Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion from the Bloc Québécois. I will share my time with the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, with whom I am very pleased to work.
The motion reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should move an amendment to the Competition Act so that the Commissioner of Competition have the power to initiate investigations of the price of gas and the role of refining margins in the determination of the said price.
An amendment was also added to create a price monitoring agency.
I am particularly pleased to have this opportunity to speak since I heard the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, explain to us the position of his government. He is telling us that consumers must change their driving habits, refrain from idling their cars, inflate their tires properly and stay within speed limits. We have even been told about a program to change refrigerators and about the need for municipalities to do their share. That is anything but answering the question raised today by the Bloc Québécois with its motion about controlling the price of gasoline.
Last week, the refining margin of oil companies was 23¢ a litre, that is four times the reasonable margin. It has always been calculated—this has never been challenged by experts—that, to make a reasonable profit, refineries should take between 4¢ and 7¢ a litre. This is the international standard. It has been recognized and no one has ever challenged that amount. However, in March and April of last year, their margin was 15¢ a litre. Thus, theoretically, it was twice the reasonable profit that they should have taken for refining. Once again, last week, it was 23¢ a litre.
Thus, it is not surprising that declared profits and shareholders' dividends are constantly going up. For the eight big oil companies doing business in Canada, we are talking about $12 billion in profits, profits as high as the surplus of the Government of Canada. This is the reality. They are no longer playing in the small leagues. The government has chosen to favour a class of citizens, shareholders of big oil companies, at the expense of consumers. This is the hard reality, and it is what the Bloc Québécois wants to stop. Through all kinds of measures, the government is encouraging oil companies to rake in profits in a totally irresponsible way. It is profit at any cost, at the expense of consumers.
I am quite astounded that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources would tell us that consumers must change their driving habits. I agree, but perhaps companies should change their habits of making profits at the expense of consumers. The federal government has a role to play there.
There were investigations by the Competition Bureau in the past even though the current commissioner and her predecessors in recent years have all told us repeatedly that they could not investigate. In response to the questions they were asked, the companies said that there was no collusion. No one believes that anymore as gas prices go up almost automatically on the eve of every long weekend or summer vacation. Nobody is fooled by what is going on in the industry.
What we are saying today is that oil companies are acting irresponsibly with regard to refining margins in Canada. Refining is done regionally. Refineries located across Canada have downsized. These industries do the refining for their own competitors regionally. In fact, there is no competition. It is not like the supermarket system that can guarantee real competition by lowering prices to attract clients. That is how things work in the food industry, but not in the oil industry, and certainly not in the refining industry. Depending on the region, companies buy their oil from their competitor's refinery. Why? Because the number of refineries has been reduced in Canada. Competition has been tightened to the point where it has lead to scarcity. Refineries became scarce, so now oil has become scarce.
That allows all companies to raise their prices at the same time and also to increase their profit margin on refining. That is where the problem lies.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources has a problem if he does not see it. Maybe he also has problems with other issues and we could discuss it in due time, but he certainly has a problem if he does not understand how refining works. It is true that provinces are responsible for prices at the pump, but the federal government, through the Competition Act has the responsibility to ensure that there is no unfair competition and no collusion in refining. That is federal jurisdiction.
In simple terms, the Bloc motion asks, and I read it again:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should move an amendment to the Competition Act so that the Commissioner of Competition have the power to initiate investigations of the price of gas and the role of refining margins in the determination of the said price.
That is what we are asking the House to do. I cannot understand why the Conservatives do not support this proposal from the Bloc. It is in the interests of society as a whole that we be able to shed light on the unfair profits that end up in the pockets of the few shareholders of oil companies and, quite often, in the pockets of company presidents, who pay themselves generous bonuses at the end of the year because profits have increased. That is totally irresponsible when companies' profits increase every year and when we see, as we did last week, that profits and refining margins have increased fourfold, by 23¢ a litre.
These are not made-up figures, but statistics that are available and are monitored by experts. Last week, all the companies took a refining margin of 23¢ a litre, four times the usual profit margin of 4¢ to 7¢. In March and April, they were taking 15¢ a litre on average, twice the usual margin. It is not right that the companies should be able to play with these values. They took 15¢ on average in March and April and 23¢ last week. This represents an increase of 8¢ per litre of gas, and the only explanation for such a jump is that the companies took advantage of the shortage of refineries and supply to create artificial inflation.
This is what the Bloc Québécois wants to investigate. It wants to toughen the Competition Act to ensure that there is no collusion between these companies. If these investigations prove that there is no collusion, then at least we will have gotten to the bottom of things.
There is a problem when the Commissioner of Competition tells us that she does not have the authority to get to the bottom of things. It is difficult for me to understand some things, particularly that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, would say that there is no question of controlling gas prices and that all he is going to do is tell consumers to change how they drive or buy new refrigerators to combat the energy crisis in another way, or tell the municipalities to do their part.
Of course, everyone will have to do their part, but the oil companies should maybe start by doing their part and being completely transparent, explaining why the prices at the pump go up on the same day all across Quebec. In Montreal, four different companies at an intersection raise their prices at the pump at the same time on the same day. We want to try to find out why.
I see that I have only a minute left, so I will conclude by saying that the Bloc Québécois is clearly the only party in this House that cares about the interests of the public, of Quebeckers. In the federal government's jurisdiction, we are trying to show this government, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Natural Resources and all the ministers, including the ones from Quebec, that they do have the power to act in some respects. Once again, the Bloc Québécois has made a good suggestion, and we hope it will receive unanimous approval in this House.