Mr. Speaker, like most actual conservatives who believe in markets, I was amused by the Minister of Industry's staged photo op in a toy store on Tuesday. I find the notion that, somehow, merchants can be shamed by the Competition Bureau into lowering their prices is, to use the Prime Minister's economic qualifier, “crazy economic policy”.
If the Minister of Industry is really interested in preventing price gouging, why does he not look at some of his government's own market distorting policies that increase consumer prices, like tariffs, fuel taxes, an oligopolistic telecom market, and even supply management?