, where most houses are heated by oil, is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity of life that one has to heat one's home. At 26.3¢ a litre, even 22 years ago, it was a lot easier to do that than at almost 90¢ a litre today. I think that consumers have a right to ask, where is the protection and is it a fair price?

Consumers are concerned about many things. I think that certainly the bill could address some of those things because people are nervous. What the bill would do is ensure that there is proper scrutiny on what is supposed to be a competitive market and appropriate penalties when companies, large big companies, abuse their right on the open market and are unfair to consumers.

The bill is very similar to Bill C-19 that was brought in during the last Parliament and that was in response to a report released by the Standing Committee on Industry in 2002, entitled “A Plan to Modernize Canada's Competition Regime”.

One of the things that I often talk to my constituents about, and I talk a lot in high schools about, is the work that Parliament does outside of question period and even outside of this chamber, and the fact that committees can do a lot of good work. The committee that I sit on now is the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. We released a report recently that was very good. The committee was well chaired by the government member for Niagara West—Glanbrook and the work that was done was very positive.

This obviously was a report done in 2002 following up on the VanDuzer report, an independent study of the Competition Act, that was requested at that time by John Manley, who was the minister of industry, and a good one.

The committee worked hard on the report, consulting widely with stakeholders and provided a comprehensive report with a list of recommendations to bring Canada's competition laws up to date. Canada was one of the first industrial countries in the world to adopt a competition or anti-trust law.

Competition legislation is intended to prevent monopolies and price conspiracies that work against the interests of consumers. The Competition Act, Canada's competition legislation, is administered by the Competition Bureau, an independent federal agency.

The way companies and corporations do business has changed a lot in recent years because of new technologies, mainly in communications and transport. Of course, we have had the globalization of trade and a number of government and private members' bills have been introduced to try to cope with these changes.

Bill C-454 is a bill that is similar to Bill C-19, introduced in the 38th Parliament, but some amendments have been added which I think reflect the work of the committee in 2002.

Bill C-454 would, among other things, do the following: authorize the Commissioner of Competition to inquire into an entire industry; create administrative monetary penalties, AMPs, for abuse of dominant position; increase administrative monetary penalties for deceptive marketing, which I think is something else that a lot of consumers are looking for some action on; and repeal provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry, which has been an intermittently scrutinized industry.

At the time that the study did its work, just after the coming together of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, there were concerns about that. I think there are still concerns about the airline industry and while I am talking about this, I want to commend my colleague from Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, who is bringing forward a private member's bill for an airline passengers bill of rights, which also reflects issues that I hear in my constituency from people who have concerns.

Bill C-454 would repeal criminal provisions for price discrimination, predatory pricing, discriminatory promotional allowances and geographic price discrimination. It would authorize the court to make an order requiring a person who made a false or misleading representation to compensate persons affected by that and to issue an interim injunction to freeze assets. It would allow for these AMPs that would abuse their dominant position in the industry. Now there are criminal penalties, but we need to go beyond that to allow for these other direct penalties to be put in place.

When we talk about consumers and a free market, I think that in general, Canadians would support the fact that we have a free market and would say that it works, but it causes concern when we have price spikes, and it happens in gasoline and heating oil, it has happens in insurance, and it happens in many areas. We are hearing now, with the potential of a downturn in the economy, that food prices are going up, and of course we have the international issue of food scarcity and the hungriest people on this planet are once again those who are penalized the most by that.

All these sorts of issues are causing Canadians concern and to wonder how they are going to pay their bills, how they are going to fill their oil tanks, how they are going to fill their cars, how they are going to afford groceries, how they are going to afford shelter, what will happens if the economy continues to deteriorate, and what will happen if manufacturing jobs continue to go elsewhere.

Other industries such as forestry continue to suffer. An awful lot of consumers are very worried and I think they look to Parliament and to their representatives to say that we believe in a free market and we think that this is the best way to have it, but if we believe that competition works and if we believe in capitalism and that there is in fact a free market, then it has to be free. We cannot allow large companies to have a half free, half closed market which always benefits them. It is important that there be direct action that can be taken to protect consumers in that case.

This bill is complex and it is important that we give this to the committee. The industry committee in 2002 did a good job in having a look at this. That is what committees do well. They call witnesses, talk to consumers, talk to consumer groups, talk to business advocates, and talk to the people who are most affected to consider the work that needs to be done.

Stakeholders and other interested parties will have an opportunity to make recommendations or changes as this goes forward. I am pleased to stand here today and support in principle this bill, so that we can let the industry committee do further work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate basically what we talked about the last time this bill was before the House.

Bill C-454 amends the anti-cartel provision of the act, section 45. The proposed amendments would strike the word “unduly” from section 45 and raise the level of fines that would be imposed. Section 45 is one of the key provisions in the Competition Act.

As I understand it, removing the word “unduly” could expose criminal liability conduct currently regulated by provincial or federal laws. For example, it is not clear whether provincial authorization of certain price fixing arrangements, such as thorough marketing or supply management boards, would continue to shield such arrangements from criminal liability under section 45 if the amendments proposed in the bill were passed.

Given this, I would hope that my hon. colleagues will ensure that they take all points of view into consideration before deciding how to address the conduct that is targeted in this section.

Bill C-454 would also give the Commissioner of Competition the ability to launch inquiries, with formal investigative powers, into entire sectors of the economy. It would be useful to get more information as to what is contemplated here.

The commissioner already has the ability to conduct market studies as part of her role as an advocate for competitive markets, the recent study into generic drug pricing being one example. Is something more intended, such as using the information gathered in subsequent criminal proceedings? This will need to be clarified as soon as possible.

Bill C-454 would change the rules regarding pre-notification of mergers by lowering the threshold at which companies considering merging would have to notify the commissioner of their intentions. In this regard we should ask ourselves whether the costs imposed on businesses by lowering the threshold for merger notification outweigh any benefits of having the Competition Bureau examine smaller transactions.

There is a lengthy list of proposed amendments to the Competition Act. Given the importance of the issues involved with this bill, I look forward to the careful consideration that this House will give it.

The House resumed from March 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

When we next reconsider Bill C-454, there will be three minutes remaining for the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Essex.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part today in the second reading debate of Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

My intention is to outline the provisions of Bill C-454, which proposes extensive amendments to the Competition Act.

Bill C-454 contains a number of provisions that were in earlier legislation, specifically Bill C-19. However, Bill C-454 not only alters some of the provisions that were in Bill C-19, but also introduces some new provisions.

The House should not make the mistake of thinking that Bill C-454 is merely Bill C-19 by another name. This is a very different bill in many important ways.

As such, I would caution my hon. colleagues to give this bill very serious attention. Any amendments to the Competition Act will be of great interest to a wide range of stakeholders across Canada.

To show how great an interest, I would refer hon. members to the Competition Policy Review Panel. As hon. members will recall, in July of 2007 the government announced the creation of the panel, which has as the central part of its mandate a review of key elements of Canada's competition and investment policies, including the Competition Act. In the context of its consultations, the panel received approximately 140 written submissions.

Given the importance of the Competition Act for Canadians, I would like to take a few minutes to review some of the provisions of Bill C-454.

First, there are some provisions in Bill C-454 that are the same as those in Bill C-19. For example, Bill C-454 would decriminalize the price discrimination, predatory pricing, discriminatory promotional allowances and geographic price discrimination provisions of the Competition Act. These provisions would then be dealt with under the non-criminal abuse of dominance provisions of the act.

Bill C-454 proposes to allow the tribunal to order restitution to consumers affected by deceptive marketing practices. In addition, the bill gives the tribunal new power to impose interim injunctions to stop the disposal of assets by anyone engaged in deceptive marketing practices. This is to ensure that there is property available for such restitution.

However, there are several key provisions in Bill C-454 that are different from what was contained in Bill C-19. Bill C-454 proposes to add three different types of financial consequences to deter abuse of dominance. I understand that all three would be applied at the same time.

First, the Competition Tribunal could order an administrative monetary penalty, or AMP, against individuals and companies that engage in anti-competitive conduct: up to $10 million for a first offence and up to $15 million for each subsequent one.

Second, Bill C-454 gives the tribunal the ability to order an additional AMP on top of the one I just mentioned. This second AMP would be an amount not greater than the profits generated by the anti-competitive conduct in question.

In addition to these two AMPs, Bill C-454 would allow private parties to pursue separate private litigation before the Competition Tribunal when they believe that a dominant firm has abused its market position. At present, only the Commissioner of Competition may bring abuse of dominance matters to the tribunal. In relation to private access to the tribunal, Bill C-454 includes a provision to grant the tribunal the ability to award damages to private parties.

Next, Bill C-454 introduces a proposal to change the definition of “anti-competitive act” for the purposes of the abuse of dominance provision. Bill C-454 would introduce the concept of “exploitative conduct” into the Competition Act. In other jurisdictions, particularly the European Union, this phrase has been taken to mean excessive pricing or price gouging.

As I understand it, an attempt to deal with price gouging would be viewed as a form of price regulation that would have far-reaching implications for the Canadian marketplace. As such, this provision should be carefully considered.

As we know, price regulation is essentially a matter of provincial jurisdiction. I am quite sure that the sponsor of the bill and his colleagues would not want to intrude on a matter of provincial jurisdiction.

Moving on to the issue of deceptive marketing practices, Bill C-454 proposes a series of financial consequences. The provisions in Bill C-454 include an increase to the existing AMP: from $50,000 to $750,000 for individuals and from $100,000 to $10 million for corporations. For subsequent violations of the act, the proposed AMPs are $1 million for individuals and $15 million for corporations.

At the same time, Bill C-454 provides for an additional AMP for deceptive marketing practices, up to the amount of profits generated by the practices. Again, it appears that both AMPs could be ordered by the tribunal at the same time. Bill C-454 would also amend the list of factors the tribunal considers when determining the appropriate penalty for deceptive marketing practices.

Bill C-454 also amends the anti-cartel provision of the act, section 45. The proposed amendments would strike the word “unduly” from section 45 and raise the level of fines that would be imposed. Section 45 is one of the key provisions in the Competition Act.

As I understand it, removing the word “unduly” could expose to criminal liability conduct currently regulated by provincial or federal law. For example, it is not clear whether provincial authorization of certain price-fixing arrangements, such as through marketing or supply management boards, would continue to shield such arrangements from criminal liability under section 45 if the amendments proposed in the bill are passed.

I see that my time is nearly up. Finally, I would like to say that Bill C-454 would change the rules regarding pre-notification of mergers, by lowering the threshold at which companies considering merging would have to notify the commissioner of their intent. In this regard, we should ask ourselves whether the costs imposed on businesses are warranted.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure today to speak to Bill C-454, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois member for Montcalm. First, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent work and on this initiative to bring this important issue back to the House of Commons. It has not lost its relevance over the past few years with the price of gas at the pump now hovering around $1.15.

Bill C-454 is being read for the first time in Parliament, but I want to remind some of my colleagues from other parties that it is inspired in large part by Bill C-19, which the Liberals tabled shortly before the 2005-06 elections, and which the Conservatives decided not to reintroduce. Of course, it has been rewritten and improved, but it is, in essence, the same. If I were to provide a broad outline of this bill, I would summarize it by saying that its purpose is to strengthen the Competition Act.

First, it gives the Competition Bureau the power to conduct its own inquiries into the oil industry. Currently, the bureau can do no more than undertake general studies that have no consequences.

In the course of conducting such inquiries, it can summon and protect witnesses. If it could not do so, it would very likely never be able to prove anti-competitive practices.

Lastly, when companies want to enter into agreements with their competitors, they will have to prove that these agreements are in the public interest. The bill also significantly raises the amount of fines, from $10 million to $25 million.

That said, exactly what need is this bill trying to meet?

Prices of petroleum products are rising steadily, and we want Quebeckers to have a way of finding out why this is happening, who is benefiting and, most importantly, whether this is reasonable.

The first major problem that is affecting everyone to different degrees is the rising price of crude oil. This is having a direct impact on the price per barrel, which is fluctuating today between US$100 and US$110 and has increased by 230% since early 2004.

This in turn is affecting the price of heating oil, which is on the rise. It has averaged about 90¢ since early 2007 and has gone up by more than 50% in the past two years. I want to remind the House that according to Statistics Canada, approximately 500,000 Quebec households in Quebec still heat with oil or another liquid fuel.

The increase in the price of crude oil is also driving up the price of gas, which, understandably, has raised the public's ire for the past several years.

For a number of years, in fact, old records have fallen repeatedly as the price of regular gas has regularly reached new highs. Fluctuations aside, the price of gas in Quebec is going up steadily; it was 71.3¢ in May 2002, 94.4¢ in May 2004 and $1.10 in May 2007. Since the beginning of the year it has fluctuated between $1.09 and $1.18.

At the same time, oil companies have posted record sales for a number of years. But that is not all. Oil companies' net profits have also skyrocketed in recent years. The oil industry's net profits rose from $17.6 billion in 2003 to $20.2 billion in 2004 and $35 billion in 2006, a 100% increase.

What is more, with respect to the increase in costs, if we compare the price of regular gas in Quebec today with the price in 2004, we find that the retailer mark-up has remained stable, taxes have remained stable and even gone down in proportion to the price of a litre of gas, and the increase in the price of crude oil accounts in part for the increases.

But lately, the constant fluctuations in gas prices cannot be explained by crude oil prices; they are attributable to the obscene profits made by the refineries.

Is this situation intentional? We do not know, because the Competition Bureau does not have the tools it needs to conduct a serious and complete investigation. But one thing is for sure: the structure of the oil industry encourages spikes in gas prices, and is conducive to abuse. That is why the industry must be monitored, hence Bill C-454.

As members know, I am the Bloc's natural resources critic, and it is part of my duties to learn about the oil industry. That is precisely what the Standing Committee on Natural Resources did for several months last year, as part of an important study on the oil sands industry. Over the course of about 30 meetings, we heard from some 100 witnesses, many of whom came from the oil industry.

I listened to and questioned these witnesses carefully, and although our conclusions can be found in the committee's report, I would like to share how these testimonies touched me personally.

When I was listening to these professional lobbyists, I was deeply struck by the excesses of the industry, with its echoes of the gold rush.

People in the oil industry came to talk to us, they explained the challenges, confidently predicted the future, easily came up with rational solutions to complex problems in their heads, but were so detached from the effects caused by their industry, that it literally took my breath away.

As everyone also knows, I am a social worker by training, and if I wanted to draw a parallel with a type of clientele, I would say we are dealing with an industry that has a very hard time regarding itself objectively or engaging in any self-criticism, and above all, we are dealing with an industry for whom the end justifies the means and that is always right. It has a bit of a superiority complex, which places it above other things and makes it prone to over-ambition and exaggeration, often in a shameless manner.

In the case of the petroleum industry, the excessiveness of the financial stakes—we are still talking about billions of dollars—and the current importance of their products, which are practically essential to the functioning of society, create this cavalier attitude that often lacks any moral or ethical sensibility. I could give so many examples that I could easily keep the House busy until tomorrow, but let us look at just one, more recent and very typical example.

On Monday, March 10, the Minister of the Environment presented his solutions for climate change problems—a plan whose flabbiness will surely go down in history. One of his proposals is carbon capture and storage by the oil industry. Speaking through a task force that delivered a study to Natural Resources Canada, the oil industry responded that it refuses to invest great sums of money in this technology because of the uncertainty surrounding its large-scale commercialization.

And as if that were not enough, the task force, composed of one academic and four industry representatives, went even further. Try to listen to this without being too surprised:

...it is a very difficult proposition for individual private sector players to commit additional hundreds of millions of dollars...to achieve a public good...for which it may not be compensated with an adequate (or any) return on investment.

In any context that statement would be unacceptable, but in the current climate change crisis, it is totally irresponsible and insulting. This method would force private companies to contain their pollution.

The members of this task force act as if they are doing us a favour. They are completely disconnected from reality, so much so that they add even more. As François Cardinal reported in La Presse on March 11, the report recommends that the federal government allocate $2 billion immediately and that both levels of government provide “stable financial incentives”.

I would like to remind hon. members that the oil industry made $35 billion in profits in 2006. And these people are talking about the impossibility of investing in the public good unless profit is involved?

I also want to point out that in addition to $66 billion in direct subsidies from the federal government between 1970 and 1999, this industry is currently benefiting, through accelerated capital cost allowance, from tax measures such as former Bill C-48, under the Liberals in 2003, and from tax cuts announced by the Conservatives in the economic statement of November 2007 of up to $1.5 billion annually.

In the coming year alone, the oil industry will receive a $1.18 billion gift. In total, for the 2008-13 period, roughly $7.8 billion will go into the pockets of the oil companies through various measures implemented by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.

Yesterday I received a phone call from a constituent from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, who said that her heating costs have increased by 50% in two years. She thought that was totally unacceptable.

Bill C-454 is needed to help people like that and to supervise the oil industry more carefully. We hope the bill will be adopted.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to congratulate the hon. member from the Bloc Québécois for introducing it.

The Competition Act is an important law in Canada. It governs how we do business in a number of ways. The purpose of the Competition Act is to encourage Canadian businesses to compete with one another with the belief that enhanced competition will lead to lower prices and greater product choice for consumers.

The Competition Act contains criminal and civil provisions which apply to most industries and businesses in Canada, both large and small. The Competition Bureau is an independent federal agency which administers the act.

The current act criminalizes some anti-competitive practices. The criminal provisions include: conspiracy to unduly lessen competition; bid rigging; discriminatory and predatory pricing; price maintenance; refusal to supply; and certain misleading advertising and deceptive marketing practices. The offences are investigated by the Competition Bureau and prosecuted in federal or provincial superior courts.

Attempts have been made before to update the Competition Act. In April 2002 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology released a report entitled “A Plan to Modernize Canada's Competition Regime”. It recommended extensive amendments to the Competition Act.

Subsequently Bill C-19 was introduced. It proposed changes to the Competition Act that would have allowed the Competition Tribunal to impose an AMP, an administrative monetary penalty, if it found that a person or a company abused its dominant position. It would have increased the AMP that the Competition Tribunal or court could impose when it found that a person or company had engaged in deceptive marketing. It would have repealed the airline specific provisions that are currently found in the act, which arose out of a particular period in Canada's aviation history and were designed to deal specifically with the airline industry. Bill C-19 proposed to decriminalize predatory and discriminatory pricing provisions.

At the time, there was a great deal of debate about Bill C-19 but it died on the order paper and ultimately did not pass. The Competition Act remained unchanged and that is very unfortunate for Canadians.

Every time the price of gasoline goes up, we hear complaints from our constituents. They see gas prices rise in lockstep usually just before a long weekend. The greatest instance of consumer complaints is probably from people who believe they are being gouged by gas and oil companies.

The government should deal with this in a more effective way. It is clear that the Competition Act, as it currently stands, does not have the teeth to deal with this kind of price gouging. It should be thoroughly investigated so that Canadian consumers are protected.

The issue of deceptive marketing and deceptive advertising is also of great concern to Canadians. We have an aging population. We all know of situations where seniors especially have fallen prey to deceptive advertising. Again, the Competition Act simply does not have the teeth to protect consumers. It is basically a buyer beware situation, and that is simply not good enough.

We should think of a situation where an individual senior, who lives alone in his or her own home, who maybe does not have access to the Internet, and does not read as widely as some other folks, is up against a very powerful and well resourced company that has a very slick marketing campaign. That individual senior could be quite vulnerable. I believe it is our job as parliamentarians to do everything we can to ensure that all consumers are protected.

We all want to foster a healthy economy. We want to make sure that we are creating the conditions for businesses in our economy to do well and for them to compete. We have a very mature economy, but there has to be a balance so that consumers are also protected.

Today the average person is really getting squeezed. Savings are at an all time low and consumer debt is the highest it has been in a generation. People are incredibly price sensitive. There are people who have to commute from the suburbs to the centre of town to go to work every day. Some people in my part of the country and the greater Toronto area commute long distances. With respect to the price of gas, people are phenomenally price sensitive. When the price of oil goes up, consumers really take a hit in the pocketbook. They need us to make sure that they are protected.

There is one concern that I do have with this bill, and it was a concern with Bill C-19 as well, which is that the AMPs, the administrative monetary penalties, would be tax deductible for the corporations that face these penalties. That does not make any sense. It makes no sense that the Government of Canada and the Canadian taxpayers would somehow be responsible for paying these monetary penalties. That is something we should discuss at the committee.

I will be supporting this bill. As a member of the industry committee, I look forward to discussing the bill at the industry committee. The goal is to protect Canadian consumers, to put teeth into the Competition Act, and to protect our seniors from deceptive advertising. I believe all of these provisions would lead to greater competition and a healthier economy.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-454. I would like to congratulate the member for Montcalm on his bill.

The origins of the bill can be traced back to early 2002 when the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology released a report entitled, “A Plan to Modernize Canada's Competition Act”. The proposed changes from that committee's report formed the basis of government Bill C-19 during the 38th Parliament, under the leadership of the member for LaSalle—Émard.

Reading this private member's bill, I noticed that virtually all the provisions of Bill C-19 have been included as well as some of the other recommendations from the industry committee's 2002 report, which did not find their way into the original bill.

I understand many of the additions in Bill C-454 had been proposed during the rather lengthy year that the industry committee spent studying Bill C-19 before it died on the order paper in November 2005.

Above and beyond those additions, Bill C-454 has a number of other amendments that were not in the original bill.

While I am willing to lend my vote to the bill at second reading, I do so in the hope that it will receive the same diligent consideration at committee stage that Bill C-19 received in 2005. We must, as legislators, ensure that the objectives of the bill will be met without any unintended consequences.

To reiterate my position for the member, the bill shows good promise and I will support it at this stage. However, I will reserve my final judgment until it returns from committee wherein stakeholders and Canadians will have had the opportunity to voice their praise or their concerns for the bill.

While I am on the topic of committee stage, I hope the industry committee' s efforts to review the bill will be well coordinated with the Minister of Industry's review of the Competition Act. I believe the minister is expecting his panel to report later this spring and I hope that the two tracks will find some common ground.

The underlying purpose of Bill C-454 is to enhance the Competition Act, with a view to ensuring that businesses in our country compete with each other in a fair and open market. The act helps to protect businesses, especially small businesses, but large ones as well, from becoming the victims of such anti-competitive behaviour as predatory pricing and abuse of dominance.

The end beneficiary of this is the Canadian consumer, who will benefit from increased competition, diversified choice and in theory lower prices at the cash register. The act achieves this through the Competition Bureau, which enforces the provisions by responding to consumer complaints and investigating evidence of illegal activity by businesses.

The biggest change that Bill C-454 would make to the Competition Act is it would allow for general administrative monetary penalty, or AMP, provisions to be used against businesses or individuals abusing their dominant position in any industry. This would allow businesses and individuals injured by an abuse of dominance to seek financial remuneration for any damages they have suffered due to abuse of a dominant position. Currently there are only criminal penalties for such breaches of the act.

Similar administrative monetary penalty provisions are already in place for abuse of dominance in many countries around the world. Adding Canada to the list of countries that allows for these fines in cases where dominance has been abused is important, not only domestically but also in terms of strengthening ties with our major trading partners.

Let me move on to other aspects of Bill C-454. One is that the bill would increase the administrative penalties, or AMPs, that a business could be fined for practising in deceptive marketing practices. With the low limits of the current maximums, deceptive marketing can often lead to profits that are far greater than the monetary penalties that can be administered. By raising the limits, we will increase the deterrence factor and help to ensure that the people who are hurt by deceptive marketing campaigns can get a much greater percentage of their investment back from the guilty party.

Another measure included in the bill, which came directly from the industry committee's 2002 report, was to eliminate the section of the Competition Act that dealt specifically with airlines. This special mention of our airline industry was added at a time when Canadian and Air Canada were merging and there was widespread concern that the Competition Bureau needed stronger tools to ensure that the combined giant did not engage in predatory conduct.

Today, however, there are many low cost carriers that have emerged and the airline industry no longer needs special mention in the act. The industry can go back to being covered by the general provisions, which, as I have mentioned, would be strengthened the bill.

I am glad to see that the Bloc Québécois have taken an interest in helping to build a stronger 21st century economy, supported by a competitive marketplace and a competition with the tools to ensure that they get the job done. The Bloc often takes a narrow and isolationist approach to economic matters, so it is nice to see it put country before its own party interests.

It would have been very easy for the Bloc for instance to dismiss a bill, such as C-19, as an intrusion of the federal government into matters of provincial jurisdiction. For instance, price controls are the exclusive jurisdiction of the provincial government, save for in emergency situations. The Bloc of old might have believed that the federal government had no place deciding when a business had engaged in predatory pricing. Determining the appropriate price of something could be interpreted as a matter purely for provincial jurisdiction.

In this instance I am glad to see that my Bloc colleague from Montcalm was willing to table a bill that proves a federal bill can be good for all Canadians including the people of Quebec.

I look forward to seeing what the industry committee does with Bill C-454 and when it arrives back here in the House for report stage and third reading.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to take part in the second reading debate on Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

As members are no doubt aware Bill C-454 proposes a wide range of amendments to the Competition Act. Among its many provisions, Bill C-454 proposes to amend the Competition Act to provide restitution for consumers harmed by deceptive marketing practices and would give the Competition Tribunal the ability to issue injunctions to stop the disposal of assets by anyone engaged in deceptive marketing. This is to ensure that there is money available for restitution.

Bill C-454 also proposes to deter companies from abusing their dominant position by giving the tribunal the ability to award administrative monetary penalties, commonly known as AMPs.

The bill proposes to further discourage deceptive marketing practices such as false advertising, by increasing penalties for the violation of these legislative provisions.

Furthermore, Bill C-454 proposes to decriminalize the criminal provisions dealing with price discrimination and predatory pricing. It also proposes a number of consequential amendments to the act and other statutes.

I do not intend to address specific provisions of the bill today. Some of my colleagues will handle that, I am sure.

It is my hope that should Bill C-454 be referred to committee, there would be a thorough and detailed analysis of its provisions.

My primary purpose in rising to speak on this issue is to express my view that any amendments to the Competition Act should not be made lightly.

More particularly, there must be careful consideration as to how the act fits into broader competition policy, specifically the “price gouging” or, to put it another way, price regulation provisions which are provincial, not federal, jurisdictions, as well as the “anti-cartel” provisions which might negatively impact supply management.

This Conservative government understands the necessity of a modern and aggressive competition policy in this global economy. That is why in July 2007 this government took the proactive step and announced the creation of the Competition Policy Review Panel. The panel's core mandate is to review two key pieces of Canadian legislation: the Competition Act and the Investment Canada Act.

The panel will review key elements of Canada's competition and investment policies to ensure that they are working effectively, allowing Canada to encourage even greater foreign investment and create more and better jobs for Canadians. The government is looking forward to receiving the report on June 30.

What I would like to do today is set out why I believe that a careful approach to amending the Competition Act is essential.

Competition stimulates innovation and enhances productivity and economic growth. I think my colleagues from all parties recognize the importance of these factors for Canada.

I would hope they would also agree that economic prosperity is closely linked to the intensity of competition that exists in a country's markets.

Canada has achieved substantial economic success through privatization, free trade and deregulation, despite outright disapproval at one time for one of these economic provisions by all opposition parties. Through a reliance on competition and market forces our economy has thrived.

This government takes the issue of our economic competitiveness very seriously. We are determined to create the kind of competitive environment that will make Canadians much more prosperous.

In saying that, we are well aware that prosperity is not created by governments. What might come as a shock to the Bloc is that a government's job is to put in place conditions that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. It is the private sector's role to innovate, take risks and create wealth in a way that benefits our entire society.

The Competition Act is an important part of Canada's competition policy. However, it is only one part of a larger legislative policy and regulatory framework.

This framework has a crucial impact on the competitiveness of Canadian businesses and Canada's economic performance. As I mentioned earlier, that is why this government created the competition panel in order to ensure these policies are modern and internationally competitive.

This government has also acted in other ways to increase innovation, productivity and strengthen our economy.

We are committed to providing effective economic leadership for a prosperous future and to strengthen the Canadian economy through our long term economic plan, “Advantage Canada”, and through our science and technology strategy.

In our recent economic statement, we built on that foundation, introducing important new measures that will help Canadian businesses compete, attract new investment to Canada, increase productivity, and create more and better jobs for Canadians.

The results are already paying off. Just last week Statistics Canada announced that Canada's unemployment rate had decreased to 5.8%, the lowest in 30 years. In Quebec the unemployment rate has decreased from 7.4% to 6.8% and 77,000 new jobs were created since January 2007.

Canada's economy is still creating better paying, full time jobs, while the U.S. economy is on the brink of recession because this Conservative government has put in place all the right economic fundamentals.

Let me now briefly describe the Competition Bureau's role and mandate, and discuss the importance of the Competition Act.

The Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency. It contributes to the prosperity of Canadians by protecting and promoting market competition and allowing consumers to make informed choices.

Led by the Commissioner of Competition, the Bureau investigates anti-competitive practices and ensures compliance with the laws under its jurisdiction.

An extremely important piece of this legislative framework is the Competition Act. It touches on virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy. It promotes and maintains competition so Canadians can benefit from competitive prices, product choice and quality services.

The Competition Act is important for both consumers and businesses. The legislation contains several provisions to address false or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices. For example, the Competition Bureau investigates misleading advertising and deceptive telemarketing targeting Canadians. It ensures that businesses provide accurate information to consumers when marketing their products and services.

False or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices can have serious economic consequences, especially when directed toward large audiences or when they take place over a long period of time.

The Competition Act also helps businesses. A competitive marketplace promotes the efficiency and flexibility of the economy. It expands opportunities for Canadian enterprises in world markets and ensures that small and medium sized Canadians businesses have equal opportunities.

Competition is the foundation of a strong, modern and knowledge-based economy, spurring innovation, competitiveness and productivity growth. The Competition Act is one of the key pieces of framework legislation that we have in Canada. As such, it should only be amended after there has been very careful consideration of the impact of any amendment. I would particularly note two provisions in Bill C-454 that warrant careful consideration.

First, I would hope that the Bloc members would revisit the proposal to amend the definition of an “anti-competitive act” for the abuse of dominance provisions to include “abusive exploitation” of a dominant position.

In other jurisdictions this language has been taken to mean excessive pricing or price gouging. Determining whether a price is too high requires price monitoring and regulation, which are matters of provincial jurisdiction, not federal jurisdiction. Such monitoring may best be left to the hon. member's colleagues in Quebec City. This government will not support provisions that will intrude on provincial jurisdiction.

Second, the proposal to amend the anti-cartel provisions might, as it now stands, criminalize a number of common forms of business arrangements such as supply management or joint ventures that can be beneficial in the long term to competition. Again, the government will not support provisions that could criminalize business arrangements as joint ventures or supply management.

In carrying out their deliberations, I hope the Bloc members will do their best to ensure that these substantive changes are addressed. I also hope a wide range of stakeholders representing consumers, small and medium sized businesses and other interested groups will have the opportunity to make their views known.

In closing, I hope my comments today have shown how important competition and the Competition Act are for Canadian consumers and Canadian companies, no matter what their size.

I also hope my hon. colleagues—

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

moved that Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be now read a second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to introduce Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, for second reading. While we have a Competition Act at present, there are major flaws in that Act that are in need of speedy correction. I would like to demonstrate the need for the House of Commons to take action to improve the existing Competition Act.

Every time the price of gas soars, the government invariably responds by saying the same thing: there is nothing to be done because the Competition Bureau concluded that there was no agreement among the oil companies to fix prices and so there was no problem.

Well, the Competition Bureau has never investigated the matter properly, because it does not have the power to do so. All the Competition Bureau does is produce studies of the industry explaining how it operates. And when it does a study, the Competition Bureau has virtually no power, because the purpose of the studies is to explain the general operation of the oil industry, not to discipline it. Those studies have no impact and they provide no incentive for the government to take action.

The flaws in the existing Act prevent the Competition Bureau from doing any real work. The Competition Bureau cannot initiate investigations of its own accord; they have to be done in response to a request by the minister or where there have been a number of complaints. Well, we know very well that the minister is not requesting real investigations from which tangible results could be obtained.

In addition, the Competition Bureau cannot compel disclosure of documents or protect witnesses when it does a general industry study. In that kind of situation, how can we expect that individuals who have no protection will come forward to testify? As can be seen, there are limits to what the Competition Bureau can do—and that is putting it mildly. In point of fact, its hands are tied.

We need only look at the current situation to understand that it is urgent that the Competition Act be amended. The price of petroleum products is rising steadily. The price of crude oil has risen by 230% since early 2004. The price of heating oil has gone up by more than 50% in two years. Three years ago, in April 2005, a new price record was set in Montreal: the price of regular gas broke through the one dollar ceiling. Since then, it has stayed at an even higher level. In Quebec, the price continues to go up: the price of a litre of gas was 91.6¢ in May 2005, $1.06 in May 2006 and $1.10 in May 2007, and it has wavered between $1.09 and $1.18—and we have even seen $1.23—since the beginning of 2008.

But that is not all. Refining margins vary remarkably. It actually costs between 3¢ and 5¢ to refine a litre of gas, depending on the type of gas used.

According to the Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole, when the refining margin is between 4¢ and 7¢ a litre, the company is making a healthy profit. On average, from 1998 to 2002, refining margins were 7.2¢ a litre. That is a little high, but it is within the limits of what is reasonable.

In 2003, on the other hand, the average margin in Montreal was 10¢ a litre, or twice as much as a reasonable amount. In 2004, the average refining margin increased 10% to 11¢ a litre. By 2005 and 2006, it was regularly exceeding 15¢ a litre, and in May 2007, it even reached 28¢ a litre. That is four times the reasonable margin.

At the present time, the refining margin has fallen back to 9¢ a litre, which seems better. However, when the oil companies decide they want their refining profits to soar again, the Competition Bureau will still not have the tools it needs to conduct a real investigation unless the House passes Bill C-454.

It is a great concern as well that a very small number of players have virtually total control over a market as important as gasoline. Is this situation international or not? We do not know because the Competition Bureau does not have the tools it needs to answer that question.

There is no need to remind the House of how shamelessly the oil companies are taking advantage of this. They are posting record sales. In 1995, the entire Canadian oil and gas sector posted combined sales of $25 billion. By 2004, this figure had climbed to $84.9 billion, which amounts to an increase of 239%. Total sales soared to $106.7 billion in 2005 and $118.9 billion in 2006. That is a 376% increase over 1995.

Net profits are also skyrocketing of course. The combined net profit of the six big integrated oil companies in Canada—Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, Husky Energy, Petro-Canada, Encana and Suncor—reached $12 billion in 2006. That is a $5 billion or 70% increase over 2004. The 2007 data are not available yet for all these companies, but there is every reason to believe that their results will be even more astronomical. For example, Petro-Canada finished its 2007 year with a profit of $2.73 billion or 57% more than in its 2006 financial year, which it finished with a net profit of $1.74 billion.

The net profit of the entire oil sector rose from $17 billion in 2003 to $20 billion in 2004 and then $35 billion in 2006, for an increase of 100%.

The Competition Bureau will only be useful and effective if it is able to conduct real investigations. It is illusory to think that it can take real action and come up with real results under the current legislation.

This worrisome situation—the increase in the price of gas, the upward trend in refining margins and the increase in profits—and the flaws in the current Competition Act are a constant source of discussion at the House's Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology. In fact, in the committee's 2003 report on the Competition Act, it recommended reversing the onus of proof for handling “agreements between competitors” and determining whether there is a conspiracy.

In other words, when the Competition Bureau conducts an investigation, only at the request of the minister or if there is a complaint, of course, the Bureau must prove that there was an agreement between the companies, when it should be the opposite. If we consider the economic issues that are at stake, businesses should have to prove their good faith. Businesses that want to sign agreements should also have to prove the social or economic value of the agreements.

For example, in Quebec, there is a single refinery that supplies all the companies, Petro-Canada, Ultramar, Shell, Exxon, Olco, Esso Imperial and so on. The prices are all the same. How can we talk about competition when all the oil companies are in bed together helping each other out and sharing the market? This situation is reminiscent of a cartel—a group of businesses conspiring to create a monopoly.

When Konrad von Finckenstein, the competition commissioner, appeared in front of the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology on May 5, 2003, he identified the following shortcomings in the Competition Act:

—while the bureau's mandate includes the very important role of being investigator and advocate for competition, the current legislation does not provide the bureau with the authority to conduct an industry study.

He added, and I quote:

It seems to me that it would be preferable to have a study on the overall situation carried out by an independent body that would have authority, that would be able to summon witnesses and gather information. It should also have the power to protect confidential information that someone is not necessarily going to want to share, but which would be vital in order to reach a conclusion based on the real facts.

These statements prove that the existing Competition Act does not enable the Competition Bureau to undertake a real investigation of the industrial sector. How can it gather information if it can neither force the disclosure of documents nor protect witnesses?

During the last Parliament, a review of the legislation was undertaken. The Bloc Québécois found it too weak, but nevertheless supported it and proposed amendments to improve it. The bill died on the order paper, and the Conservatives decided not to bring it back, so the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-454 to strengthen the Competition Act.

Bill C-454 was inspired in large part by Bill C-19, which the Liberals introduced shortly before the 2005-06 election, but it corrects that bill's shortcomings. When the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology studied the act in 2003 and 2005, it found that the act contained a number of provisions that were outdated and no longer useful. In essence, the bill seeks to adapt the Competition Act to today's economic realities. It gives the Competition Bureau the power to conduct its own inquiries into industry. The Competition Bureau will be able to call witnesses and protect them. That last point is very important.

Under current legislation, if businesses decide to reach an agreement to fix prices, no evidence of that will be left behind. If we cannot call and protect witnesses, there is a very good chance we will never be able to prove anti-competitive practices.

Under the new legislation, when businesses try to reach agreements with their competitors, they must demonstrate that those agreements are in the public's best interest. Presently, these agreements among competitors are permitted, unless it can be proven that they are contrary to public interest. This is unhealthy.

The bill contains another proposal: a significant increase in the amount of fines to be paid for violations of the Competition Act, from $10 million to $25 million. If this legislation were passed, the Competition Bureau would be much better equipped to fight against businesses that try to use their dominant position in the market to fleece consumers and damage other economic sectors.

On the whole, Bill C-454 will allow for the creation of a comprehensive strategy to deal with the rising cost of petroleum products. For some time now, the Bloc Québécois has been pressuring the government to take action to address the rising cost of petroleum products. Fighting to defend the interests of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois would like to see the oil and gas industry disciplined. Bill C-454 is a step in that direction. It is time to correct the situation and give the Competition Bureau the powers it needs to do its job properly.

Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, is pivotal to any real investigations into the oil and gas sector. Passing this legislation would give the Competition Bureau the powers it needs to carry out its mandate.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-454, An Act to amend the Competition Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Mr. Speaker, today I am very pleased to introduce, in this House, a bill to amend the Competition Act, to authorize the Commissioner of Competition to inquire into an entire industry sector.

The current situation with gas prices is becoming alarming, and the fluctuating prices have motivated us to take action. This is why I am tabling this bill today, seconded by my colleague, the member for Trois-Rivières and industry critic. I am tabling this bill today for our constituents, who must deal with constantly increasing prices.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)