Mr. Speaker, on November 19 I noted that the price of western Canadian heavy oil had fallen to a record low, threatening employment in the sector as well as provincial government revenues. I noted that this was a major crisis facing our country and that the industry was considering a coordinated production cut in order to boost prices.
I asked the federal government to provide assurances that the federal Competition Bureau would not intervene to prevent such a production cut. Of course, what ended up happening is that on December 2, the Alberta premier announced that the provincial government would mandate a production cut of about 9%. Because this was required by the province and not just coordinated among companies, there was no role for federal competition policy.
I am pleased to report that the policy I raised in the House, which the Alberta government implemented, was quite successful in rapidly increasing the price of western Canadian select oil. The Alberta government also invested in railcars in order to help move its oil to market in the absence of sufficient pipeline capacity. That is also making a positive contribution to pricing.
These are a couple of very positive examples of what the Notley government has done to steward Alberta's oil industry, and I think all western Canadians appreciate those efforts.
I want to speak in a broader sense about federal competition policy. It is already the case that Canadian law does not try to sanction cartels or uncompetitive activity regarding things that are entirely for export, because of course Canadians benefit from being able to get the best possible price for commodities that we are exporting.
That logic largely applies to oil, but of course we also consume oil right here in Canada. We have had a recent kerfuffle about the application of the federal carbon tax to gasoline. In the past few days, we have seen photos of Conservative politicians gassing up over the weekend, ahead of the federal carbon tax coming into effect.
It is worth noting that the carbon tax is about 4¢ or 5¢ per litre, whereas the price of gasoline has gone up by something like 20¢ per litre over the past month. At a minimum, this tells us that there are many factors other than carbon pricing that influence the cost of gasoline. However, it also suggests that if there is a role for federal competition policy, it should be focused on markets that actually affect Canadian consumers.
There is a role for the federal Competition Bureau to look at collusion regarding the retail pricing of gasoline, because as much as we want a high price for the oil that Canada tries to sell on world markets, we also want to make sure there is a fair price for consumers at the pump here in Canada. The way to do this is to ensure that the Competition Bureau focuses not so much on the oil production but on gasoline retailing.