Evidence of meeting #23 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pumps.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
Were there any attempts to check this out yourselves, independent of the Measurement Canada data?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
Again, the data is Measurement Canada's data, so there are many, many inspections in that. As far as our own sites, obviously the accuracy of our own pumps is an ongoing exercise and we work very hard at that. That's already in place.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
The article, as we talked about, put the industry in a negative light.
Was there any effort, driven by retailers themselves, to ensure they weren't going to get caught up in that? Were there any extra checks? Would there have been retailers who would have called in Measurement Canada to ensure their pumps were accurate? They didn't want to get caught up in any negative stories. As you said, it could be devastating to a retailer to get identified or in fact charged.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
Absolutely. Again, in the absence of charges and prosecutions, and with the knowledge they are checking their pumps regularly, there was no reason for a retailer to be concerned. But I obviously cannot speak for every individual retailer.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
Right. You've said that you're generally happy with what's in the legislation. You're not happy with the short title, but you would be happy with “Confidence...” Tell me exactly what—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
“Consumer Confidence in Measurement Act”.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
So you might be happy with “Confidence at the Pumps” as the short title. You just want to make sure—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
It's general.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
—that consumers have confidence that they're going to be getting what they've paid for.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
Right.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
Is there anything else that you'd like to see in the bill, taken out, or added? Is there anything that we're missing here?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
No. I think there is, as I mentioned earlier, the concern that the term “violation” has not been defined and is left to the regulatory regime. We see that certainly as an opportunity, and having spoken to Measurement Canada, we expect a fully open and strong consultation period here for the regulations and that they will listen to stakeholders like ourselves and other stakeholders in the industry to ensure we have good, robust, statistically sound regulations.
Conservative
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
To our other witnesses, is there anything that you think might be missing or should be taken out?
Senior Advisor, Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole
Sir, I would simply like to remind you that should this bill be adopted, we would not want Quebec to be subject to double inspections, given that Quebec is already enforcing a system that is almost exactly like this one.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll just ask the panel, would you happen to know, if the government is correct—let's assume they're correct—in terms of the $20 million net loss to consumers, approximately how much in taxes they would have actually received from the $20 million?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association
About 40¢ on the dollar.
Chair of the Board of Directors, Association québécoise des indépendants du pétrole
It varies from province to province.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
They said about 40¢ on the dollar or close to half. Près de la moitié 40¢ on the dollar.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Maybe we can have the researchers bring back a real figure for us on that per year, around $20 million in taxation benefits the government would have received from that.
There has been a lot of to-do about the original article that appeared, and then the number and the volume of violations that took place, and still no charges were laid. One of the issues that we've been discussing recently in this hearing is the real effect... The repercussions will come later through regulations. But we'll play no role around that here. If there are retailers out there who are benefiting from manipulation at the pump, what would be the penalty figure that you would suggest would have a fair effect upon them to curb that behaviour?
And it's hypothetical. I think there's a problem, to some degree, but at the same time I'm looking for some type of fairness here in that. But if there were problems in the system... The problem if we let regulation deal with this is that we have no input whatsoever as members of Parliament. It can ebb and flow.
It could be nothing, so the whole Fairness at the Pumps Act—which is actually ironic. That's why I actually am really stunned at a flyer that's gone out with public money by a cabinet minister on this issue. It's not just a member of Parliament deciding to freelance on an issue and get out in front of even hearings at a committee. The actual cabinet of this government has decided on communications that they want to put forth before we even have a report tabled to the House or amendments to the bill. There could be a bias there—
Conservative
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Just to clarify, the use of a ten percenter is hardly a cabinet decision. I'll just clarify that it goes to 10% of one's own riding, so as an MP, of course, people send out ten percenters to 10% of their own riding to communicate what they might be doing or what the government position might be on something. I just wanted to clarify.
The NDP, of course, use franked mail more often than ten percenters to send out to the whole country.