(written for rabble.ca's election coverage)
Big Oil gouged Canadians with those 13 cent a liter increases at the gas pumps yesterday. The spokespersons for the petroleum companies excused the sudden, concerted price jump as the consequence of the threat of Hurricane Ike to the refineries on the U.S. Gulf coast.
Call it a crock, or a lie if you like, because that is what it was.
First, the gasoline we consume in Canada does not come from Texas refineries and second, there is a time lag between refining and selling gas at the pumps. The gas that you’re buying for $1.36 a liter or more was in the pipeline well before Ike was a puff of wind off the African coast.
Jack Layton was right to say that we need a gasoline price ombudsman to blow the whistle on petroleum company price collusion. Collusion in this oligopoly has been the norm for more than a century.
We need to go well beyond putting a referee in place, though.
The privatization of Petro-Canada, begun by the Conservatives in 1991 and completed by the Liberals in 2004, ripped Canadians off to the tune of many billions of dollars. The Canadian public, through their tax dollars, took the risks, put up the capital and created Petro-Canada. In the last five years alone, Petro-Canada made a net profit of $9.2 billion. (Last year the Canadian oil patch made a total net profit of $26 billion.)
Had the company remained publicly owned, its earnings could have been used for future investments, not only in the petroleum sector but in the green energy projects on which our future depends. As well, Petro-Canada could have served as a sentinel in the industry, committed to an anti-price gouging policy. That alone would deter the other majors from playing the game they’re playing this week.
Jack Layton should propose the joint takeover of the major oil companies by a consortium to include the petroleum producing provinces, the federal government, municipalities and the pension funds of Canadian wage and salary earners.
That kind of model has worked well in many countries, as it once did, in part, in Canada in the days when Petro-Canada was owned by the federal government.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
The NDP fears talk about nationalisation no matter how much sense it makes. The boogeyman might call the party socialist. Of course the right wing Arab oil sheiks don't give a damn about being called socialist. They have national oil companies because they make them bundles of petrodollars. But then only the oil companies in North America are supposed to amass profits and if royalties go too high they will all run away! If there were government oil companies waiting in the wings they would think twice before running. But there are none. No fair or unfair competition from government.
I notice that Layton now emphasizes New and Democrats when he speaks. He wants to tie the NDP into the Democratic Party. This is pitiful.
First of all I would like to make it clear that I would very much to know of a mechanism or system that would curb the powers of the petroleum industry in Canada. It's just that I don't think it's as simple as introducing something like Petro Canada. Look at the list of salaries paid to employees in the Ontario government, for instance (and consider the limited results produced by them). Many of us would conclude that an entity like Petro Canada would pay its employees so much that its prices would need to rise to match those of the other petroleum companies. Think Canada Post.
I would like to see a definitive plan to convert our Oil Resources, Reserves, and Futures into a Canadian Public Utility so that it can be unhitched from international cartels and the other concubines of commerce. We don't need a Canadian version of Hugo Chavez to realize our true weight on the balance of trade see-saw and our currency's ride through the slotmachine... played every minute of every trading day... we just need to act together. Please Mr. Laxer, walk through what the process means... because we have become the processed.
Post a Comment