Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and also to the minister who spoke before him who is from my home province of British Columbia.
When I left my riding of New Westminster—Coquitlam this morning, gas prices were over $1.37 a litre. B.C. has one of the highest prices for gasoline in the country. It is 12¢ a litre higher than it is here in Ottawa, but gas prices all over Canada are skyrocketing. The cost of gasoline is becoming an increasing burden on working families.
At the same time as families are being squeezed, the big oil companies are reaping record profits. Actually, Exxon Mobil earned $40.6 billion in profits last year. That works out to over $77,000 every second of every day last year. It is incredible.
I want to ask the member, why does his government not work for ordinary folks, for ordinary Canadians by protecting prices at the pump, by stopping this massive gouging? It is still giving massive subsidies to the big oil companies and $1.5 billion to the tar sands. Why not appoint an oil and gas ombudsman to investigate consumers' complaints about the major oil and gas companies? Why not just do something to help ordinary Canadians?