Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With all due respect for Mr. McTeague, who has been a member of this Committee for quite some time and has participated in many of the studies it has conducted—and I believe the Conservatives agree with the one he is suggesting—we may as well just start our own TV program and call it “Talking For The Sake of Talking”. In fact, speculating about speculation is not going to change a thing. Just because people say that a barrel of oil should cost $75 does not mean that pension funds will not be investing money to make profits when the price of a barrel of oil hits $200.
If Mr. McTeague or anybody else believes that, through a study such as this, the Committee will discourage people from thinking about making money, well, we will be wasting our time for months on end. In my opinion, there is absolutely no point in carrying out such a study, because ultimately, it will change absolutely nothing.
Second, the only way for us to really change things is to take action in our respective areas of jurisdiction. And, what is our area of jurisdiction? Well, we have the Competition Bureau.
Let me give you a specific example. In 2006, the price of a barrel of oil was $83 and gas cost $1.05 a litre. The price of a barrel of oil then went down to $70, but gas was still selling at $1.05 a litre. That is a problem. Why is the profit margin the same when the cost of a barrel of oil goes down? Because the profit margin for refining has gone up. It went from 7¢ to 28¢. If there isn't collusion happening between oil companies when the price of fuel remains the same, even though the cost of a barrel of oil has dropped… That's why we have to give some teeth to the Competition Bureau, so that it is in a position to investigate.
Why are all the oil companies increasing refining costs? Could someone explain that? If you are able to explain that to me in two minutes, we won't need to ask the Competition Bureau to conduct a serious investigation into this. If you convince me, I will support you. On the other hand, if you are unable to convince me and you tell me that the Competition Bureau has already done investigations which yielded absolutely nothing, my reaction will be to say that this is perfectly normal, since the Bureau has no power. Yet we are here to give it power; we are here to make changes.
From what I can see, no political party is interested in changing anything at all. Yet, all the political parties are saying that the cost of gas is horrendous. They all go into their ridings bemoaning that fact and telling their fellow citizens they will do something, although in actual fact, they don't do a thing and are not interested in doing anything. I'm telling you, you are going to be raked over the coals, and it won't be pretty!
You want to sit here at this table, but have no interest in taking concrete action to help the people you represent. People are mistaken if they think that speculating about the price of oil will result in anything useful. If you have reasons for saying that you don't want to intervene in an area where it could make a difference, where we have some influence, where we can do something at the Committee level and for Canada as a whole, then tell us what we can do to try and resolve this problem. At the very least, let's give the Competition Bureau some real powers, so that it can do something. However, if you are saying that you are not interested in taking any action, then say so publicly rather than just sitting back on your chairs and making those comments in Committee. If you say publicly that you, Conservatives and Liberals, are not interested in taking any action to bring down the price of gasoline, then I will support you, but just say it. Don't stand up in the House of Commons and say you want to lower the price of gasoline and that you are tackling the problem head on. We're not talking about the same thing; we're not speaking the same language.
Thank you.