Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be asking two questions and my colleague Madame LeBlanc will be asking one, and then we'll put it out to our guests to respond.
I must say, Mr. Chair, that I'm quite disappointed with the answers so far today. Right across the country, from the lower mainland to Atlantic Canada, Montreal, and Toronto, we have Canadian families who have been very, very, hard hit by the high price of gasoline. They need it to get to work, yet they don't have options. I don't think they have had, so far in this hearing, an adequate explanation of why the prices are so high. They're concerned about the spiking when crude oil prices go up, but we're talking about old stock still in the system. They're concerned about the stickiness. When the prices go down internationally, the prices at the retail level don't come down. They're concerned about the fact that the prices go up far higher than is justified by international variations.
I want to quote from a study that was done last month:
At the price of $1.34 a litre being reported in the media in Toronto today, the industry is making an excess profit of 25 cents per litre, based on normal production costs, today's crude oil price, today's exchange rates, and taking into account all taxes.
I haven't heard an explanation of that discrepancy, which is taking money out of the pockets of ordinary Canadian families who are struggling to make ends meet.
That is my question that I would like to put out. I'd like to ask Mr. Corey and Mr. Labonté why the government has not yet implemented the recommendations from this committee. They date back to 2003. They very clearly called for a petroleum monitoring agency.
I'll now turn things over to Madame LeBlanc to ask our third question.