Dan McTeague

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

What are the prices today? You don't have a problem with $1.28 a litre?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I can hear them howling again. I guess they do not like it when we put it right back on them.

The reality is that in the particular context of this price, it does not matter what energies, what new supplies or what new technologies are there, if they are controlled by the same structural inherent problems of the Competition Act, we will wind up with the same problem. Could he explain himself?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member actually suggesting that when it comes to a monitoring agency that it should be done by, as it is currently done, the very industry itself? The hon. members know that his information is coming from MJ Ervin & Associates whose prime clients are the major oil companies. Is that what he calls transparency or accountability?

I understand the member. He knows the work that we have done on this. He also knows that the report that was written by the Liberal committee on gasoline pricing, which is the essence of half of the recommendation that the motion has made here, deals with changing the criminal pricing provisions and turning them into the civil pricing provisions to prevent the kind of activity that took place in his province when ARCO came in and knocked out all the independents and, as a result, in his province today they are paying $1.28 a litre for gasoline when they should be paying $1.15 and not a penny more, taxes included.

Since the hon. member clearly has an idea of where gas prices are, and he thinks he knows where they are, maybe he could tell the House what the wholesale prices are in British Columbia today.

Maybe the hon. member could spend a bit more time getting his head out of the sand and tell us why prices under his watch have gone from an average of 85¢ a litre to $1.15 to $1.28 depending on the region. Maybe he could tell us today--

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is a little disingenuous for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry to talk about prices potentially going up as a result of a proposal in a bill. He knows full well, and his own Minister of Natural Resources is here, that a number of good initiatives have taken place. Perhaps if we were to build nuclear reactors to separate the bitumen in Cold Lake, they might find that those numbers will be reduced. At least they could try it.

The reality is that the prices are going up with the government doing nothing. The parliamentary secretary's minister said in the House just an hour ago that wholesale price for gas in the United States, and the margin on which refiners operate in the United States, is actually higher than in Canada. That is nonsense, pure nonsense.

I have a question for the member. For a long time, we have heard that the Conservatives do not want to take action on this, although the Ontario Conservatives have a much different position, or at least they did. For now, it is important to say that the former competition commissioner agreed that changes and amendments should be made to the Competition Act. The member for Oshawa, who is parliamentary secretary, does not want changes, but he has not denied everything that has been done over the past decade or so, changes supported by the Competition Bureau itself.

[Pesticide Management, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in an age where the rest of the developed world is trying to move toward better environmental stewardship, the government is deliberately going in the opposite direction. The government falsely claims it wants to clean up our environment, but today we learned that it has voluntarily agreed to loosen Canadian restrictions on pesticides for hundreds of fruits and vegetables, all in the name of loosening and lowering our standards to match those of the Republicans.

The integrity of Canada's food supply and health of Canadians should not be for sale or indeed placed in jeopardy. Why is the government once again bowing to the U.S.?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has cited a number of important points. It is interesting to hear some of the comments coming from the Conservative benches and, indeed, other members of Parliament who spend a considerable amount of time picking my brain to get my perspective on this industry. They know full well that we are on the right track in amending the Competition Act and they know full well that the price will continue to go up no matter what happens as long as they consistently take the position that there is nothing wrong with the Competition Act.

Could the hon. member tell us what impact that has had for her seniors in the riding and what that will mean for them this coming winter? How will they manage to make ends meet? Does the member know why the government will not act?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I find it sad that the Minister of Industry used only half of the time allotted to him to talk about the gasoline crisis that many consumers are going through.

Since he became a minister—we have seen this in telecommunications and other areas—prices have increased every time he has relied on market forces. I also rely on them, but I see that there are no solutions.

Does the hon. minister agree? I have heard these speeches before, even from my own ministers of industry, and they finally realized they were wrong. The Competition Bureau said in 2002-03 that as a minimum it had no difficulty with pricing provisions going from a criminal to a civil burden, particularly for predatory pricing and price discrimination, which is what got us into this problem to begin with.

Prices have gone up. Does the minister take the time consider what the price of gas will be tomorrow?

On the two propositions made by my colleagues and by the NDP, would he at least agree with the wisdom of the previous competition's leadership and agree to those changes to ensure that Canadians have transparency as opposed to simply relying on what he calls market forces and allowing whoever it is to set the prices? The fact is that there is a 3¢ difference between us and the United States, ex tax. Will the minister act today to protect the interests of consumers? Or are we going to hear more lip service and the same line from the same department?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member is quite aware of the situation, but instead of saying “collusion”, perhaps he might explain specifically to this House the importance of the amendment that we proposed to the Bloc Québécois to make prices subject to civil penalties. What positive impact would this have on creating other competitive advantages at the refinery level? Does he expect that more people would join this industry to provide oil to our country?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Windsor West has shown commitment to this issue, one of the most fundamental issues for Canadian consumers. He certainly brings not only a wealth of experience on this particular file, but also an understanding of where we need to focus. I am glad to see that the New Democratic Party has taken this position.

The idea of collusion and conspiracy is an issue that has long since left us. We need to deal now with the dominant situation from region to region.

In terms of impact on his community, I wonder how he has been able to manage some of the issues that have surrounded the proposal of an independent petroleum monitoring agency, which I believe he made, and one which we made many years before. Would he do as the Ontario government and the Canadian government have done which is to compare Toronto with Buffalo where there is no refinery, or compare it just along the canal or along the border? Would he want to see something more extensive?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know, from his days in the provincial legislature, that Doug Galt and Joe Tascona, and many of his colleagues, supported four square the proposals I had made to make changes to the Competition Act and they were not surprised that the Competition Bureau was not able to find any questions of conspiracy.

The threshold of determination of evidence and to determine an anti-competitive act under the criminal provisions is too high. The member and his Conservative colleagues from the province of Ontario would agree with me. I am not interested in putting these people in jail. I am interested in stopping their practice of putting small independents out of business and continuing to shut down refineries and important critical strategic facilities, thus allowing them to raise prices in a hair trigger-fashion the moment there is talk of some disruption around the world.

We are more vulnerable in Canada than other places, as I explained, such as Katrina and so many other instances. Even today the wholesale price of gasoline is higher in Canada than the United States. When we strip away the same gasoline, we strip away the taxes.

The hon. member knows full well that the price of gasoline today is now controlled by a handful of people who do not compete against each other. I want to make it clear for the member. When the Prime Minister ran in 2004, he said he would drop the GST after 85¢ a litre. That means, in effect, a savings at $1.10 average across Canada of 5¢ a litre, not the one penny proposed under the GST.

We need to deal with this. The time for reform has passed. The fact that it did not happen means we are paying $1.10 today. That is unfair. The hon. member should be on board, as he was when he was the provincial member in Ontario.