Mr. Speaker, I have never, in my time here, seen a minister who is so ill-adept at handling this file as I have just heard from the minister. It is clear that he has not done his homework well. For the minister to suggest, as he has just done on the record here, that a 20% refining cost makes up the amount of cost of the petroleum product as we see it today is simply wrong.
Petroleum companies will tell us quite readily that to turn crude into gasoline it costs 3¢ to 4¢ a litre. We see profits of 11¢, 12¢, 13¢ and 14¢. Indeed, the minister's own Department of Natural Resources, in a briefing yesterday, told some us members that it has noticed a 3¢ or 4¢ increase in the past few years, much of it as a result of a compression in the industry at the refining level.
The minister cites stuff like it is going out of style. He says that the government has no problem with 70% of the industry being independents. What is clear is that the wholesale price is fixed to the price that is given by a group of individuals who do not compete against each other.
From what the minister suggested a few minutes ago, I do not believe he spoke to what the industry committee said many years ago regarding collusion and conspiracy. The committee said that we do not need to have collusion and conspiracy in an environment where we have three players that do not compete against each other from region to region.
When we see this kind of a graph put out by the Department of Natural Resources we ask a simple question: Who is providing the information to the minister? MJ Ervin & Associates, a company that works with the major oil companies, is providing the minister with the information. So much for transparency from the Conservative Party.
When is the hon. member going to do what this hon. member has asked for and live up to the commitment, not just in terms of cancelling programs for the poor and the environment with respect to EnerGuide, but to have an independent, transparent oil price monitoring agency for the benefit of Canadians and one that would give us the truth? Canadians do not want the canned answers that are coming from the oil industry which the minister is mimicking.