Mr. Speaker, people back home would recognize the absurdity of the situation we are in here.
We are dealing with a government that is trying to tell Canadians that what they are seeing with their own eyes is not reality. People see a huge spike in prices when they go to the pumps on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend. Yet by Saturday morning, the price has dropped. The government is telling Canadians that is just an aberration, that is just market forces at work. The government is telling Canadians that there is no collusion.
The day after hurricane Katrina hit, there was a 40¢ to 50¢ increase in the price of gasoline. Yet there was no evidence that the hurricane hit any of the reservoirs holding all the gasoline in our communities. People were seeing massive spikes in the price, yet we were being told that this was natural, that there were no unexpected increases.
Many times Canadians have come to us as politicians and told us that they know they are being gouged. They know there is a difference between high prices and gouging. The Conservative government, as well as the previous Liberal government, tell us that gouging does not exist by any stretch of the imagination, that we should just allow the companies to continue on their course.
I would like to ask the hon. member—