Good afternoon and thank you for meeting with us. You know that the price of gas is a very important issue for the citizens we represent, because it has an impact on the economy and on the price of essential goods, such as food.
In your presentation, you told us that, as far as the oil refinery sector was concerned, the issue of most concern to the bureau is whether or not the Competition Act has been contravened. You said that, in your opinion, it was important to ascertain whether or not the refineries agreed amongst themselves to decrease capacity. If I understand correctly, we could talk about collusion.
Moreover, a few years ago this committee discovered that the oil companies could turn a reasonable profit with a refinery margin of between 4 to 7¢ per litre. In April, for instance, we saw the refinery margin increase to 19.5 ¢ per litre and, by the end of May, this margin was sitting at 27¢ per litre.
You can therefore guess what question I'm going to ask. Can we do anything about this? Do you feel that you have the requisite authority to do this? How can we explain the situation to people? We come up with theories. We say that the number of refinery operations has declined significantly.
I would like to hear what you have to say on the subject.