Mr. Speaker, I am certainly very interested in those questions. Certainly the Conservatives find themselves sitting across the table from some of these folks in the fuel industry more often than those of us in this caucus do. It would be interesting to know what level they would find acceptable for the price of fuel or oil in the world we live in today.
In fact, would the Conservatives be willing, as I am asking the government to do, to put it to these business folks in the fuel industry that what happened over the Labour Day weekend and has happened since then is profiteering and gouging of the most obvious sort? That is what we want to know.
As I was saying, a 10¢ per litre difference may not sound like much, but every penny per litre generates an additional $2.5 million in profit for the industry every day. For the period around Labour Day, when the difference between the price and what would have been justified by crude oil prices was much greater, at as much as 45¢ per litre at the peak, the industry was bringing in $112.5 million per day in excess profits.
This is what was going on while the men and women in my riding, truckers, farmers, small business people, seniors on fixed incomes, low income people and people working at minimum wage, were having to pay these exorbitantly high prices. There was nobody out there to champion their cause. There was nobody out there except for the New Democrats and except for me in Sault Ste. Marie to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. I spent a morning on a road in Sault Ste. Marie with the truckers as we slowed down traffic to send a message to the industry and to government that something needed to be done immediately or the truckers who were standing with me that morning were going to be out of business.
These truckers were not willing to, nor should they have to, subsidize industry in northern Ontario or in consequence subsidize the fuel industry across this country and around the world. Out on that road, as we stopped traffic and handed out leaflets to people through their vehicle windows, the truckers were asking people to contact the government and let it know that it needs to get tough with the industry.
As we stopped traffic and handed out leaflets to people, the truckers were saying to me that perhaps the government needs to put in place something like the Ontario Energy Board. Then, if the industry wants to increase the cost of fuel, it would have to go before the board and justify that increase, because we all need energy and fuel. We cannot live without it. It is part of the infrastructure of any economy that we are going to have in this country, particularly in the northern and rural parts of Canada.
My constituents were asking for this government to do as I and my colleagues in the NDP caucus have done, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, in consultation, from a position of strength, face to face with the industry people to ask them to justify any increase in the cost of fuel. If that increase can be justified in a fair market scenario, in a fair marketplace, then okay, God bless them. We are okay with that. We are not against a free market. We are not against people making a bit of profit on the services and products they deliver, but profiteering and gouging should not be part of that marketplace. They should not be part of what we are doing.
We ask the members of the government to work with their leadership to put together a real vehicle, not what is in Bill C-66, as our critic from Windsor West says. What the government has put in place to have people call and let the government know when prices have gone up too much or there is gouging is nothing more than a website, with no ability, no resources and no facility to actually use that information to challenge the industry. It is an exercise in smoke and mirrors.
That is the first thing I want to say this morning. The government has to get serious. The government cannot use tax dollars to subsidize the fuel industry. The government should not be doing this, because the fuel industry is doing very well, thank you very much, and does not need to be subsidized.
The industry has already benefited over the last 10 to 15 years from the corporate tax cuts that the government has given to it. The government does not need to give the industry more now by spending hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize it even further.
However, as I said, because the government is not going to do anything further on this and is not going to get tough with the industry, the little bit of money the government is going to give out is welcome, and some of it is being given because we forced the government to put it into the budget last spring.
Because of that, we will probably support this bill on principle as it goes through for second reading. Then we can sit down at committee and bring amendments forward to improve this bill and actually make it work in the way everyone wants it to work.
I want to comment on a couple of the other pieces of this bill that are problematic. One is the flow of money for low income people who deserve it, need it and want it, and who actually needed it yesterday. We are concerned that the money is not going to get out the door fast enough.
I am told that if we pass the bill, the money will move quickly, but this is a five year program so we are afraid it will be piled up at the end of the five years whereas people need it most right now. We are afraid they might not get it, particularly if we go into an election in the next week or two. Who knows? That money will be left hanging and the folks who need it will be left hanging.
These people are facing the spectre of provincial governments clawing back this money. Because the government has not done anything in this bill about that, we will be making amendments when it goes to committee to stop the provinces from clawing the money back.
In fact, the provinces claw everything back from our most at risk and marginalized citizens. In regard to money that flows from the federal government for the poorest of our citizens across the country, with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to the provinces the federal government tells them that it is alright, these are the rules and they can claw it back and then use it for whatever they want as it does not necessarily have to go into supports and programs for the poor and those at risk.
We have seen this happen in many programs, particularly with the child tax benefit supplement that flows to those most at risk and marginalized in our communities. We are afraid that in some jurisdictions the fuel tax rebate will be clawed back by the provinces.
For example, we know, because we have been in contact with the people and have read some of the media stories, that the Northwest Territories plans to do exactly that. There is not a whole lot of money up there either and they are looking for ways to get dollars. If this is the only way the Northwest Territories can get money out of the federal government to help it with some of its financial challenges, it is going to do it.
As its representatives told us when we called them, those are the rules imposed by the federal government. That is the template the federal government has out there right now for any money that flows to individuals in different jurisdictions. If provincial or territorial governments decide to claw this money back, they can and in fact are encouraged to do so. The Northwest Territories is going to do just that. What I want to know is what other provinces will follow suit.
We had an example of this with Mike Harris in Ontario from 1995 to 2003. My God, there was nothing that he did not take away from the poor of that province. Few can forget the money he took away from pregnant mothers, the money for milk that he said was beer money.