Mr. Speaker, in our region there has been a great deal of concern about where we are going in terms of energy policy.
People who leave Toronto, fill up their gas tanks, drive six hours up the road to Englehart and pay 20¢ to 30¢ more and then when they go into towns like Kirkland Lake and Iroquois Falls they pay even more. They have a sense that they are being ripped off.
We have families and widows on fixed incomes who do not believe they will be able to actually heat their houses this winter. Where are the teeth in any government policy to ensure that the oil companies are not ripping the public off and gouging the public continually? Every time we turn around it seems that our working families in the north and our farming families are paying through the nose while these companies profiteer off their backs.
It is well and good to give a rebate but where is the commitment from the government to actually hold these companies to account so they stop ripping off our people?