One federal minister is taking the oil companies to task!

Industry Minister Tony Clement says the federal government is hauling the oil companies, refiners and distributors before Parliament to justify skyrocketing gasoline prices.

“Everybody is feeling the pinch at the pumps,” Clement told a news conference Thursday.

“Today we committing to getting Canadians some answers,” he said.

Clements, however, like Ontario Liberal government, stopped well short of offering to cut taxes in order to give consumers a break. They insist if taxes were slashed, the oil companies would only fill in the gap.

And critics were quick to label his announcement as a do-nothing measure since parliamentary committees and commissions of various sorts have studied gasoline prices but with nothing to show for it.

Clement told reporters the pricing practices are a mystery to him and many Canadians.

“Nobody can explain to me how they come about their prices. I want to get the decision makers … and get some answers,” the minister said.

That’s why he will be asking for various oil-related companies to come before the industry committee.

Clement said the first step is to ask the right questions and get the right answers before taking further steps with the Competition Bureau, if necessary.

“How they come about their pricing is not very transparent,” he said. “We need more transparency when it comes to pricing.”

Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague, who has been critical of oil companies, said Clement’s announcement amounts to nothing.

“It is the role of the unregulated speculator,” he said is driving up the cost of gasoline.

McTeague said yet another government study will do nothing to drive down gasoline costs. He said it could take weeks before a parliamentary committee is created when steps could be taken right away to reduce tax on gas.

A committee report on gasoline prices in 2003 found no evidence of collusion by retailers, but nonetheless recommended the creation of a Petroleum Monitoring Agency with a three-year mandate to collect and disseminate price data on crude oil, refined petroleum products, and retail gasoline for all relevant North American markets. But the then Liberal government quashed the idea.

The Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association fought back immediately against Clement’s suggestion that it was the entire oil supply change that was pulling the wool over consumers’ eyes.

“Higher gas prices create a windfall for government especially with the HST applied on other taxes,” association spokeswoman Tricia Anderson said.

She said the independent gas retailers aren’t the enemy, noting that retail gasoline margins have been “relatively stable for several years.”

New Democrat MP Jack Harris said the proposal was not nearly enough.

“That is totally inadequate and doesn’t meet anybody’s expectations in the country in terms of what they would expect from government,” Harris told a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday before outlining the NDP plan to tackle the issue.

“We want to see appointed an ombudsperson who would have real teeth to make sure that Canadians are not being gouged at the pump. And we also want to see the Competition Bureau be instructed to act immediately to investigate thoroughly the relationship between oil prices and the perceived lack of competition that we’re experiencing in the marketplace,” Harris said.

Harris added he does not object to having industry representatives come to a Commons committee, but noted it was already done in 2007.

“The fact of the matter is that the industry department already has plenty of information on which to act,” Harris said.

Do you think this will help?  Will we actually get a satisfactory answer?