Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for York—Simcoe. I would not have enough time to comment on everything he raised. He wanted to get on the record and I appreciate that is his job. Let me pick up on two things he said.
He mentioned farmers. Certainly there are farmers on Manitoulin Island and in the Highway 11 and Highway 17 areas of my riding. It occurred to me last Thursday as I listened to the committee testimony that I referred to earlier that there will be some suppliers of services that will need to pass on their very significant new transportation costs. Farmers are among them.
I do not know if governments can be involved in this. However, I think our society has to accept that for those sectors of the economy for which transportation, and therefore fuel costs, are significant, the passing on of a cost does not bring with it a penalty. In fact, those who purchase these goods must be prepared to accept that the suppliers of these goods have a need to pass on some of these costs.
We need our farmers. We need the forestry sector. We need all sectors of the economy to survive and thrive in this beautiful country of ours.
I am not sure this can be regulated. I am hopeful, with the encouragement of governments at all levels, that the passing on to the next level in the chain of transportation costs can be done in an orderly and managed way.
Finally, on competition, I think the petroleum monitoring on which the former chairman from St. Catharines led us would go a long way toward helping that.