Mr. Speaker, I would first like to go back to the monitoring agency. My question to the member for Burnaby—New Westminster is this. The Bloc Québécois proposed the motion to create this monitoring agency at the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology in February 2003. In November 2003, a committee report recommended the creation of this agency. This has still not been done and it is worrisome.
Why? Because the first week of September, the net profit of oil refiners was 45¢ a litre, when we know that, at 7¢ a litre, they are making a reasonable profit. Consequently, since 2003, that is from 2004 to 2005, oil companies have increased their profits by $1.5 billion a year. We expect that $2 billion extra will be added to their profits, which were at $7 billion in 2003 and which will exceed $10 billion in 2006.
Here is the question we are asking ourselves. Why is the government maintaining its position and refusing to create this agency that would put money back directly into the pockets of taxpayers instead of into the pockets of big oil companies?