Mr. Julian, the issue of the petroleum price monitoring agency, which included as part of its emphasis the idea of a weekly petroleum monitoring report, in fact originated from me and my party, and we implemented that in late 2005. Unfortunately, as you know, the government fell a few months later, prior to implementation, and the new government did not agree with that and the agency was killed.
The purpose for which that was created and why I struggled with this in 2002, long before the derivatives issue began to appear and create the kind of volatility that has been well expressed by others, was simply because there was never any agreement on what the problem was. So I thought we would let the facts speak for themselves, as the Americans do every week. It's not perfect, but at least every drop of petroleum energy is accounted for in that country. It's broken up; Americans treat energy very differently than we do. They divide it into PADDs, Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, because they see it as a strategic commodity.
I'm suggesting that we should catch up with the times. If Natural Resources Canada is spending taxpayers' money to provide Americans information about Canada, ought we not to divert a little of that tax money so that Canadians know how the supply and demand picture looks in this country?
I haven't changed my position in nine years. I don't plan to, either.