Agriculture committee  Mr. Easter, you quite rightly described the city of Ottawa, but I'll offer a couple of observations. This has an agricultural dimension to it. It has an energy dimension to it. It has a climate change dimension to it. It has an air quality dimension to it. And there's no shortage of debate, not just within Canada but around the world.

Agriculture committee  If I may add, I'll give you a very practical example of information we're only finding out about now. We've recently been informed by Environment Canada that if you are a refiner who has a marketing presence in another province but not significant enough that you would be contracting out your blending to another provider, the refiner who is obligated doesn't get the credit for that.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Industry committee  Based on those that are willing to share it, yes.

Industry committee  Sure, because that would also reflect volatility in crude oil. That would also be affected by things like speculation in the marketplace after the energy information agency reports their data on inventories. I'm not sure what the frequency is, but it's at least once a month.

Industry committee  I have two pieces of advice. Certainly, as one who for many years took calls on the subject on behalf of a member of Parliament, I told them to call the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute. In the absence of that, if you want to get into a detailed explanation, the crude oil market is a commodity market and the gasoline market is a commodity market on top of a commodity market.

Industry committee  I fully expect that over the course of the day there have been many price increases and decreases, depending on where you are in the country. I've been in this job since November, and I just recently discovered that, for example, in British Columbia the price that you see outside is not necessarily the price that you actually pay when you arrive at the gas station.

Industry committee  It may or may not, but what I would suggest is that Mr. McTeague has developed some mechanisms to determine where prices go. I think the other important indicator that I've learned is that if you actually take a look at the data releases by the energy information agency in the United States shortly after the announcements come out on inventory levels, you see price movements fluctuate after that.

Industry committee  I think we've answered the question. That may very well happen in some communities, but the only way you can get a comprehensive understanding of this is to do a proper study. You can do a study that looks at a local market, and it might verify your assumptions, but the Conference Board clearly in their national study did not correlate the two together on a nationwide basis.

Industry committee  What day was it, sir?

Industry committee  I don't know the answer to that question—if in fact it's even true—but we'll get you that information.

Industry committee  I'm sorry, I didn't catch all of that, sir.

Industry committee  No, that is not how it's done. And I'm going to impute that you're referring to the study done by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, who talked about a psychological barrier. We reject that study. We reject the methodology outright. It is, to be perfectly blunt, an extremely left-leaning excuse for price regulation and for which there is no justification whatsoever.

Industry committee  When demand is going up and supply is not going up as fast, that's right.

Industry committee  Not always.