Madam Speaker, I will add my comments on this very important bill a little later, but I would like to ask for a comment from the hon. member.
He will recall that it was his party in 1990 that began the process of selling Petro-Canada. At the time it was seen as a very wise move given the need for capitalization and the changes that were necessary. Ten years later, we see that gasoline prices have now hit their highest levels and that although retail margins are a little weak, we are now seeing refinery margins in the order of 18 cents a litre. By the way, that never gets discussed by the press because for some reason there seems to be a conspiracy of silence, whatever the case may be.
More specifically, to the question of the number of shares held by the Canadian public through the government, it is 49.4 million shares out of 271 million common shares in Petro-Canada, at $40.72, which is about $2 billion in potential revenue.
I wonder whether the hon. member has given any thought to the idea that rather than the $15 billion, if we amortize that over a number of years, that has been spent by the Canadian taxpayer to create Petro-Canada in the first place—and we can debate the merits of whether it was there to remove refinery capacity in the country, because that is exactly what has happened—would he consider or at least give some thought to, based on what Bill C-3 is proposing, the notion of returning $2 billion in income taxes to Canadians as opposed to simply returning it to general revenue?