As winter sets in and people are getting their heating bills, I look forward to hearing some kind of concrete proposal from your government on how we can help Canadians who are being affected by that cope with those additional costs, beyond what has already been announced.
I want to talk a bit about some folks who have a fair bit of money. Loblaws, of course, is one of them. They are not the only one. Oil and gas companies have been making record profits. The big box stores have made record profits during the pandemic.
In this legislation, there's the Canada recovery dividend, which you talked about in your opening statement. It's another supply and confidence agreement commitment. Something we have made no secret about is the fact that we would like to see it applied to the oil and gas industry and to big box retailers, including grocery stores. In some cases, you have said that it would be unfair to apply the Canada recovery dividend to those companies, despite the fact that they have been able to use their position within particular industries that provide essential goods to Canadians to increase their profits during these times.
I think the reports by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Canadians for Tax Fairness have said that up to 25% of the current inflation we're experiencing could be attributed to price increases beyond increases in costs. We're not talking about passing costs on to customers. We're talking about extraordinary price increases that have resulted in these higher profits.
What principle of fairness is at stake here such that you don't think it would be appropriate to see some of these businesses that have Canadians by the throat, so to speak, whether it's on food or on energy....? Why doesn't it make sense to ask that they pay relatively more, commensurate with their increase in profits, in order for the government to be able to provide assistance to people who are truly struggling?