Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this issue on behalf of my constituents of Port Moody--Westwood--Port Coquitlam.
As the transport critic for the official opposition, I rise to call on the Liberal government to take action on the rapidly increasing price of fuel for Canadians.
I am a bit distressed by some of the comments that I have heard tonight by my Liberal colleagues opposite. Some of them have suggested that the government has no plan at all, that they hope that the continued Liberal inaction will help wean Canadians off of petroleum and off of this issue. For example, the Minister of the Environment said that high gas prices are not necessarily a bad thing and that in fact they are “actually good for Canada in the medium and the long term”. He is on the record as advocating greater use of both bicycles and public transit.
I agree with both these latter initiatives. The Leader of the Conservative Party is a very strong advocate of public transit. On August 4 of this year he announced our party's plan to allow commuters to deduct the cost of their monthly transit passes from their income taxes as part of a made in Canada clean air policy that would promote increased transit ridership and result in reduced traffic congestion, smog and greenhouse gases.
The Liberals have not yet adopted a similar position. They are more interested in taxing Canadians than in giving them real incentives to take public transit.
However, Canada is not a nation that can last simply on public transit such as Hong Kong where an excellent urban transit system and greater use of bicycles are a clear solution to rising oil prices. Instead, we are a country that spans an entire continent encompassing a full seven time zones. Our territory is slightly greater than that of China and our population is roughly twice that of the Netherlands. Many Canadians do not know this but Canada is more than twice the size as the Roman Empire was at its peak in size.
We are a relatively small population spread out over a vast land. For example, the distance between Ottawa and my riding of Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam is greater than the distance between Toronto and Mexico City. Halifax is closer to Europe than it is to Vancouver.
The need to facilitate interprovincial trade is essential to both our economy and to our identity as Canadians. Thus on February 25, 2003 when the former Minister of Transport, the Hon. David Collenette, tabled “Straight Ahead: A Vision for Transportation in Canada”, he highlighted the need for efficient movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity and a sustainable quality of life based on competitive markets and targeted use of regulatory and spending interventions. Let me repeat that. Two and a half years ago the then Liberal Minister of Transport saw the efficient movement of goods and people as central to our economic prosperity and quality of life.
When former transport minister Collenette made his statement, 100% of the means of transportation between our cities and regions and provinces was dependent on hydrocarbons. In fact, when he proposed a high speed train for the Montreal-Toronto corridor, the technology he proposed would have required fossil fuels. Nothing has changed. Despite a dozen years of Liberal talk we have seen no concrete actions by the government that would significantly reduce our reliance on hydrocarbons.
When the Minister of the Environment approves of higher gas prices, he is turning his back on the efficient movement of people and goods and supporting the type of inflation that threatens the very economic prosperity and quality of life that the former transport minister claimed the government supported.
Already StatsCanada is reporting the impact of high gas prices on the economy. It stated that in August “consumer prices rose 2.6% compared with those of a year earlier mainly because gasoline soared by 20.1%”. On September 22, Ted Carmichael, chief economist at JP Morgan Securities Canada, predicted that Canada's inflation rate could reach 3.5% or 4% in the next couple of months as a result of spiralling gas prices. In fact, even as far back as June of this year when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business surveyed its 100,000 members, fully 78% of its members cited rising energy prices as their top concern.
That is hardly a surprise because Canada's business leaders are always ahead of governments and they truly understand the links between fuel prices and distribution costs. They know that rising fuel prices are reflected in the price of fresh fruit, merchandise and household items. They are aware that fuel costs are a component of almost everything we buy and everything we sell. In fact, already representatives of the Canadian Trucking Alliance have been quoted as saying that a 25% fuel charge is currently being applied to most truck shipments and this will undoubtedly be reflected in the price of most consumer and business items.
Last week the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that soaring energy prices are squeezing most small businesses and pushing one in five into the red. Small and medium size businesses are the engine of our economy, so if high energy prices are negatively affecting small businesses right across Canada, the government should listen.
In British Columbia, Laura Jones, CFIB's Vancouver based vice-president, said that the vast majority of small businesses, more than 95%, have fewer than 50 employees. Eleven per cent of B.C.'s small businesses report that they are actually losing money directly due to fuel prices, and a whopping 68% have reported significantly lower profits.
Predictably, the most vulnerable small businesses are in the transportation sector where 32% of operators say they are losing money. That means that one in three transport companies are losing money because of high fuel prices. Already Air Canada and WestJet have introduced fuel surcharges and contemplated other strategies such as reducing baggage allowance and carrying fewer pillows and blankets on domestic flights.
However, the two transportation sectors that are getting savaged the most are taxis and independent truckers. Both are in situations where they are not easily able to pass on higher costs to their customers. For example, in most cities taxi authorities want to ensure that taxis can carry passengers large and small, as well as families and those with mobility challenges. It is not uncommon for them to require a taxi operator to drive a full size car, such as a Chevy Caprice or a Ford Crown Victoria. Neither of these is easy on gas, but cabbies are generally not allowed to drive Toyota Echos and Daimler Smart Cars by law.
As a result, rising fuel bills are really hurting taxi drivers. Cabbies are caught between a rock and a hard place, the rock being rising fuel prices and the hard place being local requirements and metered fares. The result has been taxi driver demonstrations and desperate and unheard pleas for the government to listen and to take action.
Independent truckers are in a similar spot, caught between rising fuel prices and low freight rates. The results here included a 47 day blockage of the entry to the port of Vancouver by 1,200 members of the Vancouver Container Truckers Association in July and August, and an 11 site, 500 truck demonstration that blocked New Brunswick highways 2, 11 and 17 for three days in early September. A more attentive government would have noticed that fuel prices were a central issue of both protests, but the Liberals are not known for listening.
Given that taxes make up roughly 40% of the pump price of gasoline, one would think that the government has ample room to take action. However, there is no political will to do so. In fact the member for Ajax--Pickering actually said, “The worst thing we could do is slash what little we collect because then we're not working toward any kind of solution”. I suspect that his kind of little amount is quite different from mine.
Budget estimates pegged total fuel revenues from the 10¢ a litre excise tax at $4.68 billion this year. In addition, last year the federal government collected $1.198 billion in gasoline GST revenues. That is roughly $7 billion, or about 3.7% of total federal revenues. Last year's GST revenues of roughly $1.2 billion were based on an average pump price of roughly 84¢ for the period May 2004 to April 2005. For every 10¢ per litre increase in fuel, Ottawa's GST revenues increase by $175 million a year. According to M.J. Ervin Associates the Canadian average pump price on September 13, the last date for which they have a Canadian average price, was $1.099 per litre.
If the May 2004 to April 2005 average was 84¢, and if the current price stays at $1.10 a litre, the Liberal government will bring in an extra $455 million in GST revenue this year, or roughly $14.15 from every man, woman and child in the country. That is $455 million that was not in the budget and was not expected for current expenditures. It is money that comes from a tax on a tax. More important, it is money the Liberals want to put into their election slush fund.
Soon Canadians will hear of home heating fuel rebates and similar ill-conceived plans from the Liberals that did not work before and will not work again if these Liberals are to manage them. Canadians do not just want a break on heating bills, they want a break on the price of lettuce, taxi fares, appliances, fast food, and children's clothes. Unless fuel prices drop, all of these items will increase in price because they are all carried by truck.
I call on the government to take action today against rising fuel prices, or during the next election Canadians will be asked to choose between a Conservative government that understands Canada's transportation needs and a Liberal government that has no plan, no agenda, but pockets full of disposable taxpayers' dollars that it does not need.