Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity today to speak about gasoline prices.
On February 18, 2003, I asked a question of the Minister of Industry. I called upon him to get the Competition Bureau involved so that there would be a study of the behaviour of all companies involved in the gasoline industry during the first quarter of 2003, when prices began to skyrocket.
At that time, the minister's response to my second question was this:
Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Standing Committee on Industry will be examining this issue. I am very pleased to know that the committee will be looking into this situation.
I recall that the parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, had contributed to committee unanimity on an examination of the gasoline price issue. I must also point out that there was unanimity among all MPs on the committee.
Today we held the first hearings on this matter and met with the Competition Commissioner. He said in closing: “I have no evidence of collusion, nor do I have any formal evidence that it exists”.
But he also told me that there is a problem of transparency in this area. There have been some twenty studies over the past ten years on the gasoline sector and, each time, the public is not convinced that the conclusions have indeed been objective and realistic. The latest Conference Board study, in which we know the gas and oil companies were involved, lacked the necessary transparency.
Would the government be prepared to carry out an independent investigation that would be entrusted to some body along the lines of the International Trade Organization, an independent Canadian body equipped to carry out this type of study? Or is the minister, with all the time he has had to reflect on this matter, and with all the reported surpluses, the profits generated by the gas and oil companies over the first quarter of 2003, still not convinced today that he should exercise the authority he has under the law and ask the Competition Board to address this matter and carry out a very open investigation that will not stop with the obvious short-term evidence but will address the entire situation, or preferably instead opt for the independent study the Competition Commissioner expressed a desire for today?