Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the amendments being proposed to the Competition Act. Section 96 of the act would be amended by adding the following after subsection (3):
(4) For the purpose of subsection (1), gains in efficiency cannot offset the effects of a lessening or prevention of competition unless the majority of the benefits derived or to be derived from such gains in efficiency are being or are likely to be passed on to customers within a reasonable time in the form of lower prices.
It goes on to talk about mergers and strengthening of dominant marketing positions. I would like to establish that as the basis upon which we will talk about this issue. It is funny that people within government are bringing forward ideas about competition and the Competition Act. I would like to mention some areas in which the government needs a little more competition. It directly pertains to gains in efficiency, prevention of competition, doing the right thing for the customers within a reasonable timeframe, lowering prices, and the whole idea of dominant market position. All these things factor into some of the stories I will tell.
We have the Canadian Wheat Board in western Canada. The government does not like competition with the wheat board and as a result it puts farmers like Andy McMechan in shackles. Rather than allowing farmers to sell their wheat of their own volition to whom they see fit, to operate outside the Canadian Wheat Board and thereby gain greater profits and seek higher prices for the grain they produce by the sweat of their brows, the government puts them in jail. That is ludicrous.
When the Canadian Wheat Board was initially set up it was ostensibly supposed to help farmer. Many farmers in western Canada are now asking to be cut free from this top down, bureaucratic and authoritarian institution. They want to be allowed to sell their grain as they see fit. They feel they can make more money and put more food on the table for their families. There are a lot of farmers in western Canada who might have been able to hang on to their farms despite the fact that wheat prices are not significantly higher today than they were during the great depression.
Many of these people would have been out of business a long time ago if it were not for economies of scale. They are losing their farms despite the fact that they produce wheat with modern farming machinery and wonderful tools at one of the more cost effective rates in the world. It is partly due to the Canadian Wheat Board.
Many farmers would be happy to grow wheat but they do not because they want to operate outside the totalitarian, top down institution that would jail them if they choose to grow wheat and sell it outside the wheat board. We should allow for some competition with regard to the wheat board.
The government across the way does not seem to be paying much attention but that is okay. I will go on to discuss Canada Post and maybe members will perk up.
In my home city of Calgary we used to have a service called T2P Overnight. T2P is the prefix of the postal code for downtown Calgary. T2P Overnight which was sometimes outside the public system for mail delivery used to deliver a standard letter overnight for 19 cents. That is quite a cost savings over what Canada Post charges. If it did not deliver the letter overnight it was free of charge. Can you imagine that, Mr. Speaker? I notice even you are nodding your head. You are quite impressed with that.
Businesses in downtown Calgary thought that was a great idea. They were saving money and they were guaranteed overnight delivery. If T2P Overnight did not get the mail there the next day, it was delivered free. No one could ask for much better than that. Maybe if we had allowed more competition to T2P Overnight we would have had less charges and better service.
However Canada Post and the government saw fit to enforce its monopoly on mail delivery. As a result, T2P Overnight was interfered with by the federal government. This local Calgary, Alberta, business, which was providing something more cheaply and more effectively than the federal government, was basically told that it had to shut its doors, that it was not allowed to do that.
It is not only the fact that the federal government goes ahead and tramples on the competition that is provided by the private sector, it even tramples on the competition that is provided by other levels of government.
Rather than pay Canada Post to deliver all its utility bills, the city of Calgary thought that if it were innovative and entrepreneurial it could save money for the taxpayers by hiring people to walk around eight hours a day as a flyer force of sorts to deliver the bills to the residents of the city of Calgary. It made some pretty good sense for the city to have its own delivery force. It would not have to be regulated or controlled by the federal government or, for that matter, by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. It probably would not have the same level of strike problems, which happen every two years, as we are all familiar with in this place. It would have saved the taxpayers a lot of money. It made sense on so many levels.
However the city of Calgary was challenged by the federal government, by the people across the way who read their newspapers today and try to ignore these things. As a result the city of Calgary had to pay out probably triple the amount of money to have the bills delivered through Canada Post when the other method would have been more effective.
It is interesting that the city of Calgary found that it actually had less problems with non-delivery of the mail by having it done by people for the city of Calgary. Nonetheless, the government did not see fit to allow for competition in Calgary.
It is not just that the federal government tramples on other levels of government. It is not just that it disallows private sector businesses to start up. The government goes even further than that. It will take something that already exists, for example, Federal Express or United Parcel Service, which provides perfectly fine private sector service to deliver courier packages across the country. The government saw fit, in what I will not even call its wisdom because it was frankly evil, to have Purolator Courier, an arm of Canada Post, compete with these private sector alternatives. Can anyone believe that?
Federal Express and United Parcel Service, and I could list all sorts of private sector couriers, do not have to compete with just the other private sector couriers, they have to compete with the federal government. The federal government uses Purolator Courier to compete against the other, already existing, private sector couriers in this country. It is crazy when we think about what the government does and yet the people across the way talk about competition.
I have even heard that the government uses the profits from Canada Post in terms of regular mail delivery to subsidize Purolator Courier to rob from Peter to pay Paul. It takes money out of taxes that UPS, FedEx, et cetera, pay to subsidize their competitor, Purolator Courier. It is crazy.
Air Canada is another example of where the government tinkered with the foreign ownership rules only after Canadian Airlines was basically allowed to collapse.
The final example is that of Petro-Canada. The government is so embarrassed about its size of market share in Alberta that it actually has Bronco Gas sell its gasoline in outlets that are other than Petro-Canada. It has 20% of taxpayer money propping up its crown corporation.
If the government really believes in competition, let it talk about the wheat board, Canada Post, Air Canada, Petro-Canada, and the list goes on.
Let freedom reign.