Canada must nationalize its oil and gas industry: Quebec accounting professor

Lauzon has been calling for the nationalization of Canada's oil and gas industry over the last several years.

He told a news conference the analysis has shown that major oil companies continue to eliminate their competition by either buying or merging them and most of the profits go to the shareholders rather than investing and building refineries.

"Currently Canada, self-sufficient in oil and gas as the third-largest producer of natural gas and the sixth-largest for oil, has prices imposed on it due to events that happen in Iran, Iraq or Saudi Arabia," he said.

"Among oil-producing countries, Canada is going the wrong way. It's the only western country to privatize this essential resource, largely to foreign interests," Lauzon said.

Petro-Canada (TSX:PCA) of Calgary was created as a government-owned company during the Trudeau era in response to an oil shortage during the mid-1970s due to a crackdown on supplies by the OPEC oil cartel.

However, subsequent Liberal and Conservative governments have since divested their ownership in Petro-Canada, which remains a major integrated oil company with exploration, production, refining, distribution and retail operations.