moved for leave to introduce Bill C-384, an act respecting the Energy Price Commission.
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce in the House today a bill to establish the Energy Price Commission. This bill will establish a commission to regulate the wholesale and retail price of gasoline. The purpose of price regulation is to avoid unreasonable increases which affect the cost of living and depress business activity.
The bill will facilitate reasonable consistency in prices from province to province, allowing for production and distribution costs.
The regulations will further minimize the risk of collusion in pricing and will prevent dominant suppliers from setting unreasonable prices.
The bill links the issue of price control to competition. Any investigation of an alleged offence under the Competition Act which is related to gasoline pricing will be remitted by the competition tribunal to the commission for investigation, and the commission will report to the tribunal before it makes a determination or order on the matter.
Many Canadians are looking for this bill so that gasoline and oil companies will stop the gouging of consumers, business people and farmers in Canada.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)