Certainly it focuses on a lot more than gasoline. It focuses on eight sectors, plus the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act. We have retail petroleum, obviously, as well as wholesale petroleum, dairy, retail food, fishing, logging, grain and field crops, and mining. The compliance rates in those areas are lower than they are for gas pumps, and that is for a number of reasons.
I'd also say that while it's difficult to tamper with these devices, it's not impossible. A lot of these devices are subject to environmental conditions: they're sitting outside, and there is dirt, temperature variations, and things like that. Why it's important is that internationally Canada needs to be recognized as having a very solid weights and measures system for trade purposes, and we do have that. I think we do. And it's important that we maintain that.
The cost of goods and services to the Canadian public is going up. Food is costing you more. Gasoline was up to $1.50 a litre; it's now down, but we don't know where that's going to go.
We have Canadians who are subject to increasingly higher costs, who expect their government to provide them with accurate measurement. This is what this bill is intended to do. We recognize that because of the different mandatory inspection periods, the devices sometimes wear differently, and we've recognized that in the legislation.
Retailers live and die by consumer confidence. If in fact they lose that—and this was confirmed with Jane Savage and Peter Boag—they would suffer financial loss, and that's not in their best interest as well.
From my perspective, again, we're talking about accuracy and equity in the marketplace. We believe this bill will certainly improve that. We believe it's important for consumers and for the retailers to have that confidence in the marketplace. That's why we're here today, and that's why we hope the committee will support the bill.