Industry committee  I think that's fair.

Industry committee  No.

Industry committee  We did an experiment on that. It's not often that you get to perform experiments in economics, but we did. After the national energy program, I think many people will remember the famous headline in The Economist, “Canada Resigns From The World”. But however well intentioned it

Industry committee  You can separate marketing from refining, but the question is can you further subdivide the refining margin into profit versus cost, for example.

Industry committee  We were just consulting on that. I'm not sure that is doable.

Industry committee  I must say I'm slightly baffled by this. Most people would agree that part of the problem has been inadequate capacity in the industry, if you look back over the past 10 years and particularly look at recent experience. People are in business to make money; that's why companies o

Industry committee  We certainly have moved to ultra-low-sulphur diesel, which has a very stringent regulatory requirement and certainly has added to costs. Most people are aware the government has introduced greenhouse gas regulations and has also adopted long-term objectives for clean air. How tha

Industry committee  I'll be happy to volunteer on that. I first confronted this when the hurricanes took out capacity and we really had a spike in gasoline prices. We put together some information for Canadians about how to save on gas, and I felt maybe I should actually put some of them into effe

Industry committee  I think the question that's being asked, though, Phil, is how much is profit and how much is cost.

Industry committee  I think that's an excellent question. It's one that was going through my mind when Mr. Jennings was giving the presentation. We'll have to commit to get back to the committee with the answer to that. I would point out that this includes the cost of crude, as well as the cost of

Industry committee  Well, I'm sure you know that they're probably uncountable. But you're quite right, it is a very concentrated industry. I think we're down to four super-majors in the west now. I think, though, on the question about who controls the crude, it's not actually the oil companies that

Industry committee  Sure. Most of them are not—EnCana, for example.

Industry committee  Yes. On the downstream part of it, Irving is an independent.

Industry committee  Is there a dominant minority shareholder in Petro-Canada? I think it's very widely held.

Industry committee  I think it's very widely held, so there'd be a lot of individual shareholders or institutions holding the shares in Petro-Canada. Shares in Syncrude, on the other hand, are held predominantly by major oil companies.