I want to make clarification on the tax part; I owe this to my good friend, Dan McTeague. It's probably more like 25%, because some of that tax is already taken at the refinery. That's just to get the facts straight.
I do want to say something else, too, just in line with what Mr. Lake said. The intent of the bill--I think, Ms. Savage, you laid that out very well--is consumer confidence.
You know, not to lay any charge here, it's human nature; I think it's probably safe to say that if the findings indicate that the leaning is toward the benefit of the retailer, that, to me, probably means that if you have a faulty pump, you're going to find out really quickly if it's costing you money. And if it's not, there is a tendency--we can turn a blind eye to this, but it's just human nature--to let this thing go.
I think what the bill says, and I think what the minister was saying at the same time, too, is that if you're allowing this to happen, we're going to catch you.
The other point, of course, is that this bill encompasses much more than gasoline, but gasoline is the thing that people tend to zero in on.
To drive my point home, I was thinking of an example of how this bill probably reflects other bills, and it's the Accountability Act. This is an act that basically has stripped the members of Parliament from being unduly influenced by any group.
I think we can all agree--Mr. McTeague, I'm sure, would certainly agree--that when we come to this committee, when we have the witnesses sitting in front of us, by and large we pretty much can see a clear vision as to where we're going to go.
Oftentimes we're accused by the other side of being on the banks' side, or big oil. Well, that's absolute nonsense. There was a time when a member of Parliament could be solely funded by one group. That was very dangerous. The Accountability Act says you can no longer take money from organizations. You can no longer take money from unions. You can only take money from people like your mom and your dad and your brother and your sister. They maybe will give you that top-notch amount, but for the most part it's $100 here and $100 there. We all have to struggle to get to that point where we can run a campaign.
The end result is that when we sit, especially in this committee, we get a pretty good idea of what has to be done--and it's to the benefit of the consumer. I just wanted to point that out.
I commend you, too, Ms. Savage, for pointing out that this is more about consumer confidence, just as the Accountability Act was about confidence for politicians. We can all go out to our ridings now and say, “You know what? I'm not influenced by this group or by that group. They have no bearing on what my decision is.”
So this is to your benefit. When I think about what needs to be done in Parliament and when I think about what acts need to be passed, I'm thinking about the benefit to the consumer. I think we've demonstrated that very well in this committee. For the most part, at the end of the day, we all have the benefit of our voters in mind.
I don't know if that really asks for a comment from you. I think you've pretty much laid out the facts. But doesn't this act--not to lay any charge or to condemn any retailer--guarantee, or at least give us some consumer confidence, that if there is a pump, the onus now will be, “I'd better get that thing fixed”?
