I'm just receiving information from the Department of Energy in the United States--it's too bad we can't get it from here--that crude is down to its lowest level of consumption since 1998, and yet we may see crude actually increasing today. Again, there is this opposite effect: demand is down, prices are up, and consumers are very frustrated.
Mr. Boag, I want to ask you a question about the Toronto market, but it may also play into other markets as well.
Ms. Savage, you may also want to respond to this as best you can.
In May, retail margins in Toronto--and I include Clarington, Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering, Mississauga, Etobicoke, all the way to Burlington--were in the average of 5¢ a litre, almost without exception. Over the past 10-week period, that retail margin has gone from 5¢ to 6.5¢ uniformly and in lockstep. Furthermore, diesel wholesale prices relative to gasoline and premium relative to gasoline on the order wholesale of 4¢ to 5¢ a litre--facts that your association and its members kindly offer at 3 o'clock in the morning--is self-evident.
Mr. Boag, can you explain to me why your members, who have such a preponderance in my market in the GTA, covering some four million to five million Canadian motorists, are able to get exactly the identical price higher than it has been certainly in the past month and a half? And how do you explain the 4¢ or 5¢ differential from where you were just a few months ago?