Agriculture committee  There's a lot of work going on in a lot of different avenues of looking at the potential for biofuels to drive higher environmental performance. That's happening in road transport, it's happening in marine transport, and it's happening in air transport. I think most recently some

Agriculture committee  I'm certainly glad to hear my colleagues use the term “certainty”, because that's the call to action and the cry that our component of the industry has been desperate to see over the last number of months, going back to that 2006 notice of intent whereby we agreed at the time—Gor

Agriculture committee  We knew of the government's general intent for 2010 as indicated in the notice of intent, but much of the compliance path determination by individual companies really depends on the details of regulatory design as they design and develop their own compliance path in order to meet

Agriculture committee  There's no question. There is research going on in a number of different arenas. Some of that research I've talked about this morning in terms of where industry is participating, particularly around the area of the implementation of the biodiesel mandate. In fact, one of the requ

Agriculture committee  I would first answer your question by saying I don't think that in Canada there's the same degree of tension you've just implied is in the U.S. As you quite rightly acknowledge, a number of our member companies are in both the petroleum-refining business and the renewable fuel in

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. Good morning. I'm Peter Boag, president of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute. With me this morning is Mr. Tony Macerollo, our vice-president of public and government affairs. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to meet and speak

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  At the wholesale level, we operate in essentially a continental market, and Canada represents a relatively small portion of that continental market. So for the most part we're price takers on wholesale gasoline. Today, the most recent numbers out of Natural Resources Canada show

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  We understand Canadians' frustration with fuel price volatility, but that's the best evidence of a well-functioning, competitive market. In our view, notwithstanding the volatility, Canadians are well served by a competitive marketplace, and today they still pay the second lowest

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  As I indicated in my initial remarks, there are a number of components, ultimately, of that price. There's the crude price of crude, there are taxes, and there are ultimately the refining and retail margins. So I guess to that extent, yes, refiners do have an impact and do have a

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I'm not able to give you a definitive answer. You've thrown out some numbers that I can't respond to here. And certainly I would again caution you that margins don't necessarily mean profit margins: the margins are the difference between an input cost and a selling price.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  You're talking about a period of years of investment through a number of different cycles of refinery investment to be able to make a configuration change of the magnitude that would allow you to significantly change the proportion of diesel to refinery produced in a Canadian ref

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  That's ultimately driven by the supply and demand conditions within the market. And those are the decisions of the hundreds of individual retailers, who can look across the street to see what their competitor is charging, and they're based on the fact that they want to retain the

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  I can't comment on the decisions of individual retailers, but that's the nature of a competitive market.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  To answer your question, no, I would say that's a reflection of a highly competitive market where retailers are competing to get market share and are not prepared to see their competitors take their share from them.

Subcommittee on Oil and Gas and Other Energy Prices committee  My answer would be closer to Madam Savage's. It really depends on the implementation details of that tax and what products it's imposed on. Talking about a carbon tax in general, the devil is always going to be in the details, if one is to comment specifically on what the impacts