Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion today.
Our Liberal government supported measures to increase transparency in international and domestic gas pricing and the Liberal Party will support any measure to increase transparency in international and domestic gas pricing.
I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East. I want to commend him for his expertise on this file and his commitment to fairer and more transparent gas pricing and better value for Canadian consumers. He has worked diligently on this for a number of years and I think he would be, within the House of Commons, the leading expert on this file. I think members from all parties listen intently to him when he speaks to this issue and we look forward to hearing from him in a few minutes.
We support any measures that will lead to greater transparency in gas pricing. The motion proposes to strengthen the Competition Act to allow for investigations into gas prices, specifically their relationship to the refining margin and corporate profits.
The fact is that back in October 2004, the Liberal government tabled Bill C-19, which included amendments to the Competition Act. The proposed changes would have strengthened Canada's competition framework to the benefit of both consumers and businesses. The amendments would have benefited consumers by providing authority for the Commissioner of Competition to seek restitution for consumer loss resulting from false or misleading representations. The bill introduced a general administrative monetary penalty provision for abuse of dominance in any industry. It would have removed the airline specific provision from the act to return it to a law of general application, increased the level of administrative monitoring penalties for deceptive marketing practices and, most important, decriminalized the pricing provisions such that the Competition Bureau could act more effectively.
Beyond that, in October 2004 the previous Liberal government went significantly further to ensure better pricing for Canadian consumers. We introduced a plan that would address both short term and long term measures to help Canadians deal with higher energy costs and that would provide direct financial assistance and energy cost benefits to more than three million low income seniors and low income families with children. We introduced the EnerGuide program to help families lower their future household heating costs. Our plan made more and better pricing information available to consumers while taking legislative steps, as I described earlier, to deter anti-competitive practices. The plan fast-tracked money from municipalities for public transit.
The Liberal government took a comprehensive approach to provide timely short term relief but also helped lay out the groundwork for meaningful and long term benefits through greater efficiency and conservation. What we proposed was not only good for the environment in terms of reducing consumption but also good for Canadian consumers by reducing their monthly costs. Our proposals would help make homes and buildings more energy efficient as a key measure for helping Canadians offset higher pricing for energy and to reduce their costs.
Incentives that were provided would have helped Canadians save energy and money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that were contributing and contribute to climate change. They were part of project green, the Government of Canada's action plan to help build a more sustainable environment.
In fact, all the measures we provided, whether it was the energy cost benefit of $565 million to be paid out to 3.1 million low income families and seniors to help them address higher energy costs, or the changes to the Competition Act through Bill C-19, would have made a significant difference in terms of reducing the disproportionate impact of higher energy costs on all things but particularly on low income Canadians.
We invested $800 million over a period of two years in public transit infrastructure. We also provided greater transparency in the pricing and competition oversight model.
In November 2005, Bill C-66, the Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, further strengthened transparency in the energy market with a $15 million investment in the Office of Energy Price Information to monitor energy price fluctuations and to provide clear ongoing information to Canadians. We provided another $13 million to allow the Department of Industry to take further steps to deter anti-competitive practices, including strengthening the Competition Bureau and the Competition Act.
The fact is that what is proposed in this motion by our colleagues in the Bloc was actually done by the previous Liberal government, both in terms of strengthening the Competition Act, and improving the degree to which the government can act to reduce anti-competitive policies, and by helping all Canadian consumers, but particularly low income Canadian consumers, to reduce their energy costs and to deal with higher energy costs and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In fact, the Liberal government was doing this. The Bloc helped defeat that government. It helped to elect and continues to support a Conservative government that has actually reduced and eliminated most of these programs that were benefiting Canadian consumers, reducing their energy costs and at the same time protecting the environment.
When we were actually strengthening the Competition Act such that the Competition Bureau would have the ability to act when it needed to, the current government, as we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, does not see this as being necessary and believes that the Competition Act and the Competition Bureau are functioning exactly as they ought to. He does not see any need for changes.
We saw the need for changes. In fact, the member for Pickering—Scarborough East helped lead the charge. The member helped us develop and build the case and the policy prescriptives required to strengthen the Competition Act and the ability of the Competition Bureau to act. It was that Liberal member who actually helped our Liberal government develop the policies to make this happen, but it is the Conservative government that refuses to act.
Respectfully I say to my colleagues in the Bloc that I support this motion, but our government had done this. It was the support of the Bloc to defeat that government and to elect and support the Conservative government that actually denied Canadians the opportunity to have more transparent pricing for gasoline for consumers and, at the same time, to have important measures that can reduce consumption and protect the environment.
I think it is important that we work together as parliamentarians, particularly in a day and age when minority parliaments seem to be more the habit than the exception, on areas where there is a common interest and that we do not simply reduce our deliberations to narrow partisanship. When there are policies of each other's that we can support, when we are in government or in opposition, I think we have to take our partisan blinders off from time to time and work together to advance policies.
Once again, I am saying that it was the Liberal government in October of 2004 and through to November of 2005 that had introduced policies which would have accomplished exactly what the Bloc seeks to accomplish in the motion today. We support this motion because we do believe that it is the right direction, but it is important to recognize that we actually had done this as a government in terms of introducing the policies to the House of Commons to move forward with this.
I would hope that when we return to Liberal government the Bloc will support these initiatives as we move forward to build a more competitive, more open, fairer and more transparent regulatory structure around gas pricing, but also to build a cleaner, greener environment by helping Canadians reduce their energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.