Mr. Speaker, the member for Oshawa recognizes the question of consumption and just how much of an effort the company in his riding is making toward energy efficiency in the automobile industry.
However, it does not really matter how much energy efficiency we are talking about. The hon. member seems content to view the status quo as acceptable. We on this side do not believe that. I think the hon. member would be hard pressed to point out that many of his own constituents, who I have dealt with over the years, do not like the status quo either.
There is wide evidence, including the Competition Bureau itself, that the bureau believed that there was a need for changes in the Competition Act, particularly as it deals with pricing provisions. That is why it supported Bill C-19 proposed by the government in 2004.
I do not want to keep doing this in terms of a lesson to the hon. members, certainly the newer members in the Conservative Party, but one of the reasons Canadians will never find a Competition Bureau that can actually find conspiracy or price fixing is not because of the structure of the market being highly concentrated but because the test required in the Competition Act is really set up in such a way that we will never be able to determine whether or not there has been anti-competitive activity, and not because it is a criminal burden but because the threshold of determination has to pass something called the undue test and be discussed in the House of Commons.
When the hon. member is referring to changes to the Competition Act, he only has to look at the recommendations of his own committee. Could the hon. member tell the House if he is prepared to live up to the former recommendations of the committee and recognize that the Competition Act, written by the oil industry in many respects, does need to be finished and would he square that with the position taken by the Competition Bureau itself only a year ago?