Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot from all sides of the House. I know there are members who feel very passionately about this. Those happen to be the very members who have actually taken the time to study this, who have not allowed CPPI or an oil company or the Competition Bureau to help them write their speech or to find out some kind of mythical idea about what this industry is all about.
The member for Tobique—Mactaquac and his colleague from Markham are good examples of people who simply do not want to engage in a real cerebral discussion of what this bill is all about. That is exactly why they do not want it to go to committee.
That member who comes from New Brunswick made a statement about the fact that everything is hunky-dory in this industry. He should look at the New Brunswick select committee all-party resolution of that province last year which indicated that we needed effective laws dealing with predatory pricing that currently do not exist.
I want to get into the Stentor question because Stentor has written a letter expressing surprise that it was possible for the Competition Bureau to go around looking for people to find opposition to the bill. It is kind of ironic that it is this bill which is in fact giving them the tools to resolve the problem that exists. Stentor may have a huge problem with respect to the power of the vertically integrated suppliers that relate to the Internet service provider.
The opposition is correct that the bill was about the oil industry, but it seems to me there are a lot of other industries and small businesses, which the people on the other side wish to advocate, that are being decimated day in and day out. That is not hypothetical; that is reality.
With respect to the retail industry, we are asking in Canada to do what the parent companies cannot do in the United States. The legislation is designed very specifically to bring the Competition Act up to speed with the rest of the world before we recognize that in Ontario, where gas prices have increased by eight cents a litre, it is not a function of competition.
I do not know what it takes for members of parliament to try to understand this issue. There were 20,000 retailers a few years ago. There are less than 10,000 now. There will probably be fewer in days to come.
Consumers across the country know that when gas prices move up uniformly or fall uniformly it is a function of the wholesalers that have absolute control over the retail price. They are not separate. They are not segregated. The bill simply tries to address a safeguard which, in summation, was the recommendation of the Competition Bureau in 1986.
I ask the House to put aside the biases, the willingness to play politics, to stand up for small business and to stand up for the truth. At the end of the day that would ensure what we do not have today in the oil industry in Canada, a truly competitive Canadian market.