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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 43

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 43 - Mar/22/22
Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)
  • Mar/22/22 10:38:11 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear the Conservatives say there is no evidence of price gouging. I invite the hon. member to come north of Highway 17, where we often pay 30¢ more a litre in towns such as Kirkland Lake and Timmins than they pay in southern Ontario. In 2019, the British Columbia Utilities Commission, under the New Democrats, found out there was price gouging of at least 13¢ a litre. Does the hon. member agree that we need to push the Competition Bureau to start making sure that in isolated, northern communities, we are not getting ripped off at the pumps because of these arguments that we are a little further away from the centre? If we deal with price gouging, people will at least have a fair chance, especially with the outrageous prices we are paying because of Putin's war.
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Context: House Hansard - 43 - Mar/22/22
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Mar/22/22 11:55:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, we are here to co-operate and negotiate. However, of course it takes two to tango, as I think the phrase goes, and we heard a pretty clear message from the whip that he is not in the mood to dance on behalf of the Conservative Party, so it is difficult. I do not think that precludes us from co-operating in the future on other things, but we were clear that if we were going to go the route of tax relief, we wanted something that would apply more broadly than simply providing tax relief at the pumps. We wanted something that did not principally focus on oil and gas in the future and where there was a better sense of certainty that companies that could raise prices to eat up the price differential of lower taxes would not be able to do so. That is why we felt that home heating was a superior choice, because there are usually public processes for rate increases on public utilities that do not exist for oil and gas companies at the pumps.
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Context: House Hansard - 43 - Mar/22/22
Mr. Dan Albas
  • Mar/22/22 1:15:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is asking about this. He should actually get on the phone and talk to John Horgan. John Horgan has repeatedly said he is going to be taking action on this. In the B.C. Utilities Commission process the member talked about, it was actually said that they could not talk about government taxation whatsoever. If there are information gaps, the B.C. government should be able to say what it knows and what it does, but instead there is more rhetoric from the NDP, whether it be provincial or federal. They just say, “those big, bad oil companies”. We see that international crude prices have gone up. Canada's government is getting a ton of extra cash from the GST on top of that, because it is on everything, including other taxes. Let us just focus on the basics here. Let us try to put a little more money in our constituents' pockets when they go to fill up.
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