Mr. Speaker, I have never seen Conservative consumer legislation, ever, that does not have an offset for private business.
In this case, the government wants to turn a random inspection system done by government inspectors which the industry will trust over to the government's private sector friends who can charge an arm and a leg for the inspections. They will be making appointments, I presume, so the retailer will know when the inspector is showing up. I cannot think of a worst case scenario than what the government is proposing.
We had a very similar situation in Manitoba a number of years ago with automobile inspections. The inspections were done on a random basis over the course of several governments over many years. The public was satisfied with that system. Cars were called in on a random basis once or twice over a 10-year period and the required repairs were done. The Filmon Conservative government turned the system over to the private garages, which have a conflict of interest. Not only are they certifying the vehicles as safe, but they are also doing repairs. There is an incentive for them to drive up the repairs. When this system was brought in under the Filmon Conservative government, the cost of low-end cars doubled overnight.
The other thing is that an inspection is not done unless the car is being sold. If someone drove a car for 15 years, it would never be inspected no matter how many things need to be done to it. An inspection is only done when there is a change in ownership and the garage hits the owner up for maybe hundreds of dollars' worth of repairs.
This is the type of Conservative approach to consumer affairs. There is never an approach like defending air passengers by passing air passenger protection because there is no offset in that for private business. That is what the Conservative government is all about.
We would like to support legislation like this, but we would like to see it being fair to the public. We do not want it to be legislation that turns some of the public sector over to the private sector so that it can benefit. I do not think we are going to see a lot of happy private businesses.
I would like to know when we are going to hear from a Conservative speaker on this bill. I have been waiting three days now for one of the government members to speak because I have some interesting questions to ask about an unknown part of this bill, and that is the rollback of odometers. While it is covered under the Weights and Measures Act, this bill would actually increase the penalties which would cover the rollback of odometers. That is great news. Why is there no mention of this in the government press release? As a matter of fact, rollback of odometers probably costs the Canadian public much more than what shortages at gasoline pumps cost them.
I would like somebody to answer that question.