Mr. Speaker, I listened to the two ministers speak and I was also a part of the committee that went all day last Thursday on fuel prices. The Liberal line that we are getting today is so very different from the Liberal line we got on Thursday.
For example, the Minister of Industry spent considerable time defending the refineries and the refinery margin in a way that makes some common sense. We do need more refinery capacity. Billion dollar investments take a long time to build and we need investor confidence to achieve that, but what we witnessed on Thursday was Liberals attacking the refining sector, accusing it of gouging, and doing everything it could to remove any onus or responsibility from the government to address the issue of fuel pricing through the one thing it can control, which is the taxation regime.
The Liberals were taking every opportunity to slag the industry, particularly the refining sector, to accuse the industry of price gouging, and to start panic in the consumers by bringing a high profile to a few stations across the country that had decided to push the envelope on pricing. They brought a magnifying glass to that which helped create a consumer panic which I witnessed when I left committee at 10 p.m. There were lineups in Ottawa of people trying to buy 99ยข or $1.09 a litre gasoline.
What is it that leads the Liberal members to have so many different messages which are actually doing a great disfavour to the Canadian general cause?