I am somewhat reassured. Indeed, I was thinking that if the tolerance level for the passing grade for the assessment of a pump supervisor were 30%, it would be far from the 0.5% at the pump.
At the end of the day, I told myself—and I've already said this in committee—that at first glance, I could not imagine how a supplier, especially a retailer, could tamper with the pumps, because at some point, it would become obvious. The lower the supply, the more there may be attempts to tamper. The gap would therefore increase and there would be a significant risk that people might realize this. I believe there is a low risk of people trying to tamper with these devices.
Earlier on someone referred to a tolerance level of 0.5%. That seems rather normal to me, you need it. You can aspire to perfection, but it is hard to achieve. If members of the House of Commons were supposed to be 99.5% perfect, I can assure you things would be different. Well, we tolerate more. As far as possible, we must aim for perfection.
In terms of fraud, I would be quite surprised. The problem, I would submit, is the price. If the price is $1 per litre—I think 40 billion litres are being sold annually in Canada—one tenth of a cent difference amounts to $40 million. If it is half a cent, it would be $200 million, or 10 times higher than the annual gap noted on these devices on average, which is worth $20 million. On the other hand, a one-cent difference amounts to $400 million. Under these conditions, I think it is far more important to watch prices. Retailers would benefit much more from changing their prices by a few tenths of a cent than by tampering with the pump.
Earlier on I referred to the opinions of Option consommateurs. I would tend to agree, especially given that the audits are carried out by professionals, relatively frequently. A number of comments you made earlier on concerned me. They brought to mind a host of ways in which to tamper with the meter or the products.
I will give you an example. Last weekend I filled up four 20-litre gas containers for maintenance purposes at my farm house, but I realized I had pumped 23 litres into them. Perhaps I could have lodged a complaint. Perhaps you would have done so, given the fact that these 20-litre containers actually contained three additional litres.