Scott Simms

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand today to talk about this particular bill.

At first glance I noticed that we have this wonderful way of playing with titles in this House with certain aspects of legislation. Sometimes it means a significant amendment to other acts or it may be an act upon itself but we tend to title them in a way that, I suppose, sells.

A perfect illustration of what I am talking about is Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and the Weights and Measures Act. Basically we are making sure that the calibration is correct and that people are not being unfairly gouged at the pumps because of the measurements and weights that are involved in determining how much gas is being put through the pump.

As my hon. colleagues pointed out, a very small fraction of retail outlets, that do it unwittingly, are subject to shortchanging their customers. In this particular situation, that is what this bill tries to amend.

The title of the bill, and this is the best part, is fairness at the pumps act. In relative debate, we have been talking about the price of gas now for the past 5 to 10 years extensively. We all know why. The price of oil rises and the price at the retail pump is extremely high, well over a $1. In my riding in central Newfoundland, it is some of the highest in the country, exceeding $1.20 in certain cases. I think that in Labrador it is even more than that. I think we get the idea.

Therefore, fairness at the pumps act leads us to believe that fundamental action has taken place so that the price of the fuel is coming down in a particular area. That is not particularly the case here. What this would do is help calibrate the machines and ensure the retail outlets are following suit.

In this particular situation, they may be sideswiped by some of these regulations, which I will get to in a moment. I had to start by saying that the fairness at the pumps act is not an apt description. It is kind of discovering an old t-shirt in our closet. We take it out to clean the floor and call it ShamWow because it sounds good, but it is still an old t-shirt.

In this particular case, some of the fundamental points provided in Bill C-14 deal with, in one instance, the administrative monetary penalties. That is for contraventions under the act. That is a big part of this for the particular retail outlets.

Let us not be led astray here. This is not for the average consumer. This is for the retail outlets and, in this case, especially if they are rural or northern, this will be a hard situation to face in certain circumstances. This is why I think there should be more in this bill to help people in particular situations.

Before I proceed, Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming.

The bill would Increase maximum fines for offences and it introduces a new fine for repeated offences, which is apropos for the case. If people are doing something because they were unaware that the calibration was wrong and what we see as a price tag is not what just went into the gas tank, which sometimes happens unwittingly, there is a fine involved. However, if it happens again and again and the person is a repeat offender whose intent is to bilk the customers, then the person should be dealt with accordingly.

Bill C-14 proposes to increase the accountability of retailers for the accuracy of the measuring devices. Mandatory inspection frequencies, common in the majority of countries, deal primarily with retail petroleum, wholesale petroleum, dairy, retail, food, fishing, logging, grain, field crops and mining. Essentially, these are measurements for industries in general where the measurement of the goods being sold or purchased is very important. There needs to be that standard and, in this case, this international standard.

Other sectors could be included in the future of course as time goes on and I am sure we will have a debate about that in the future.

Measurement Canada will take a more active role in this. One of the roles it will take is the training of people involved in helping to calibrate these machines to ensure they are correct.

I will now talk about some of the clauses that are considered here, one being the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act. The act requires that only approved and verified metres would be involved. The act allows the accreditation of independent metre verifiers to verify the accuracy of electricity and natural gas metres on behalf of Measurement Canada.

We see there is another element being brought in that is really quite something. Now we are branching off into a different direction that, in my particular riding, could be detrimental under certain circumstances. However, the spirit of this is an honest one, which is to ensure the calibration on the pumps is correct, but in this particular case the government could help maintain that perfection in the system by doing more things to help certain retailers.

Bill C-14 proposes to give the Minister of Industry the power to appoint non-government inspectors. These inspectors would be trained and certified by Measurement Canada, as I mentioned. This is where the bill gets a little bit dicey, a little bit cloudy as to the clarification of what it is that certain retailers must do and what it is they are on the hook for, as the common vernacular goes.

Description and analysis: In addition to ensuring metres are kept in good repair, owners are responsible for paying any fees required by the act, such as those that may be charged for mandatory inspections.

I will touch on that one for a moment because it is one that is of grave concern to me. The owner is responsible for the cost involved in looking at the metres to ensure they are calibrated. Let us say that the owner is someone with a retail outlet in a remote area, perhaps on the south coast of Newfoundland. In certain cases there are places remote enough so that there is no other way to purchase gasoline in a 200 kilometre radius. The owner finds himself in a situation where, if he needs to have someone come in and if it is not someone from the government or someone trained and willing to do it but someone in the private sector, a fee is involved to bring the person to the owner's establishment to ensure his pumps have the right readings.

A lot of small retailers will be on the hook for travel costs, meals costs and mileage costs. The frequency of getting their pumps calibrated will be such that it is an added expense to them. It is not just that. Let us assume, unwittingly, that there is a slight mistake in the calibration and that the gas pump is putting out something that is slighty off what the price on the pump shows. It must be shut down. Even though that is the only pump in a 200 kilometre radius, it must be down for a period of time because, let us face it, if it has to be fixed and it has to be fixed by someone else. Someone else has to come in and do that.

We should think about the people in the area who rely on gasoline to get to work, take their kids to schools or get to the hospital, God willing. These are the situations that I do not think we have looked into with the bill. When the bill was put together, I would hope that there was some consideration and thought put into it, more than what I see on the surface of this particular bill. I certainly believe that the government should have looked at some kind of subsidy for these small retailers to help them in calibrating their pumps.

In the meantime, we have the administrative monetary penalties, which in this case are apt because we have a graduated amount of money. As I said earlier, if owners unwittingly make a mistake in their pump or it is showing a different reading, then obviously they will be fined for it, but if it happens again and again, the intent is such that they want to bilk the public. After all, this is about fairness at the pumps, I suppose.

That said, the graduated fine should be to a point where individual retailers will not have to pay a small fee every time it happens. They must pay more and more as we go along. That is the key element of this.

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

I will make this somewhat brief, Mr. Speaker. I remember during the last election that the price of fuel was a huge issue at the time. Many people in the House used this issue to torque it in certain ways. One of the ways of doing this, and to say it was shallow is being somewhat generous, was that there was a commitment to reduce the amount of diesel by 2¢, which came from the current government.

I have looked through the order paper but I cannot seem to find it. However, I was wondering if the hon. member would know where that policy went, perhaps out the pump, as it were.

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very well done. I appreciated his parallels to what I would consider to be typical retail politics. I think fairness at the pumps act is the title and, quite frankly, if we bore down to the depth of this, there is not a lot to it in my opinion. Some of it may be fair but only in a small, sparse way. Therefore, unfortunately, when it comes to retails politics, we are dealing with dollar store legislation.

In the meantime, if it is the fairness at the pumps and the weights and measurements, I do want to address one of the issues he raised which had to do with the effect on rural areas. In some communities we may find in a radius of maybe 200 kilometres that there is only one outlet that provides gasoline. Therefore, it becomes problematic when these people are compelled to do the measurements and weights and they need to rely on the private sector to do this. Not only is it the fee for doing it, they have travel costs, they need to bring the person in, pay their wages and so on and so forth, and that takes time to do and therefore lineups are created and it causes lots of problems when they are the only retailer in a large area.

I would like the hon. member to comment further on that, please.

[Petitions, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to present a petition that has been signed by many people in my riding around the areas of Twillingate Island, New World Island and Fogo Island, primarily working in the processing fish plants of Notre Dame Seafoods as well as the Fogo Island Co-op. What they would like is for substantial EI reforms, to bring respect back to seasonal work.

We went through the process of having these pilot projects, which gave a lot of credence to seasonal work. One of those was the best 14 weeks option. The current government decided to extend them for only a few months, up until June, and therefore they will collapse. What these people are asking is that this program be made permanent, as it is an essential part of the program because, without it, it is a disincentive to work.

Therefore the plant workers, as well as the employers, are asking for these programs to be made permanent, and I humbly submit this petition on their behalf.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one of the agencies that has been so successful in our region is, of course, ACOA. ACOA has delivered some great programs for economic development that allowed people not only to maintain their communities, but they have also managed to be on the leading edge of many of the industries that allowed them to plug into commerce around the world.

Interestingly enough, there is also an agency that exists in Quebec, of similar fashion and similar form, that also has been a great contributor to the Quebec economy.

I wonder if the member could comment on that. This resolution would basically mean, in my opinion, the dismantling of these economic agencies.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about the nation status of Quebec, talked about Quebec in general, and talked about how it has achieved that nationhood. I agree with him on that. There are certainly a lot of qualities there.

However, one of the interesting things is that we, the newest province in this country, had our own currency, our own dictionary, and many other things of our own. We were of the Dominion.

Does he believe, yes or no, that Newfoundland and Labrador is also a nation within a nation?

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the speech of my colleague was certainly an inspiring one. However, it seems the discourse and debate in the House always focuses on that one way communication, that one way communication between the federal government toward the province of Quebec.

By way of illustration, I recently read about what happened back in the 1960s when we decided to set up a national Canada pension program, CPP, and how we worked with Quebec. I was surprised to learn about how much of what we have today nationally came from the politics of Quebec and how far that province had advanced before the rest of the country, probably much the same way that we all benefited from the health care program in the province of Saskatchewan.

I know the member's father was involved in politics. Perhaps he could touch on that as well since he is from Quebec. Perhaps he could talk about the contribution, from a public policy perspective, that Quebec has given to the rest of the country, which we forget to talk about in the House.

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been in the House longer than I have. I will not get into the quantity of years as it sometimes can become quite embarrassing.

That being said, I would like to ask him about when he was referring back to the mid-nineties. The downloading of services during the time of fiscal prudence was discussed earlier by many members of the Conservative Party. Am I not correct in saying that at that time the roots of the Conservative Party, vested within Reform Party, Alliance Party and so on, actually called for greater cuts to the system so that we could get to the balanced budget at a much quicker rate?

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member started out with quotes from my party and others. I would like to start with a quote from one of his own. This goes back to the late 1990s, and it states:

[T]here is no reason to have Ottawa collect our revenue. Any incremental cost of collecting our own personal income tax would be far outweighed by the policy flexibility that Alberta would gain, as Quebec’s experience has shown. ...

Alberta should also argue that each province should raise its own revenue for health care—i.e., replace Canada Health and Social Transfer cash with tax points as Quebec has argued for many years. ...

It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.

Those words came from the right hon. Prime Minister, also echoed by the member for Beauce. If they are going to support this motion, why would the other members of his own party not?

[Business of Supply, October 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, an issue we had in Newfoundland and Labrador recently was a devolution of labour market development from federal to provincial jurisdiction. One of the things the government did was to provide a lump-sum payment to the province to do this.

When they say opting out of federal programs and carrying on on their own, with compensation, are they talking about that one-time payment, or should the federal government compensate year over year for that program they opted out of and started their own?