Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know, from his days in the provincial legislature, that Doug Galt and Joe Tascona, and many of his colleagues, supported four square the proposals I had made to make changes to the Competition Act and they were not surprised that the Competition Bureau was not able to find any questions of conspiracy.
The threshold of determination of evidence and to determine an anti-competitive act under the criminal provisions is too high. The member and his Conservative colleagues from the province of Ontario would agree with me. I am not interested in putting these people in jail. I am interested in stopping their practice of putting small independents out of business and continuing to shut down refineries and important critical strategic facilities, thus allowing them to raise prices in a hair trigger-fashion the moment there is talk of some disruption around the world.
We are more vulnerable in Canada than other places, as I explained, such as Katrina and so many other instances. Even today the wholesale price of gasoline is higher in Canada than the United States. When we strip away the same gasoline, we strip away the taxes.
The hon. member knows full well that the price of gasoline today is now controlled by a handful of people who do not compete against each other. I want to make it clear for the member. When the Prime Minister ran in 2004, he said he would drop the GST after 85¢ a litre. That means, in effect, a savings at $1.10 average across Canada of 5¢ a litre, not the one penny proposed under the GST.
We need to deal with this. The time for reform has passed. The fact that it did not happen means we are paying $1.10 today. That is unfair. The hon. member should be on board, as he was when he was the provincial member in Ontario.