Bill C-10 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act to provide that Air Canada’s articles of continuance contain a requirement that it carry out aircraft maintenance activities in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba and to provide for certain other measures related to that obligation.

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[Amarjeet Sohi, Liberal, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

moved that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to commence debate at second reading of Bill C-10, amendments to the Air Canada Public Participation Act. These amendments seek to modernize legislation to allow Air Canada to more effectively respond to the evolution of market conditions while continuing to support jobs for skilled workers in Canada's aerospace sector. This bill would amend the provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act dealing with Air Canada's operational and overhaul centres.

Let me first say that this bill is being submitted for consideration to the House in the context of an historic investment by Air Canada in Canada's aerospace sector. As members are aware, Air Canada has announced its intention to purchase up to 75 Bombardier C Series aircraft and to ensure that these planes will be maintained in Canada for at least 20 years.

Air Canada has also said it plans to support the creation of centres of excellence for aircraft maintenance in Quebec and Manitoba, and the company says it will continue to carry out significant work in other parts of Canada. In other words, this bill comes before this place at an important time for Canada's aerospace sector. Not only is Bombardier producing an aircraft that is a game changer for aviation in terms of its efficiency, environmental performance, and noise, but Air Canada is adding this plane to its fleet, creating significant opportunities for high-value employment.

Quebec has estimated that the creation of the centre of excellence in Montreal alone could produce 1,000 jobs over 15 years, while the manufacturing of Air Canada's C Series aircraft could create an additional 300 jobs. Air Canada also intends to support the creation of 150 jobs in Manitoba, with a possibility to expand beyond that. These are precisely the results that we should be pursuing. They are market-driven investments aimed at improving Air Canada's bottom line and ability to serve Canadians, by investing in world-class technology right here in Canada.

As members are aware, the Attorney General of Quebec took legal action against Air Canada following the closure of Aveos Fleet Performance in 2012, accusing the carrier of non-compliance with these provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act. In light of Air Canada's investments in aerospace in Canada, including aircraft maintenance, Quebec has since announced its willingness to discontinue its pursuit of that litigation.

This creates an appropriate context for us to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act. This legislation is now close to 30 years old. It was created to enable the privatization of Air Canada, which occurred in 1989. Specifically, I am referring to paragraph 6(1)(d), which calls for Air Canada to have in its articles of continuance:

provisions requiring the Corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community and the City of Mississauga;

Let me begin by providing to the House some of the history of this legislation. The Air Canada Public Participation Act was brought in at a time when countries around the world were moving away from a high degree of regulation and public ownership in certain sectors, notably air transport. Canada was no exception. To support economic growth, deliver new services to Canadians, and significantly reduce the burden on the taxpayers, the government took several actions. We deregulated the air transport sector. We commercialized our major airports. Also, by way of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, we transformed Air Canada from a crown corporation into a viable and competitive private company.

The air transport sector has greatly evolved since 1989. Now it is common for global air carriers to outsource aircraft maintenance and to distribute their supply chain across different geographic areas, with a view to being more efficient. This is the competitive environment within which Air Canada operates. Other air carriers, Canadian and international, are not subject to the same obligations regarding their maintenance facilities. That means that they can seek out efficiencies in ways that Air Canada cannot.

Ultimately, the result of this is that Air Canada could be less competitive. Furthermore, if Air Canada's ability to reduce costs is limited by the act, that could make air travel more expensive for Canadians. In other words, the Air Canada Public Participation Act could place limits on the company's ability to be competitive and cost effective, with implications for the travelling public and the Canadian economy. This does not support an approach to air transport that focuses on competition and market forces as the best means to deliver value to users. Air Canada, like any company, needs flexibility to evolve within its competitive environment to remain viable.

Of course, we were all concerned when Aveos closed it doors in 2012, resulting in layoffs across the country. Some divisions of Aveos were purchased as part of the bankruptcy process and kept in operation, but others were not. The closure of Aveos meant that Air Canada ceased to carry out certain work in Canada. The minister objected to this, as did many of our colleagues. That is why we are so pleased to see that Air Canada is now investing in Canada's aerospace and aircraft maintenance sector, and in doing so creating concrete employment opportunities for Canadians in this sector. That is precisely the type of outcome we wanted to see.

The Air Canada investment in the C Series and support for the creation of the centres of excellence in Quebec and Manitoba offer specific opportunities for highly skilled aerospace workers, both during the manufacturing phase, and later, for maintenance. Our intention in introducing this legislation is to strike the right balance.

First, we want Air Canada to have flexibility to organize its activities, to match how the air transport sector has evolved and will continue to evolve. At the same time, we want to ensure that the act continues to require Air Canada to carry out aircraft maintenance in certain Canadian regions. This proposed legislation maintains that commitment.

The act currently refers to the city of Winnipeg, the city of Mississauga, and the Montreal urban community. I note that the Montreal urban community, which no longer exists as a jurisdiction, did not include all of greater Montreal. For example, it did not include Mirabel. Also, Air Canada's activities extend throughout the greater Toronto area, not just Mississauga.

Given this, we have chosen to expand the reference in the legislation to cover the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, which allows for Air Canada's maintenance work to extend to areas around the named cities, as opposed to remaining strictly within the city limits. Furthermore, Bill C-10 would clarify that paragraph 6(1)(d) of the Air Canada Public Participation Act requires Air Canada to commit to carry out or cause to be carried out aircraft maintenance, including with regard to airframes, engines, components, equipment, or parts, in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

However, this does not mean to specify particular types or volumes of such maintenance in each location, or particular levels of employment. In this way, it will be clear that we are not tying the hands of a private company to manage its operations into the future. Air Canada will be able to adjust its activities to respond to the evolution of the air transportation sector in the same way that any other company does.

I would like to remind the House of the nature of air transport and how it has evolved. This is a truly global business, characterized by large international corporations providing services over vast networks, using extremely expensive equipment. It is also highly susceptible to external shocks and is cyclical in nature. Air transport provides essential connectivity, both within this vast country and to the outside world. It is also a major source of employment. Air Canada alone employs close to 25,000 people.

Air transportation has evolved considerably since the 1980s. We have seen important new aircraft technologies, huge global growth in traffic, new business models, and new air carriers. It has also weathered major shocks, such as pandemics, economic crises, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We can only imagine how the sector will evolve in the future.

Federal policy regarding Canada's air transport sector places a premium on competition and market forces. We do not subsidize the sector. Rather, we support the user-pay principle with regard to infrastructure and service. This is not the case in all countries.

Since its privatization, Air Canada has existed as a private enterprise without state support, despite weathering some difficult periods. While the federal government participated in bridge financing, along with private partners, to help Air Canada through the credit crunch resulting from the 2009 global financial crisis, this was done on commercial terms. Any loans were paid back in full with interest.

Where both air transport and aerospace are concerned, it is essential that Canada be competitive, but we cannot rest on our laurels as the world of aviation is changing quickly.

I am particularly pleased that our aviation and aerospace sectors have come together, with the recent announcement by Air Canada regarding its purchase of the Bombardier C Series. This will allow Air Canada to operate aircraft that set new standards in aviation by cutting fuel consumption, reducing GHG emissions, and minimizing noise.

These aircraft will be designed, assembled, and maintained in Canada, creating opportunities for well-paid employment. It is hard to imagine a better outcome. This is the sort of result we hoped to see when we raised concerns around the closure of Aveos.

I am also very pleased that Quebec and Air Canada are nearing an end to the litigation based on the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

I commend Air Canada for supporting the creation of centres of excellence that will provide employment for highly skilled aerospace workers in Manitoba and Quebec.

In this context, it is now time to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act to clarify its intent. Yes, we want the legislation to be clear that Air Canada will undertake aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. However, as it is a company that needs to compete in an evolving global marketplace, we need to give Air Canada the flexibility to meet these requirements in a way that also supports its competitiveness.

I believe that Bill C-10 achieves that balance. I hope honourable members will join me in supporting this bill and will quickly refer it to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, where we can hear from stakeholders.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, taking into consideration the government's propensity to consult, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary can tell us which stakeholders have been consulted prior to introducing this legislation.

Has the government consulted with any of the companies that presently support Air Canada's maintenance operations, or a single union, for that matter?

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, listening to stakeholders is always very important when government is making decisions like this. That is why we want to move this forward to the committee.

We need to have stakeholders voice their concerns, if they have concerns, and the proper place to do that is at the committee level. That is what we are proposing.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament who comes from Montreal, I am very pleased that the Air Canada head office would continue to have to remain within the Island of Montreal.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary whether or not she believes that, for the foreseeable future, both the requirement to keep the head office in Montreal and the official bilingualism requirements of Air Canada will remain in place.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised an important question.

It is important to underscore that this legislation does not talk about the bilingual nature of the Air Canada Public Participation Act. That is not part of any changes. That will continue.

We are all very happy that Air Canada has made the commitment to continue talking and working toward much better service for all Canadians throughout the country.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague chose to use words like “efficiency”, “flexibility”, and a “changing” environment in her speech. It is the same old discourse we hear time and time again in neo-liberal arguments: that corporations must remain competitive in a dangerous time, and we have to give them carte blanche to basically move their operations out of Canada to a cheaper jurisdiction. The Liberals used to stand for this particular act. I remember in 2012, they were expressing their concerns, but my oh my, how the levers of power change one's principles.

I want to ask the hon. member if the government understands that, by instituting these changes to the act, it is in a sense legalizing job losses in Canada.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, actually we are doing quite the opposite. What we want to do is secure jobs for the future, and that is what making some changes to the act will do. The aerospace industry is so competitive that we must look to the future to make sure we keep jobs and build new jobs right across the country.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

As the official opposition critic for transport, I have a number of concerns with both the proposed amendment to this act and the government's timing in introducing this change.

Let us review the facts.

On November 3, 2015, the Quebec Court of Appeal, Quebec's highest court, confirmed an earlier ruling by the Quebec Superior Court that Air Canada had failed to fulfill its legal obligations stemming from the Air Canada Public Participation Act concerning heavy maintenance of aircraft in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga.

On December 11, 2015, Bombardier formerly requested financial support of $1 billion U.S. from the Government of Canada. This was two months after the Government of Quebec had purchased a 49% stake in the C Series program for that same amount.

On February 16, 2016, Republic Airways, which to that point had placed the largest order for the C Series, streamlined its operations as it filed for bankruptcy protection and cancelled its order for up to 80 C Series aircraft.

The very next day, February 17, Air Canada announced that it had begun negotiations with Bombardier to purchase 45 C Series variant 300 aircraft, with an option for an additional 30.

I will be discussing this announcement further, later on in my remarks.

Considering Air Canada had for years shown no interest in the C Series and had just completed an agreement with Boeing to purchase 61 737 Max aircraft, this announcement surprised virtually the entire airline industry. Prior to Air Canada's announcement, Bombardier had gone nearly 17 months without landing a firm order, so it goes without saying that the timing of this transaction was fortuitous for the aerospace giant.

Furthermore, Airways News, a trade publication, estimates that there is a 40% chance that Bombardier will land another order for its C Series aircraft this year. Therefore, to say that Air Canada has saved the Bombardier C Series program would be an understatement.

Concurrent with this announcement, Air Canada announced that it would undertake the heavy maintenance of the C Series aircraft in Quebec for 20 years and create a centre of excellence in the province.

On the same day that Air Canada made its announcement to purchase these airplanes, the Minister of Transport announced that he would lessen Air Canada's obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

On March 8, the Minister of Transport put the bill we are debating on notice.

On March 14, Air Canada announced that it would move some of the maintenance work presently being done in Mississauga and Montreal to Winnipeg, thereby creating approximately 150 jobs in Manitoba.

On March 24, the Minister of Transport introduced the bill we are debating today.

Given that it is common practice to put a bill on notice and introduce it within a few days, the 16-day delay from when this bill was put on notice to when the minister introduced it has not been explained. In his short justification for introducing Bill C-10, the Minister of Transport hailed Air Canada's decision to purchase the C Series aircraft, combined with the Government of Quebec's and the Government of Manitoba's intention to discontinue litigation against the carrier, as the main cause. He also noted that this would allow Air Canada to be more competitive in an evolving aerospace sector.

While this proposed legislation should have nothing to do with Bombardier, this bill unfortunately appears to have everything to do with Bombardier. If this legislation is part of the government's plan to support Bombardier, then it should just say so.

Let us look at the justification in greater detail, starting with Air Canada's purchase of the C Series airplane.

As was mentioned, Air Canada signed a letter of intent to purchase the C Series aircraft on February 17 this year, with a two-year negotiating window. No money has changed hands, and none will for several years.

Neither Bombardier nor Air Canada has announced the price they have agreed on for the C Series aircraft. However, it is believed to be under $30 million per unit, which is far below the break-even point for Bombardier.

Assuming Air Canada's letter of intent leads to orders at the end of the two-year negotiating window, planes are scheduled to be delivered beginning in early 2020, after deliveries of Boeing 737 Max aircraft are completed, and assuming no delays take place in production.

I would also note that the narrow-body Boeing 737 Max variant 200 and variant 300 airplane that Air Canada is purchasing seats between 160 and 180 persons in a two-cabin configuration, depending on the cabin layout, which is approximately 20 more seats than the C Series.

While I know that all of us here are pleased that Canada's largest airline has made what could be a substantial order for the Bombardier aircraft, none of us should be under any illusion that we will be heading home for the next constituency week on this aircraft.

As is the industry norm, Bombardier will only receive payment from Air Canada once the planes have been delivered, which is many years away. Finally, as with all major orders, due diligence takes time, and either side has the ability to withdraw from the negotiation at any time.

Next is what the Quebec government agreed to, and I will quote Air Canada's press release on this matter:

Subject to concluding final arrangements—

—and those are important words, “concluding final arrangements”—

—the Government of Quebec has agreed to discontinue the litigation related to Air Canada's obligations regarding the maintenance of an overhaul and operational centre following Air Canada's agreement to collaborate with the Province to establish a Centre of Excellence for C Series airframe heavy maintenance work in Quebec.

The Government of Quebec has not abandoned litigation against Air Canada. It has temporarily suspended litigation as both sides negotiate a settlement deal. Until Air Canada takes possession of its first C Series and begins maintenance work on that aircraft, or even concludes its purchase with Bombardier, this deal with the Government of Quebec cannot be final.

The Province of Manitoba, which had originally joined Quebec's lawsuit, has agreed to cease pursuing litigation subject to Air Canada moving approximately 150 jobs to the province. These jobs will be moved to Winnipeg sometime in 2017.

I would note that prior to Aveos filing for bankruptcy, approximately 400 heavy maintenance jobs were in Winnipeg. Air Canada is proposing to bring back 40% of them.

It is clear that with Bill C-10, if something happens and Air Canada does not end up purchasing the C Series aircraft for any reason, whether because of a change in demand for air travel or if the C Series does not fulfill its performance guarantees, the Quebec and Manitoba governments will not have a legal recourse because the law will have changed.

If the governments of Quebec and Manitoba are indeed satisfied with Air Canada's commitments to create and maintain jobs in both respective provinces, there is no need to move as quickly to change the maintenance provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, because no further lawsuits would be forthcoming.

Finally, the minister makes the point that this change would allow Air Canada to be more competitive. The amendment that the minister is proposing in Bill C-10 would indeed allow Air Canada to move some of its maintenance work to jurisdictions where presumably the cost of labour is lower, therefore saving Air Canada money.

In making the point regarding Air Canada's competitiveness, the minister has not provided an estimate of the financial benefit this legislative change will give Air Canada, not even for next year. Perhaps this information will come up in today's debate.

What is even more curious is that in its lengthy and detailed submission to the Canada Transportation Act review, which is available online, Air Canada does not mention aircraft maintenance once as a financial concern.

The location where Air Canada undertakes its overhaul maintenance only became a major concern when the carrier lost in court twice on this matter.

In the same public submission, Air Canada, along with virtually every major aerospace sector stakeholder in Canada, lists the air travellers security charge, the rapid growth in airport improvement fees, taxes on aviation fuel, the need for more streamlined customs processes, and the high airport rent collected by the federal government as major impediments to sustained growth of the aviation sector in Canada, especially relative to American competitors.

If the government wanted to take measures that would stimulate the entire Canadian aerospace sector, including Air Canada, it could have chosen to tackle any of the issues above. I would also note that all of these measures have near universal support in the aviation sector and would not lead to a loss of jobs in Canada, but so far, the minister has been silent on all of these.

The Conservative Party believes that Air Canada should become a private sector company that is not supported by taxpayers while ensuring that Canadians have access to reliable air travel. That was the original intent of the Air Canada Public Participation Act when it was introduced in 1988. The act put in place clear conditions to ensure that all of the support Air Canada had received from government to turn it into a profitable crown corporation would not be lost. These conditions will become well known over the course of this debate, but I will take the time and the opportunity to list them here. Air Canada is subject to the Official Languages Act. It maintains its corporate headquarters in Montreal. Seventy-five per cent of its voting shares have to be held by Canadians. Finally and most important for the purpose of this debate, Air Canada has to “maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community, and the City of Mississauga”.

Today, Air Canada is the largest airline in this country and an important international player in the sector because of support from taxpayers over the years.

Upon being privatized in 1988, Air Canada inherited a fleet of 109 aircraft.

All of Canada's major airports where Air Canada first flew to were built with the financial support of the Government of Canada and taxpayers. Today, Air Canada is the largest tenant in nearly every major airport in Canada, with the exception of Calgary and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. This gives Air Canada significant influence over each airport's operations and access to the best landing slots in a slot-controlled airport like Pearson. Air Canada also has intangible assets, like landing slots at some of the most slot-controlled airports in the world, such as London Heathrow, Washington Reagan, and New York La Guardia. Earlier this year, Air France sold a pair of its landing slots at London Heathrow for $75 million. For perspective, Air Canada owns 150 weekly slots at that airport.

Air Canada was also the beneficiary of back-to-work legislation in 2012, which was enacted because of Air Canada's importance to this county's economy. I would note that the Liberal Party and the former member for Westmount—Ville-Marie voted against this legislation.

The Conservative Party supports the concept of making Air Canada more competitive relative to other carriers. But as I noted earlier in my remarks, the minister has failed to demonstrate that this will be achieved while ignoring measures that the government could undertake that would achieve this without leading to job losses in Canada.

We know that Air Canada supports these measures because it said so in its comprehensive submission to the Canada Transportation Act review. Therefore, the question remains: Why would the minister undertake to amend this legislation and not take the opportunity to address any of the other measures that Air Canada identified in its submission? Neither this bill nor the Minister of Transport addresses any of these. This is, to me, Bill C-10's greatest failing and why the Conservative Party cannot support this legislation.

To conclude, while it is not clear what level of benefit this legislative change will give Air Canada, we do know that this change will make it possible for the carrier to move thousands of jobs from Canada to other jurisdictions. We also know that the government is missing an opportunity to allow Air Canada to better compete against U.S. and international carriers.

I hope all members will keep this in mind as we continue to debate Bill C-10.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that Air Canada has purchased Bombardier C Series planes, and there is no doubt about that. However, this is about helping to ensure Air Canada can remain competitive on the world stage while supporting Canadian jobs. That is a concept the member's party often claims to support.

It is about supporting Canadian jobs, Canadian ownership, Canadian principles, and Canadian competitiveness. This is a Canadian bill for a Canadian company. I am looking forward to seeing more of Air Canada's maintenance work in my home province of Quebec, with even more pride knowing they are also flying Canadian planes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize there was no question there, but I will restate that Conservatives do support the concept of making Air Canada more competitive relative to other carriers. However, as I also stated, there are more competitive ways and other measures which the government could undertake to accomplish this without leading to job losses in Canada.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

Since the consequences of the present act do not suit the government, it would rather change the act than enforce it. I will have more to say about that later in the debate.

My question for my Conservative Party colleague is simple: when the Conservatives were in power, why did they do nothing to enforce the Air Canada Public Participation Act?

In 2012, when Aveos went bankrupt and people lost their jobs, we asked the government some questions. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Liberals asked the same questions.

Why did the government of the day do nothing to enforce the law? Can my colleague help us understand that?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier in my remarks, we do support the concept of making Air Canada more competitive relative to other carriers.

At this point in time, we know there is a review before the Minister of Transport which contemplates a number of recommendations from the air industry to make its operations far more competitive. I will just name a few: tying all airport improvement fees to specific projects with explicit sunset provisions; overhauling the financing model for security; replacing the current one-size-fits-all passenger screening approach which treats all passengers equally with an intelligence driven, risk-based passenger screening process; and the list goes on.

I look forward to hearing what the government is going to do in response to the Canada Transportation Act review and how it is going to seek to implement some of the recommendations that were put forward.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had always been of the belief that the Conservative Party stood for free enterprise and stood for Canadian companies, private companies like Air Canada, that needed to be able to compete with our international competitors, including U.S. companies that have recently been restructured.

These jobs are not jobs making widgets. They are technical jobs. They are jobs that Canadian innovation should be able to ensure that we remain competitive in Canada so Air Canada will not move those jobs. That is common business sense.

Does my hon. colleague not believe that Canadian ingenuity and Canadian workers are capable of being competitive enough to have Air Canada keep these jobs in Canada, even if it has more flexibility?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, of course I believe that our aerospace industry is innovative and continues to make improvements that benefit all Canadians.

Let us remember that Air Canada has benefited as a legacy carrier. Air Canada inherited a fleet of 109 aircraft upon being privatized in 1988. Air Canada is the largest tenant in nearly every major airport in Canada, with the exception of Calgary and Billy Bishop Toronto city airport, which gives it significant influence over each airport's operations.

It also has intangible assets, such as landing slots at some of the most slot-controlled airports in the world, and Air Canada also benefited from back-to-work legislation in 2012, which was enacted because of Air Canada's importance to this country's economy. Air Canada also benefited from a deferred pension payment plan in 2013.

Therefore, we have to take into consideration the benefits that it has received as a legacy carrier, which were often borne by the taxpayers, and the need to honour the obligations that were put in this act to begin with.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in one point of principle I agree with my colleague from Montreal in regard to Canadian workers absolutely having the capability to be competitive, but this legislation, based on the decision the Liberal Party made before, imposes an unfair playing field on other airlines, such as Porter Airlines, which does not have the capability of buying the Bombardier airplanes because it cannot have its runway lengthened in order to be able to land those planes there.

I would ask my colleague about the aspect of this legislation that puts other Canadian companies on an unfair playing field as well.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as many members know, we debated that very issue not so long ago when it came to the government's decision to interfere with the process of consultation on allowing Porter Airlines to lengthen its runway so that it could purchase the Bombardier C Series.

Again, the bill will affect jobs in Canada. It will affect up to 3,000 Canadian maintenance workers. There are, as I said, a number of options available to the government that would make Air Canada and other carriers more competitive without contributing to job losses or costing taxpayers.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by making a few comments.

Air Canada is a private corporation. Everyone in this House acknowledges that, but it is a unique company in that it was privatized in 1989, and it is in the unique position of having inherited many assets that were paid for by the taxpayer. Part of the deal was that the government would give Air Canada the assets that had been funded by the taxpayer, but Air Canada had to keep maintenance jobs in Canada.

Sometimes governments have made deals with corporations based on a handshake, saying “We will give you a tax break here and we will change the laws, but the deal is that you keep jobs in Canada.” Those agreements have not always been honoured, and the difference with Air Canada is that we have a law to make sure Air Canada follows the agreement.

Right now we are hearing that the Liberals will change that law. I have heard Liberal members saying this is a Canadian bill for Canadian jobs, and do we not trust in the ingenuity of workers? Yes, we trust in the ingenuity of workers, but I do not trust Air Canada's word on this matter.

My question to the hon. member is this: is the Liberal government placing too much trust in Air Canada's word?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would not presume to know what the government is thinking or what it may be doing with this piece of legislation. We are questioning the intent of it and also the timing, but we do know, as the hon. member pointed out, that the original intent of the Air Canada Public Participation Act when it was introduced in 1988 was to put in place clear conditions to ensure that all of the support Air Canada has received over the years from the Government of Canada and the taxpayers to turn it into a profitable crown corporation would not be lost.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before I give the member for Beloeil—Chambly the floor, I must inform him that we have about 12 minutes left before member statements.

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Before I begin, I would like to thank some of my colleagues who worked on this file. This was a team effort, after all.

I would like to thank, of course, my colleague the member for Edmonton Strathcona, who is our transport critic, and my colleague the member for Windsor West, who is our innovation, science, and economic development critic. Both those colleagues have worked very hard on this issue as well.

I also want to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. As an MP from Montreal, he represents a good number of the workers who will be affected by this change. I want to thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona as well. Since he represents a riding in the Winnipeg area, he is also seeing first-hand the impact of the decisions made here.

This issue also affects me. I say that with a bit of a smile, since my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent and I have often talked about the importance of Quebec's aerospace industry, specifically. I am from a suburb in the greater Montreal area, where there are workers and machinists in various industries who work hard, particularly at Air Canada. This bill will therefore have a major impact in my region. That is why I am very pleased to share the NDP's position on this with the House.

First of all, we must condemn the government's lack of rigour on any issues related to the aerospace industry. This government has been improvising ever since it was sworn in back in November. Since the Liberals say they recognize the importance of the aerospace industry in Canada, and particularly in Quebec, I think that they should have a plan. That goes without saying. During the election campaign, the Liberals kept saying over and over again that they had a plan, but they do not seem to have one for that industry, as we can see from the many problems that have arisen.

First of all, regarding Bombardier, we asked the minister on the day that he was sworn in what he planned to do about this file. Of course, I did not expect an answer the day that he was sworn in. However, it has been several months now, and the Liberals just keep saying that the situation is being evaluated and that they presented a budget. We have yet to hear anything about this, and they tell us to simply trust them. Instead of saying “just watch me” like his father, the Prime Minister keeps saying “just trust me”. The problem is that we do not find him trustworthy so far.

The Air Canada Public Participation Act that we are discussing today is very much intertwined with the Bombardier situation. The Minister of Transport is using the Bombardier case and Air Canada's promise to buy Bombardier aircraft as an excuse to change the legislation, saying that it is a good agreement and giving them carte blanche to decide how they are going to protect jobs here in Canada.

As my colleague put it so well, the problem is that the bill changes the current legislation and asks us to trust Air Canada to meet its obligations. For now, those are legal obligations, but if the bill is passed, that will no longer be the case.

We seriously wonder whether we are seeing a favour being returned. The Minister of Transport seems to want to thank Air Canada for buying Bombardier aircraft, thereby helping the government to off-load this hot potato. This gives the minister some good news to announce during question period, when he is asked about Aveos or Bombardier. He can go on about how nice it was to sit in one of those planes and he also gets to avoid having to defend his colleague, the Minister of Innovation, who remains unable to tell us when a decision will be made in the Bombardier case.

I do not pretend to know what the government members are thinking, but the facts are not reassuring, neither about the government, nor about the future of Air Canada maintenance jobs, which are supposed to be protected by law.

Before I go on, it is important for me to put things into context to better understand how we got to this point.

My colleagues will remember that Aveos announced that it was filing for bankruptcy in 2012. Naturally, the unions representing the machinists and the Government of Quebec sued Air Canada, accusing it of failing to meets its legal obligations. In fact, almost 3,000 jobs were lost after the news broke.

At the time, we asked the Conservative government a number of questions. Unfortunately, we never got an answer. We wanted to know what the Conservatives were going to do to enforce the law. As usual, we were given all kinds of excuses about market realities, even though there was a law. There were legal obligations. The government was not able to give us an explanation.

We now have a new government. What is important and what we are interested in today are the questions posed by the Liberals at the time. They were so indignant that the current Prime Minister, who is an MP from Montreal, protested alongside the workers in Montreal. As my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona said so well yesterday, he wasn't embarrassed to sing Kumbaya, to chant “So-so-so-solidarity” and shout out all kinds of slogans along with the protesters.

After all, people often said that the Conservatives came to change Ottawa and Ottawa changed them. Now, the same thing is happening with the Liberals. They came to change Ottawa and Ottawa changed them. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the Liberals have not changed. These are the same Liberals that we knew before. When they were in the opposition, they tried to tell us one thing, they were going to protest with workers, but now they are flouting the law by changing it to legalize things that are illegal today, that will be illegal tomorrow, and that will be illegal until the bill is passed. It is completely shameful. It is disgraceful and unbecoming. It is particularly unbecoming because they promised to do things differently. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing today.

I would like to continue providing more context. After 2012, the situation changed. With the purchase of the Bombardier C Series, or at least the promise to buy since it is not yet a done deal, the Government of Quebec put an end to the dispute. It was only natural to do so until an agreement could be reached. Meanwhile, the government once again took advantage of the circumstances to make changes.

At the time, the Minister of Transport provided a justification. I said “at the time”, as though it were a long time ago, because time flies when promises are being broken. A few months ago, the Minister of Transport explained that this was to allow for more flexibility. This sounds as though Air Canada is being given an opportunity to flout the law, but no one is actually saying so. Air Canada is simply being given an opportunity to legally flout the law. It is being given permission to do things it is not allowed to do now.

I want to raise an important point here. I heard a number of Liberal colleagues say the same thing. I even heard a Liberal member question our trust in Canadian workers and Canada's industrial capacity. I would like to give him some figures that are relevant here. The first figure has to do with the export of supply chains to the Asia-Pacific region. From 2003 to 2013, exports of supply chains grew rapidly by 190%. We lost jobs here in Canada. These jobs are going elsewhere. Supply chain exports to the Asia-Pacific region account for nearly 20% of the overall growth in value of exports.

We can see that more and more aerospace companies are outsourcing to Asia and other countries. Jobs here in Canada in these industries have become unstable. That is why we need a law to protect those jobs. We are not questioning the workers' skills or the quality of our industry. We are questioning whether the current market will protect those jobs. After all, they are high-quality jobs with good working conditions, pensions, and guaranteed income. It is so easy for large corporations to outsource jobs like that to places where labour costs less. That is being done to the detriment of the people we represent. That is exactly why the law was passed at the time, because, to put it bluntly, Air Canada benefited from the money of these same taxpayers who are now going to lose their jobs.

Once again, as one of my colleagues put it so well in one of his questions, over the past few years, in cases where the tax rate was lowered for large corporations, for example, companies often promised to return the favour and keep jobs here in Canada. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

I have some other things to say, but it is almost time for question period, so I will pick this up again later.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly will have 10 minutes left to finish his speech when the House resumes debate.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly has 10 minutes to finish his speech.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will pick up my speech where I left off. I was saying that this bill is a betrayal of workers since it seeks to amend the law that ensures that their jobs remain in the locations indicated in that law.

However, this is not just about job losses. Although the job losses that will occur as a result of this bill are very worrisome, the instability of the jobs in this sector is also a cause for concern. That is perhaps an unintended consequence, and it makes us wonder how much the government really thought about the consequences of its bill. Let me explain.

According to the bill, it would be deemed appropriate to outsource these jobs if that allowed Air Canada to maintain its competitive advantage. After the bill is passed, jobs may stay in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga. However, we do not know how long that situation will last and we will have to deal with the fact that these jobs will become unstable. Air Canada may justify outsourcing jobs by saying that it wants to avoid raising prices for consumers. That is a problem.

As I said before question period, we have high-quality, well-paying jobs here. It will be counter-productive if those jobs become unstable. We are not just talking about job losses, but about job quality as well.

Since this debate began, Liberal government members have been arguing that Air Canada has to remain competitive in an ever-changing industry. The problem is that we not only have to stand up for the workers affected by this bill, but we also have to think about the precedent that this bill sets.

Imagine a world where every time something like this comes up, the government claims that the company's legal requirements prevent it from remaining competitive and will cause rates to increase and all kinds of problems.

If, every time, the government decides to change the law and make legal something that used to be illegal, namely the loss of good-quality jobs, what will prevent the government from doing the same thing again for another company that has similar legal obligations, under the pretext that the industry is competitive?

How many jobs would be in jeopardy and would become precarious? How many jobs are we prepared to outsource to keep our companies competitive? That is not what a free market is. By intervening to favour a company on a legal level, the government is going against the idea of a free market. This is not the role of a responsible government.

A government, especially this one, which was elected on its claim of wanting to stand up for the middle class, is responsible for standing up for the workers who are protected by law.

I want to reiterate that this is a betrayal. During the last Parliament, in 2012, the Liberal Party was outraged about the Conservative government's refusal to step up and enforce the law. However, the Liberals are now saying that they will absolutely enforce the law, because they are going to change it.

Changing the law makes the Liberals even worse than the Conservatives. The Conservatives did not enforce the law, but the Liberals have simply decided to change the law at the expense of workers.

I am thinking about all those members from Montreal.

The same goes for members from Winnipeg or Mississauga, members who are from cities that have workers who rely on these jobs which are protected by Air Canada's legal obligations. Today we see a betrayal of those workers, those workers who now are now seeing the Liberal government change the law after saying that the previous Conservative government should apply the law. The changes to that law are not only creating a situation where those workers will lose their jobs, but those who manage to hang on to their jobs will no longer be guaranteed the same high-quality long-term jobs and the long-term guarantees which the law affords them today.

Therefore, Canadians should remember this the next time the Liberals tell them how they set bar so much higher than the previous Conservative government. It is rare that I will take the side of the Conservatives in an argument. The Liberals are doing worse than what the Conservatives did. They propose to change the law, and that is a slap in the face for the workers who are protected by the legislation.

We also need to consider the situation at Bombardier. I will have to say more about that later because I did not have enough time to delve into the subject as much as I wanted to during my initial remarks on this subject. We need to consider the fact that Bombardier is going through a tough time across Canada, but especially in Quebec. That has major repercussions on the entire aerospace and aeronautics sector. The problem today is that people are trying to take shortcuts.

I will admit this is speculation, but we have the right to ask certain questions in this debate, and we have to ask them. This bill was introduced before an announcement about the decision on whether to provide, or not provide, assistance to Bombardier.

The answer is clear to the NDP: yes, we should help Bombardier, but there should be strings attached. We should have a solid agreement with provisions to ensure utmost respect for taxpayer dollars throughout the process. We certainly do not want to give Bombardier a blank cheque.

The problem is that there was no mention whatsoever of Bombardier, and no mention of the entire aeronautics and aerospace industry in this budget. Today we are debating Bill C-10, which will have a serious impact on the aeronautics and aerospace industry and on all related decisions, even though we have no idea what direction the government plans to take.

This is quite problematic because, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, it really seems like this is about returning a favour, after Air Canada committed to purchasing the C Series planes from Bombardier. Every time we ask the minister any questions about this file, he simply gets up and says that it does not matter, that we have good news from Air Canada. Of course we have some concerns about this. We will continue to stand up for workers.

That is why we will be voting against this bill and why I am pleased to move, seconded by my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, the following amendment:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, because it:

(a) threatens the livelihoods of thousands of Canadian workers in the aerospace industry by failing to protect the long-term stability of the Canadian aerospace sector from seeing jobs outsourced to foreign markets;

(b) forces Canadian manufacturers to accept greater risks and to incur greater upfront costs in conducting their business;

(c) provides no guarantee that the terms and conditions of employment in the Canadian aeronautics sector will not deteriorate under increased and unfettered competition; and

(d) does not fulfill the commitments made by the Prime Minister when he attended demonstrations alongside workers in the past.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The amendment is in order.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I have a question in terms of where the NDP might stand in relation to the Provinces of Quebec and Manitoba.

I was around when these decisions were being made back in 2010 and 2011. I was very much involved here in the House of Commons. There was a great deal of concern expressed by both the Province of Manitoba and the Province of Quebec, which ultimately led to a substantial court case against Air Canada. It would now appear that the Province of Quebec has recognized that this is in fact in the best interests of the province, from what I understand in terms of this settlement.

Can the member provide any information whatsoever related to the provincial government of Quebec and what it might be telling the member?

My understanding is that this is something that the Province of Quebec, along with Air Canada and other stakeholders, sees as a possible way out. Would the member not agree that the Province of Quebec's thoughts should be respected?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, as far as Quebec is concerned, the lawsuit was dropped until an agreement could be reached between the parties.

However, the workers are also part of the lawsuit.

To the member coming from Winnipeg who stands up and asks who we are standing with, we are standing with the workers who are going to lose their jobs because the Liberal government has decided to make legal what is now illegal.

I have a hard time wondering how that members goes back to his home city in Winnipeg and tells the workers in that city that their jobs that were guaranteed by the law are no longer guaranteed. Not only that, even if they do manage to hang onto their jobs, there is no guarantee there anymore because of the bill drafted by the government.

To the NDP, it is very clear. We are not standing up to pit one region against another, but to protect the workers whose jobs are protected by law.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the crux of the matter is that we have an attempt here to go retroactively back and affect workers' rights, collective agreements, and all of those things that were set in place by legislation, which was clear at that time.

At that time as well, these companies received the benefits of corporate tax reductions. They received the benefits of R and D SR and ED credits. They received a lot of public investment with regard to their operations. That was the deal that was set going into this situation here, so why would the government give this extended benefit and give them a holiday from protecting workers?

By the way, in Canada, those workers have invested their family income to be trained, whether through university, college, or other types of training programs, and so has the government. However, that is cast to the wind for political expediency.

What we are trying to do, including the industry committee, is protect value-added jobs for Canadians, which is the essence of building a stronger Canada.

I would like my colleague to talk about those things.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question and the work he does on this file.

At the end of the day, that is precisely the problem. This is a situation where we have a Prime Minister who was not shy about demonstrating with the Aveos workers in 2012. What is more, the re-elected Liberal members, including the hon. member who asked me the question, expressed their indignation during the previous Parliament. This is a betrayal that is absolutely unacceptable to us. We have legislation to protect these jobs.

To get back to what my colleague was saying, I would say that in changing the law, we might assume that some of the workers we are trying to defend will manage to hang on to their jobs. However, the problem with the way the bill is drafted is that we are creating uncertainty. We are allowing Air Canada to provide no guarantees, to outsource these jobs, and to create completely unacceptable instability. Furthermore, we will be creating problems for the aerospace and aeronautics sectors in Quebec and Canada. We are going to end up losing our expertise because these jobs are unstable and they could potentially be lost, although with this bill, I should probably say they will inevitably be lost. It will be very difficult to regain this expertise and rebuild our industry in Quebec and Canada. The government may not have thought about these consequences. That is why we are rising today to oppose this bill.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was wondering if the member has any indication as to how this amendment would affect the level of safety regulations.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I can assure her that there will be no impact on safety regulations. We are just telling the government to start from scratch. We are telling the government that Bill C-10 does not work and will not protect the jobs currently protected by the law. Questions about safety will surely come up when we are talking about air transport and workers. However, all the NDP is saying today with our position and our amendment is that this bill is harmful to the sustainability of the aeronautics and aerospace industry in Quebec and Canada. It is also clearly harmful to the workers we are defending here today.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to the idea of the role of the provinces. They have been fairly involved in the negotiations and the talks, and I like to think that they also have a vested interest in protecting their respective industries within their provinces. I wonder if the member would at the very least acknowledge that provinces do matter and that their discussions and their beliefs should be taken into consideration.

Provinces that have worked along with Air Canada and other stakeholders are inclined to say that these multi-faceted agreements are at least protecting the future of the aerospace industries. Does the member believe that there is any obligation on his part, or in particular on the part of the New Democratic Party in the House of Commons, to at least try to reflect some honesty as to what provinces are actually saying in their involvement in this process?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party has nothing to teach me about how to treat Quebec or other provinces that have definitely been impacted by the Liberal Party's lack of respect. We need only think of the cuts to transfers in the 1990s, not to mention all the other consequences that have been felt over the years.

Let us be clear about Quebec's decision with respect to the dispute. It asked that the suit be suspended until the two parties reach an agreement. Air Canada agreed to purchase C Series planes, but that does not give the Liberal government carte blanche to completely flout the law, change it, and betray the government's previous positions. Nor does it give the government blanket authority to remove legal protections for workers who currently have good jobs that are protected under the law.

I would like to reassure my colleague. We will always listen to the Government of Quebec. There is no doubt about that. However, we are here listening to Quebec workers who will lose their jobs. Why? Rather than singing Kumbaya and chanting “So-so-so-solidarity”, the Prime Minister has simply decided to slap them in the face, change the law and remove these protections. That is a disgrace and we will never be ashamed to say it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mount Royal.

This is an issue about which I feel very passionate, because at the end of the day, I have had first-hand experience of the ramifications of decisions that were made five, six, even seven years ago in the lead-up to those decisions.

I can recall meeting with many of the workers and other stakeholders, particularly in my home province of Manitoba, who were directly affected. I could only wish that we had this type of resistance at that time from New Democrats and Conservatives, because when I was meeting with employees and other stakeholders, especially in Manitoba, I felt very much alone as an elected official in trying to make sure that the employees in the aerospace industry in the province I love were in fact being protected.

Let us have a review. We had legislation to protect a series of obligations when Air Canada was privatized. I would argue that those were very important obligations, because it has been difficult at the best of times to ensure that industries in my home province were being protected.

I have talked in this House on numerous occasions about the importance of the aerospace industry to Manitoba, and even beyond that, when I have talked about Quebec and Ontario, because that is what we are really talking about here today.

That said, it gives us a sense that whether it was through petitions, postcards, question period, questioning the Prime Minister directly when these decisions were actually being made and the government should have been taking a more proactive approach at protecting the employees, that was the time when we really needed to see action. That is when we saw the Conservative members sit on their hands, and I cannot recall seeing New Democrats jumping from their seats to protect jobs back then. I cannot recall seeing that.

Let us fast-forward a little. Now we have the provincial government of Quebec, which responded a little ways after some of those decisions were made, and we had the NDP provincial government in Manitoba respond a little bit later by saying that it will become involved. I can remember talking to employees, saying that Manitoba should be a stand-alone, that we had to hold Air Canada accountable and so forth. There was a great deal of emotion.

No one can tell me that they are more concerned about the former employees who got shafted. I am very much concerned about those employees. I wanted to see answers. This goes back a number of years.

Now we have a situation in which the Province of Quebec, the Province of Manitoba, Air Canada, and other stakeholders have been negotiating, the best I can tell, for a good period of time to try to rectify what I believe was a significant wrong, which I have been anxious to see resolved.

There are two issues. The first issue has to be, from my perspective, the long-term interests of the aerospace industry in our country, and more specifically for me and my constituents and the area I represent, the interests of the aerospace industry in Manitoba.

The desire of this government is to see those industries grow, and we will do what we can to facilitate that growth. All one needs to do is look at the budget we have presented, which the NDP and the Conservatives are voting against, and one will see that there are significant things in that budget that will help our aerospace industry, help those individuals who will be future employees in that industry, and even help those who are currently employed.

I am very much concerned about the many different ways this agreement seems to be moving forward. Hopefully we will see more light and more benefit for all three provinces going forward.

Why do we have this bill? The essence of the bill, from what I understand, is that we have a sense of an obligation that Air Canada has to maintain a presence not only in the province of Manitoba, but also in the province of Quebec. I am very pleased to see that.

From what I understand, Air Canada has also announced an agreement with the Government of Manitoba for the establishment of a western Canada centre of excellence, which is expected to create 150 jobs in aircraft maintenance starting in 2017, with the possibility of even further expansion and job creation.

Given the importance of this industry to the province of Manitoba, I see that as a positive thing. I realize there is a cost going into negotiations, and if the New Democrats were fairer in their criticisms, they would acknowledge that the employees who were burnt by what took place four, five, six years ago are still feeling the pain of it. Some of them actually had to move outside the city of Winnipeg. I know of a family that ultimately had to move Calgary. That is an issue which still concerns me.

I am open, willing, and want to meet and work with, in particular, the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley who has been a very strong advocate for the aerospace industry and its employees. I am very concerned with regard to whether we can do something to support those former employees. I am prepared to work with the Government of Canada, the Government of Manitoba, unions and whoever else it might be. If there is something that can be achieved, I am open to doing that.

For me, that is a very important issue, a reality that I cannot express strongly enough, in terms of how I feel for those families that were affected. I walked on picket lines with them. I protested at the Winnipeg International Airport. I had meetings with them on the side. The care and compassion for those who have lost their jobs is there. It is real. If something can be done, I am open to doing that.

Let us move on to the terms of the overall impact on the industry. If members believe that Manitoba has the potential to continue to grow and prosper in the aerospace industry, I would suggest that at the very least we should support this bill to go to committee. If members say that they are an advocate for some of these workers or for the aerospace industry, whether it is in Manitoba, Ontario, or Quebec, we should at least have a vote on it and allow it to go to committee.

We are more than happy to have opposition members invite witnesses to the committee, and we will see government witnesses. I suspect we will have representatives from many of the different stakeholders. Let us hear first-hand what they have to say. I am very much interested in the proceedings that will be taking place at committee.

The Prime Minister himself has talked about the importance of our aerospace industry. Given the sense of commitment and expenditures that we are seeing in the budget, I believe that right from the Prime Minister to the minister responsible to cabinet to all members of the Liberal caucus, there is a desire to see our aerospace industry prosper. It is very real. This is the motivating factor behind this particular bill.

At the end of the day, I would highly recommend to opposition members that when they comment on this piece of legislation to please take into consideration the efforts the stakeholders are making to try to rectify a very serious issue. When we are talking about stakeholders, it is not only the national government but provincial jurisdictions, private corporations, unions, and others as well.

I hope that this legislation will be allowed to pass in a timely fashion. In view of the importance of this industry, we need to emphasize the importance of passing this legislation in a timely fashion. Let us see what happens at the committee stage.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

In his speech, as well as in those of his Liberal colleagues and our Conservative colleagues, to some extent, it is argued that Air Canada should be allowed to compete with other airlines around the world.

Their speeches seem to suggest that the Government of Canada accepts and encourages the outsourcing of good jobs to other countries, whether it is Mexico or any other country where labour is cheaper. We even heard some members say that this would allow Air Canada to be more competitive.

Since when has the Government of Canada encouraged the outsourcing of good jobs to other countries?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, let me clearly indicate that the bill would continue to reinforce the government's expectation that Air Canada would undertake aircraft maintenance in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario. In fact, Air Canada has entered into an agreement with the Province of Manitoba, where we will see the establishment of a Western Canada centre of excellence.

This is something I do not want to write off. Others have spent a great deal of time trying to develop it. I want an aerospace industry that is going to prosper not only in my province, but in Canada in general. There are certain aspects to the legislation in this holistic package that would actually derive some benefits.

All I am suggesting to the member is to remain open-minded. I am going to stand for workers too. Let us see this bill get to committee and listen to what people have to say.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, Air Canada employs 26,000 people across Canada. We need to ensure that Air Canada can be successful moving forward. Could my hon. colleague explain to us how the bill would give Air Canada more flexibility to be more successful moving forward?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, Canadians as a whole understand and appreciate the importance of flight today. One of the things we want to do as a government is ensure that Air Canada is there for future generations.

I believe there are certain aspects of the original act, which was brought forward back in the late eighties, that we need to continue to fight to preserve. As a government, where it makes sense, we can provide encouragement through these centres of excellence where future jobs could be created to enhance and build upon our aerospace industry. There is an obligation that the Government of Canada today is prepared to recognize and support where it can. That is something completely different from the former Conservative government that did absolutely nothing. It sat on its hands.

We have to make sure that Air Canada is able to sustain itself well into the future. There is a role to ensure that Canadians have that sense of pride. Air Canada used to be a fully public corporation, but is now a very responsible private entity that sometimes might go off the rails, to use a different mode of transportation metaphorically. It might need to be put back on the rails so that we have the long-term viability of good quality jobs, a fantastic airline, and something that would provide competition well into the future.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my great honour to rise in the House today to talk about the changes to the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

The bill is very short, and I do not suppose that much of it is controversial. For example, I do not think that the changes with respect to the City of Mississauga, the Montreal Urban Community, known as the MUC, the City of Winnipeg, Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba are controversial.

I imagine that the fact we are updating the definition of what constitutes maintenance is not controversial.

What I do hear from the opposition, and I understand, is the concern about jobs. It is a concern about the fact that the law would allow more flexibility to Air Canada and would not require that all of its maintenance be done in Montreal, Mississauga, or Winnipeg, or even in those provinces. It would give flexibility to Air Canada to decide where it may locate workers, provided that it retains centres of excellence in those three provinces.

I can understand. I hear the NDP. I understand from the perspective of unions that they are nervous. They are worried that jobs may be lost because there would no longer be the same legal protections there were before. I get that.

I listened to the Conservatives. I heard the argument that Air Canada originally, in the late 1980s, when it was privatized, had received from the Canadian taxpayers a certain amount of equipment and landing rights and other things, which meant that Air Canada had certain obligations that would not be imposed upon other airlines. I understand that, as well.

Let me explain why I do believe this amendment to the act actually does make sense.

First, I would like to say that, as a Montrealer, I am very pleased to know that Air Canada's headquarters must remain in Montreal. Also, we still have the same bilingualism requirements as before.

On the other hand, Air Canada is a company in a market that has changed very significantly since the 1980s. In the 1980s, there were far fewer airlines. Those of us who, before we came into this House, travelled a lot for business know that today there are low-cost carriers domestically and abroad. There are carriers from the Far East and the gulf states that now have taken over a lot of the international routes.

American aeronautics companies have merged and have been restructured. Almost every one of them has passed through bankruptcy protection. Even Air Canada went through the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act 10 years ago.

Air Canada is not the healthiest financial company that there is. We all understand that. The success of a very strong domestic airline like Air Canada—and it is good that we have other domestic airlines as well, like WestJet and Porter—is a prerequisite for the Canadian economy to be successful because Air Canada employs not just 2,600 people in maintenance, but 26,000 people across Canada.

Air Canada does need, now that it is a privatized company, the ability to move jobs sometimes. It is clear. I was in private industry. Before I came here I was the general counsel for a multinational. We always wanted to keep jobs in our major centres, but it is important to have flexibility, because companies owe debt. There are shareholders of those companies, and there is a need for success. We do not want to, as a government, be told that we will need to put another $1 billion, $2 billion, or $5 billion into Air Canada to keep Air Canada afloat one day.

We really do need to look at what Air Canada needs to do.

I have looked at it from this perspective. Yes, there were assets, but I think the main argument—and I would hope to convince my Conservative counterparts of this—is there were obligations that were given in the late 1980s based upon the Canadian taxpayers having helped set up Air Canada. However, for every one of the assets that Air Canada would have received in 1989, the amortization period would long since have ended. The usefulness of those assets would be hardly the same today as they were in the late 1980s. So, not only has the market changed, but the situation has also changed 27 years after this law was first adopted.

It is true that we put obligations in the law in the late 1980s, but now Air Canada may well need to compete with more flexibility. Let me also say that, when I talk about flexibility, because this was the case in my company, I am not talking necessarily about moving jobs out of the domestic market. We would be looking at whether all jobs should be in Montreal or whether we should put jobs in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, or Halifax.

Why are there are only three provinces in the country where Air Canada can locate these jobs? Why can Air Canada not say it is more competitive, that there is a company in Vancouver or Edmonton? The Alberta economy is suffering and maybe there is a company in Edmonton that can do this work cheaper and better than the companies that it is outsourcing to in another city that is covered under the law. Why can Air Canada not decide to move jobs there, when every one of its competitors can make that rational decision?

I understand the need to protect Canadian jobs, but all of the domestic air carriers in Canada do not have the same limitations as Air Canada. As I hope I have successfully explained, the historical context is not as relevant today as it was in 1989 when this law was adopted, because the assets provided, the lending rates provided, and everything have depreciated since then.

Let me then go back to the issue of what this allows Air Canada to do. There was litigation with Aveos in 2012. Quebec commenced litigation and won in both courts in the first and second instances with respect to the fact that Air Canada had an obligation legally to keep jobs in Montreal. There were discussions with the Quebec government and the Government of Manitoba. I assume the federal government, at the time and continually, was kept up to date and in the loop on those discussions.

I do not know of any of us in this room who were sitting at the table at those settlement discussions that probably went on for a very long time. The conclusion was that promises were made. There has been a contract given to Bombardier. There has been a commitment to the Government of Quebec that the Bombardier aircraft will be maintained in Quebec for the next 20 years after delivery. There is an agreement in Manitoba that there will be a centre of excellence in the Winnipeg that will hire and employ 150 people.

Air Canada does, indeed, seem committed and has actually negotiated settlements with governments in these jurisdictions, at least to the satisfaction of those governments, to keep jobs in their respective provinces and agree to drop the suit. At that point, the federal government also needs to look at what has been negotiated. It was not necessarily right at the table, but it was probably kept in the loop. We need to say that the Quebec and Manitoba governments are satisfied with these changes. Air Canada has said that, as a prerequisite probably of doing these buys and making the commitments, it needs more autonomy, that it needs to be able to compete, and the federal government is acting to allow that.

Again, am I sorry for the people who may be worried that, as a result of these changes, their jobs may be more at risk? Yes, I am, and I think this government has committed in the budget to do more to enhance technology in Canada, to enhance aeronautics in Canada, to invest in middle-class jobs. However, am I panicked about this? No, I am not, because these are not widget-making jobs that can be easily exported to China or India. These are highly skilled mechanics doing work on specific aircraft owned by Air Canada.

In my view, Canadian workers who are highly skilled and highly trained are able to convince any company to keep jobs domestically. That is my feeling. I feel that the workers in Montreal, Winnipeg, Toronto, and across the country will be able to convince Air Canada that they can do the job more effectively and more cost-effectively than relocating those jobs abroad. While I understand the concerns and acknowledge the concerns—I am not going to say there are no concerns—I do believe that the amendment to the law is correct and I am proud to support it.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the member laid out in his eloquent speech, there were significant taxpayer concessions that were given at the time of the agreement, but I also recall the Prime Minister sitting here not two days ago saying a deal is a deal is a deal as it related to the Saudi arms deal. I am wondering why it does not apply to this.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, what the Prime Minister was speaking of was a deal with a foreign country, where Canada's reputation abroad is at issue. We are talking now about amending the law. There was no signed agreement related to the federal government adopting a law. These were terms laid out by the federal government at the time. We are not breaching a contract. We are going back to the Parliament of Canada and asking the Parliament of Canada to legally amend the law. I really do not see that there is the same issue there.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I am quite surprised to hear that kind of speech from a Liberal. In the past, their messaging was completely different. I distinctly remember seeing the current Prime Minister on the steps of Parliament with his microphone, chanting rousing slogans in support of workers and demanding that the law be enforced and that jobs be maintained. I think he was particularly concerned about jobs in Montreal, and I expect my colleague is too.

What has changed since then? Not much time has passed since the days when the Liberals demanded that the law be enforced and that Aveos workers be respected. Now they are saying that Air Canada will decide where the jobs should be based on market forces. That will not prevent them from moving jobs outside of Canada.

Why did they not, at the very least, make sure that jobs would stay in Canada? If my colleague is so concerned about the fact that designating three cities is too restrictive, why not at least ensure that jobs will stay in Canada?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his question.

That is precisely why we should all support this bill, so that it can be examined in committee, where he and his party could propose an amendment in that regard. Personally, I am quite pleased to see that the environment has changed since 2012. The dispute has been settled, which has protected many jobs in Montreal. Bombardier has received a number of orders for planes, and a contract will be signed. Under the contract, Bombardier will keep jobs in Montreal for 20 years after the planes are delivered.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, the existing rules require that the maintenance be performed in the Montreal Urban Community. The Montreal Urban Community has not existed in 15 years or about three prime ministers.

I would like the member to speak a bit about why it is important to modernize the laws and bring them up to date.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is true. I was a mayor in the region of Montreal. Since the forced mergers in 2001, the MUC has not existed in that name, so technically we would certainly want to amend the law for that reason.

As I mentioned in my speech, the situation has changed in 27 years. Twenty-seven years ago, the state was giving assets and privatizing a company, and as a result the state felt that it was incumbent upon it and reasonable to impose limitations on that company. Some of them remain in effect, such as the need to keep a head office in Montreal and the requirement of Air Canada to provide services in English and French across the country. Due to the changes in the industry and changes in Air Canada, which went through CCAA proceedings not 10 years ago and was losing money until 2011, some changes may need to be made, and the government is modernizing the law to make them.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

This bill would amend the articles of the Air Canada Public Participation Act that stipulate that the carrier undertake operational and overhaul maintenance in Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. For all intents and purposes, these articles would be removed. This would allow Air Canada to fulfill its maintenance needs outside of Canada and presumably at a lower cost. Consequently, Air Canada would no longer have to employ approximately 3,000 heavy maintenance workers in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba.

The language that is used in Bill C-10 states:

...while not eliminating those activities in any of those provinces, change the type or volume of any or all of those activities in each of those provinces, as well as the level of employment in any or all of those activities.

I challenge any Liberal member to inform the House what he or she believes are the minimum number of Canadian jobs that article would protect.

Every member knows that all airlines do some maintenance work in every airport out of which they operate. This is called line maintenance, the routine checks that ensure that the planes are in good order and safe for passengers on a day-to-day basis.

Heavy or overhaul maintenance is the work that takes several days. It involves high skill because the mechanics are performing tasks such as replacing an engine or airframe upkeep. These are all high-end jobs, vital to Canada's aviation sector because of how skill-intensive these tasks are. By not specifying the type of maintenance work that needs to be done in Canada, as Bill C-10 proposes, Air Canada would be able to fulfill its legal obligation without having a single heavy maintenance person on staff.

While all Air Canada overall maintenance work would continue to be done in facilities that are certified by Transport Canada, the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood made the following point a few years ago. He stated:

By keeping Air Canada’s maintenance in Canada, we ensured a superior level of safety with tight regulations and a highly skilled aerospace workforce. By shuttering Canadian overhaul centres, Canada is losing its ability to ensure that our aircraft meet safety regulations.

While the government should be commended for looking at ways to make Air Canada more competitive, and we agree with that, it cannot be commended for introducing a measure that would lead to job losses in Canada before even considering anything else.

Earlier this year, the Minister of Transport tabled a statutory review of the Canada Transportation Act, and the review looked forward 20 to 30 years to identify priorities and potential actions in transportation that would support Canada's long-term economic well-being. The report makes a number of recommendations concerning the aviation sector that stem from many months of analytical work, significant public consultation, and experience from eminent Canadians, including the Hon. David Emerson, who actually chaired that review.

Some of the examples of these recommendations include establishing a set of principles to guide all airports in Canada when determining fees, tying all airport improvement fees to specific projects with explicit sunset provisions, and overhauling the regulator, financing, and delivery models for security.

None of these initiatives would have cost the taxpayers any dollars, and considering the size of the Liberals' budget deficit, this would be especially important and, for the context of this debate, lead to job losses in Canada.

This legislation can and should be modernized without removing one if its key provisions. Air Canada has important heavy maintenance operations in Richmond, B.C., that should be considered by this act, but it is not even mentioned.

Canadians benefit from the efficient, affordable aviation sector. As Canada's largest carrier, having carried 40 million passengers last year, ensuring that Air Canada can provide affordable service to Canadians is extremely important. However, the government should always exhaust all measures available to it to achieve its objective, before picking the one that could cost Canadian workers their jobs.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member did not sit with her colleagues in the last government, but that government was saddled with the distinction of making changes to regulations in the tax structure that allowed 400,000 well-paying jobs to leave Canada. The Conservatives' idea was light touch regulation or deregulation.

Now I hear the hon. member talking about holding on to regulation to hold somebody's feet to the fire in order to make it potentially uncompetitive and less able to sustain itself and good Canadian jobs.

How does the member reconcile those two?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, the previous government was very proud of the 51 trade deals that it signed. They were negotiated in good faith, and they were signed by all parties.

With respect to this, there is an issue with amending the legislation and not looking at other options. These are the issues that the Conservative Party has. We have no issue with modernizing legislation and with making companies more competitive, because that is what we do. However, it cannot come at the loss of Canadian jobs when other opportunities have not been realized fully.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I am wondering whether she believes, as I do, that the government should be encouraging the creation of new jobs in Canada rather than introducing legislation that will legalize something that until now has been illegal. In addition, we know why those jobs were in the agreement that was signed. Air Canada wanted to take advantage of taxpayers' money when the transfer took place and the company was privatized.

Does my colleague believe that the government should instead be encouraging job creation, or at least preserving the jobs we already have in this sector and at Air Canada? Should we at least be ensuring that Air Canada will keep a minimum number of jobs here in Canada, instead of encouraging the outsourcing of jobs to other countries?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is precisely the point. This was embedded within the agreement in 1988 because significant concessions were given by Canadian taxpayers. We want to ensure that Air Canada is viable, that it has opportunities in the market. It is our firm belief that there are many other options for doing that, not losing these Canadian jobs. As well, a fundamental piece of the agreement was to keep those jobs in Canada.

As a free enterpriser, it is important to maintain that undertaking as well as look at opportunities for expansion in trade and opportunities to expand business.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, would the hon. member agree that this issue should be debated at the committee level so we can hear from witnesses and hear more of the discussion we need to have on this issue?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I always believe open discussion is a good thing to have when we look to amend any bill. However, extracting fundamental components out of it prior to having those conversations is backward. We should maintain the fundamental components of the agreement and the deal that was put in place in 1988, but the committee can still come forward with additional amendments that look at other options, other than losing Canadian jobs.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

So far, we have heard members on the government side and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport go on and on about the quality of the Bombardier C Series aircraft and about how happy they are that Air Canada has ordered so many aircraft.

Bombardier has been promoting its new aircraft for several years now, and what Bombardier needs is to get more orders. The government's platitudes here will unfortunately not help Bombardier sell a single aircraft.

That said, it does not matter that the minister is justifying Bill C-10 by saying that Air Canada's will purchase C Series aircraft and that the maintenance of these aircraft will be done in Quebec. None of this has anything to do with Bombardier or its new aircraft.

The text of the act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures makes no reference to Bombardier or its C Series aircraft. The changes that the government is proposing in this bill make no reference to Bombardier or the C Series aircraft. Even if Air Canada purchases and takes possession of 45 of Bombardier's aircraft, that will represent only a small portion of its total fleet, about 15%.

We all know that most of Air Canada's fleet consists of Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer aircraft. This bill is only concerned with where Air Canada must do its maintenance. Talking about other things only diverts attention away from what is important. What is important is to strike a balance between keeping good jobs here in Canada and making it possible for Air Canada to continue becoming a more flexible and competitive private company.

Let us go back in time in order to understand why the federal government at that time included a provision on aircraft maintenance that read as follows:

The articles of continuance of the Corporation shall contain

...

(d) provisions requiring the Corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community and the City of Mississauga;

By passing legislation guaranteeing that operational and overhaul centres would be maintained, the then government ensured that Air Canada maintenance jobs would stay in Canada. This condition was deemed necessary because we, the taxpayers, had invested a lot of money and implemented policies that supported Air Canada. Accordingly, in 1988, when Air Canada was privatized, all parties felt that Air Canada's good maintenance jobs had to stay in Canada and, more specifically, near the cities of Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg.

These policies and this financial support still exist today. That is why the government at the time ensured that this condition for privatization was included in the legislation. That way, only a change to that legislation made by the Parliament of Canada would allow Air Canada not to have its maintenance done in the three cities named in the legislation.

We all know that the airline industry has changed a great deal since Bill C-129 was introduced and debated in 1988. We all know that the Montreal Urban Community no longer exists, but we can all see that the law intended for the maintenance to be done in Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg.

What has not changed is the need to have aircraft regularly maintained by reliable mechanics with the necessary experience and training to ensure passenger safety.

Canada has one of the best air safety regimes in the world, possibly even the best. We can be proud of that, and it is not something that should be changed overnight. We all recognize that aircraft maintenance is not the same now as it was in 1998. The technology and maintenance practices have changed a lot since then.

However, this bill does not propose modernizing the act to take into account the changes that have occurred in the airline industry with regard to aircraft maintenance. It proposes eliminating Air Canada's obligation to have its aircraft maintained in Canada. That is not modernization. Modernization would be an amendment that describes the type of maintenance that must be done in Canada, for example, with regard to airplane engines or flaps. My government colleagues are arguing that Air Canada is going to maintain the C Series in Quebec, that it is going to move jobs from Mississauga and Montreal to Winnipeg, and that that is enough.

Air Canada has a fleet of nearly 300 planes that need maintenance. Its Airbus and Boeing aircraft and even other planes that were built by Bombardier but are not part of the C Series could be maintained outside Canada. As a result, 85% of the fleet of Air Canada's largest planes, such as the Boeing 787, the Boeing 767, and the Airbus A330, could be maintained abroad.

Given the comments that the parliamentary secretary made in her speech and particularly outside the House, and given the content of the bill, it seems that the government intends to pass this legislative measure before Air Canada has even taken possession of a single C Series aircraft.

That is surprising because there are many measures that the government could introduce that would make Air Canada more competitive without affecting Canadian maintenance workers.

The government could link airport improvement fees to specific projects with clear end dates. It could do a complete overhaul of the airport security funding models. It could increase the number of trusted traveller programs, such as NEXUS and CANPASS. It could increase the ownership limits to at least 49% for commercial passenger carriers. It could also reduce or eliminate the aviation fuel tax, better align the regulations with those of the United States and Europe, and simplify customs and immigration processes.

All of these measures could be introduced quickly, and they would stimulate Air Canada and the country's entire airline industry. All of these measures have Air Canada's support. Unfortunately, the government is ignoring all of these measures in this bill.

I hope that the government will explain why it is ignoring many measures that would support Air Canada without affecting nearly 3,000 maintenance jobs in Canada.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I was wondering how much confidence my colleague has in the Air Canada executives. They are trying to reassure the government and tell it what it wants to hear. They also seem to want to charm us by saying that they are going to keep the jobs in question, there will be no outsourcing, and this will not change anything, when in fact they are lobbying the government for change.

Does my colleague trust Air Canada and its executives, even though they are calling for change while, at the same time, trying to reassure us that nothing is going to change, all the jobs will stay here, we should not worry, and there are going to be even more jobs created? Does he trust this company?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for the question.

I would like to say that I do not trust this government to make changes to help Air Canada, or other Canadian airports and companies.

Our party thinks that the government should do whatever is necessary for every industry that might contribute to jobs in Canada. It has to be said that the Billy Bishop airport is a good example where we can help the airline industry. However, the Liberal government said that we cannot make any changes to the Billy Bishop airport. I therefore do not trust the Liberal government, but I am confident that the airline industry will survive.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party's position is not entirely clear.

Am I to understand that the bill does not go far enough, or does it go too far?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for his important question.

We think that Air Canada must respect certain obligations, since Canadians gave Air Canada certain benefits when it was privatized in 1998.

The Conservative Party believes that we must protect Canadian jobs, especially well-paid jobs. We think that the government can do many things, but it is not doing them, according to Air Canada.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier, members on the Liberal side said that there were other ways to help Air Canada. The Conservatives said the same thing, claiming that we should not take it this far and that we should look for other solutions to help Air Canada.

Could my colleague elaborate on how these alternatives will help Air Canada stay competitive in this extremely competitive market, while requiring it to maintain these jobs in Canadian cities?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke.

The government could be doing many things, but it has done nothing.

For example, it could be tying airport improvement fees to certain set projects, with clear deadlines once these improvements have been made; changing the financing model for security; and replacing the one-size-fits-all screening approach to the airlines so we could tailor certain approaches—two different airlines, two different airports—for a more agile, more nimble response to the airline industry. It is something that is important, certainly to the Quebec industry, but to all provinces as well.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, who will deliver her speech when we come back next week.

On March 24, 2016, our government introduced Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures in the House of Commons. The purpose of the bill, more specifically, is to amend the sections of the act that have to do with Air Canada's operational and overhaul centres.

It is important to point out that this bill is being introduced at a time that is quite historic for the Canadian aerospace industry. As members will recall, in February 2016, Air Canada announced that it planned to purchase up to 75 C Series aircraft from Bombardier, and that it would carry out the maintenance of those planes in Canada for at least 20 years, beginning with the first delivery.

Air Canada will also help establish a centre of excellence in Quebec for the C Series aircraft, as well as another centre in western Canada, to be located in Manitoba. These centres will be able to not only service Air Canada's planes but also to offer those services to other national and international airlines.

In other words, we have introduced a bill at a time that is pivotal for Canada's aerospace industry. Not only is Bombardier offering a product that is a game changer for the aerospace industry worldwide, due to its efficiency and environmental performance, but our most important Canadian airline, Air Canada, clearly intends to make massive investments in the renewal of its fleet of aircraft.

Investing in a cutting-edge product that was designed and manufactured mainly in Canada will improve Air Canada's ability to compete globally and to serve Canadians.

In this historical context, we propose to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which we find to be outdated in part.

More specifically, the bill amends paragraph 6(1)(d) in the provisions requiring Air Canada to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community, and the City of Mississauga.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I know that the member would like to finish his speech, but it being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper. The member will have time to continue his speech the next time this bill is debated.

The House resumed from April 15, 2016, consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will pick up where I left off on Friday.

The law clearly intended for Air Canada to continue maintaining its aircraft in certain regions of Canada. At the same time, the law was designed with one key public policy objective in mind, which was to privatize a crown corporation and allow it to become a competitive and viable private company.

As members no doubt realize, the airline industry has changed quite a bit since the law came into force in 1989. In 2015, Air Canada carried more than 41 million passengers and provided regular, direct service to 63 Canadian airports, 56 American airports, and 86 other airports worldwide, in Asia, Oceania, Europe, Africa, and South America.

Air Canada cannot escape the highly competitive international market. For example, the other national and international airlines are not subject to the same requirements regarding their maintenance facilities.

We must also consider Air Canada in the context of the global marketplace, a market that is characterized by large, multinational companies that operate over vast networks and with extremely expensive equipment.

Given the market's cyclical nature, it is also very sensitive to fluctuations. All it takes is an unfortunate incident, such as a pandemic, an accident, or a terrorist act, for the market to flounder and an airline's revenue and profit to be significantly affected.

Air transportation provides vital connectivity both within our vast country and with the outside world. It is also a significant source of jobs. For example, Air Canada alone employs nearly 25,000 people.

In light of this economic context, we believe that the Air Canada Public Participation Act may be limiting the company's ability to be competitive and profitable.

We therefore believe that the current law is inconsistent with an approach to air transportation based on competitive and market forces as the best way to provide passengers with reasonably priced services.

Like any company, Air Canada needs more flexibility in order to operate in a competitive environment and remain viable in the long term. Accordingly, the federal policy on Canada's air transportation industry focuses on competitive and market forces.

We also apply the user-pay principle for infrastructure and services, which is not the case in all of the countries that compete with us. As such, we cannot rest on our laurels because the aviation world is changing rapidly.

Naturally, we were all concerned by the closure of Aveos Fleet Performance, which resulted in layoffs across the country. Although portions of Aveos were purchased during bankruptcy proceedings and continued to operate, some employees did not end up finding work in their field.

Of course we were concerned by this closure and by the fact that Air Canada stopped having certain kinds of maintenance done in Canada. Air Canada's recent announcement about the C Series and its collaboration in developing centres of excellence gave us hope that highly skilled workers would find work in this high-tech sector.

Air Canada's plan to purchase C Series aircraft would bring together two sectors that are vital to Canada's economic development: air transport and the aerospace industry.

It would enable Air Canada to operate cutting-edge planes, thereby reducing its costs, its fuel consumption, and its greenhouse gas emissions, while minimizing noise.

The planes will be designed, built and maintained in Canada. The creation of centres of excellence for the maintenance of C Series planes in Quebec and Manitoba will certainly have a positive impact on the industry and will probably attract other air carriers to use the services available.

The Government of Quebec estimated that the centre of excellence could create 1,000 jobs over 15 years. In addition, manufacturing the C Series planes would enable Air Canada to create another 300 jobs.

Moreover, the creation of a centre of excellence for western Canada would create an additional 150 jobs in Manitoba.

In closing, changing the language used to describe the activities and where they might be held, will allow us to modernize the legislation and make it more relevant.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to comment on the fact that across Canada we are seeing growing disparity. We know that well-paying jobs are getting harder and harder to come by. A lot of that has been led by a past Conservative government that did not really put the time into making sure we look after workers.

Knowing that we are really giving power to a business to make some decisions that would potentially leave workers behind in this country, and knowing that this would open the doors to allow a company to bring workers in rather than making sure those jobs stay with Canadians, how does the hon. member feel that is going to make an impact in this country?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not see it quite the same way as the member does. I agree that protecting workers is very important, but I see these changes permitting Air Canada to bring in not necessarily fewer workers but possibly more workers, because it can leave the no-longer-existent Montreal urban community, go off the Island of Montreal, and go outside of Winnipeg. It can go to other parts of the provinces and do the maintenance.

The aircraft Air Canada is purchasing, the C Series, is not manufactured on the Island of Montreal but very close. These purchases create jobs. The aviation industry creates jobs. The ability to have market flexibility allows the airline to remain competitive, which would guarantee the 25,000 jobs at the airline and not just a few.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member could tell the House what savings Air Canada would gain from the legislation, and how many Canadian jobs these savings would cost Canada.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot speak for Air Canada in terms of how many jobs would go up or go down. However, I can say that the bill before us would help with the competitiveness of Air Canada, because it would take locks off it, which its opponents do not have. I think that is important to help Canadian business.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak today. The bill is about modernizing the Air Canada Public Participation Act to make it more in keeping with the realities of the global air transport sector, and to ensure that the act will continue to be relevant as the aviation sector evolves in the future.

First, it is important to recall that the Air Canada Public Participation Act was brought into force in 1988 primarily to provide the federal government with a legislative framework to enable the divestiture of Air Canada. This was made possible by permitting the government to organize Air Canada not as a federal crown corporation, but as a share capital enterprise incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act.

By holding Air Canada as a share capital enterprise, the government could dispose of its equity in the company by allowing Air Canada to issue shares for public investment, which the company did through two public offerings, the first in 1988 and the second in 1989.

Air Canada returned nearly all the proceeds from those share offerings to the Government of Canada, allowing a return to be realized as compensation for support the company had during the time it was a federal crown asset.

With that second public offering, Air Canada was fully divested by the government, and it has since been engaged in the air carrier industry as a private sector company.

The Government of Canada's divestiture of Air Canada was in keeping with the evolution that was happening to Canada's air carrier industry at that time.

Then, under the legislated framework of economic deregulation that began in 1987, Canada's air carrier industry was evolving from being a regulated industry to one that had to deal with market forces. Competition was the order of the day, providing discipline to pricing and capacity in the marketplace.

Nearly three decades have passed since deregulation took effect, and it is now time to update the Air Canada Public Participation Act to reflect the evolution in the aviation sector. I am referring particularly to the obligation in paragraph 6(1)(d) that requires Air Canada to include in its articles of continuance "provisions requiring the Corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community and the City of Mississauga".

To be viable as a going concern in today's air carrier industry means that inputs from the supply chain must be cost competitive, and that includes the provision of aircraft maintenance.

Air Canada is the only carrier, both domestic and international, that has obligations such as these. All of the other carriers, including other Canadian air carriers, are free to take advantage of competitive undertakings to support their aircraft maintenance.

The Province of Quebec, with intervening support from the Province of Manitoba, and Air Canada have been litigating the matter of that company's aircraft maintenance for a number of years.

This began with the insolvency in March 2012 of Aveos Fleet Performance, a third-party provider of aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul services. On February 17 of this year, the Province of Quebec and Air Canada mutually agreed to pursue an end to their differences in favour of a better way forward.

Then, on March 14, the Province of Manitoba and Air Canada announced a collaboration of their own. In both cases, these ways forward include co-operating in the establishment of centres of excellence for aircraft maintenance, one in Montreal, and the other in Winnipeg.

As well, Air Canada is committing to maintaining all of its newly acquired CS300 aircraft in Quebec for at least 20 years. These aircraft will also be designed and manufactured by Bombardier of Quebec.

In Manitoba, Air Canada will be facilitating and supporting the establishment of a western centre of excellence by three of its longstanding suppliers and partners, including Hope Aero Propeller and Components, which specializes in propellers, wheels, brakes, and batteries; Airbase Services, which specializes in aircraft interior equipment maintenance; and Cargojet Airways, to which Air Canada has agreed to lease one of its Winnipeg hangars on favourable terms to enable it to establish aircraft maintenance activities.

The centre of excellence in Winnipeg is expected to create 150 jobs, starting in 2017, with the possibility of further expansion and job creation in the future. These are net new job increases.

These developments are consistent with a company and an industry that must continually seek competitive ways of operating to stay in business. These are progressive developments whereby the parties are collaborating instead of litigating. This conduct should be encouraged.

The legislation, as it is currently written, lent itself to this litigation about how it should be interpreted. That is why this government is proposing to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act to remove any doubt that Air Canada can seek best-in-class, cost-competitive aircraft maintenance wherever it is offered, a choice to which all other air carriers are entitled.

At the same time, we are reinforcing the expectation that Air Canada will continue to carry out aircraft maintenance in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

The amendment would also induce providers of aircraft maintenance in Canada to be cost competitive, given the potential business from Air Canada, which should be able to choose from among those services on the basis of best Canadian value.

As well, the establishment of a centre of excellence for aircraft maintenance would reinforce Montreal's role as a world-class aeronautical hub, bolstered also by the Montreal-based headquarters of the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization; the presence of the International Air Transport Association; the aviation and aeronautical programs at McGill and Concordia, to name but two; and industry stalwarts such as Pratt & Whitney, CAE, Bombardier, Air Canada, and others.

The centres of excellence are good for Quebec and Manitoba, and for Canada, raising the profile of local expertise and thus generating positive attention and more investment in our nation's skilled trades and knowledge-based economy—and it all begins with co-operation and collaboration by all of the parties, who were formerly in dispute but are now working together toward a common purpose. I ask that members offer the same level of support.

It is my pleasure to speak to the bill, to support it, and to ask all members to do the same as the government moves to support the competitiveness of the Canadian airline industry in the 21st century.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, we know the bill would cost Canadian jobs. The member talked about 150 new jobs in Manitoba, but she did not mention the 400 jobs that were lost as a result of Air Canada failing to comply with its obligations under the act.

The member talked about a condition that is holding Air Canada back, allegedly, a condition that does not apply to other companies. However, at the time of privatization, not one but four conditions were put upon Air Canada, one being that Air Canada abide by the Official Languages Act.

Does the member think that Air Canada should still have to abide by the Official Languages Act, since that does not apply to other companies, and why pick on this one out of four conditions that in fact would lead to job losses in Canada?

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I clearly reject the assumption that we know it would lead to job losses in Canada.

We have a very viable Canadian aircraft maintenance and repair and overhaul capability, and we have for many years, but the airlines are focused upon delivering air service, to moving people from places across the country. Their core business is not aircraft manufacturing. What this bill would allow them to do is to purchase and procure services from companies whose core business is aircraft maintenance.

We are very fortunate to have extensive capability in Canada and now we even have the potential of increased service in centres of excellence, which would ensure that our airline industry, the commercial carriers, can focus upon their business of carrying people and the aircraft maintenance organizations can focus upon maintaining aircraft.

That is why this part of the amendment of the Air Canada Act is focused upon that specifically.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, to the New Democrats, the government's proposal on Air Canada maintenance looks as though it would protect corporate interests and not workers' interests. The government's proposal sanctions Air Canada's violation of its commitments to workers. It was a promise of the Air Canada privatization that jobs would be protected from outsourcing to foreign markets.

Through you, Madam Speaker, I ask, with Industry Canada pointing to staggering export of aerospace jobs to Asia- Pacific countries, how will the government keep jobs here at home in Canada?

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, again, this government is committed to the vibrancy of the aerospace industry in Canada, and hence is ensuring that there would still be a commitment of Air Canada to have its maintenance provided in Canada—not by Air Canada, the company itself, but rather by service providers who excel and specialize in the business of aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul.

This would be merely a redistribution. Rather than Air Canada's being the primary one delivering the service, it would purchase those services from other entities. That is why this would be great for Canada and for the aerospace industry and would allow Air Canada to become more competitive on the world stage.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to follow along in a similar vein to the questions that my colleague asked.

If in fact the parliamentary secretary is suggesting that the reason for the amendment to Bill C-10 and is about modernizing the Air Canada Public Participation Act, I wonder if the member can then explain why this amendment to the act is so narrowly focused and does not contemplate measures to support Air Canada that would not affect jobs in Canada.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, this amendment to the act is primarily focused on competitiveness around aircraft maintenance because that is the opportunity that has presented itself and has been of significant dispute as a result of the situation with Aveos. Therefore, this government is committed to ensuring that the aerospace industry as a whole is vibrant, and Air Canada as well.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Bow River.

I rise to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, which has me a bit confused.

From the outset, I would say that during her excellent speech last week, our transport critic, the hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, presented some key dates related to the facts that bring us to talk about Air Canada today.

These dates are important and bear repeating. On November 3, 2015, the Quebec Court of Appeal, Quebec's highest court, confirmed an earlier ruling by the Quebec Superior Court that Air Canada had failed to fulfill its legal obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act concerning heavy maintenance of aircraft in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga.

On December 11, 2015, Bombardier formerly requested financial support of $1 billion U.S. from the Government of Canada. This was two months after the Government of Quebec had purchased a 49% stake in the C Series program for that same amount.

On February 6, 2016, Republic Airways, which to that point had placed a very large order for the C Series, streamlined its operations as it filed for bankruptcy protection and cancelled its order for up to 80 C Series aircraft. The very next day, February 17, Air Canada announced that it had begun negotiations with Bombardier to purchase 45 CS300 aircraft, with an option for 30 more.

Obviously, we are thrilled about Air Canada's decision to purchase Bombardier's superb aircraft. Not only will this decision have a huge impact on our aerospace industry, but it also gives credibility to Bombardier's new aircraft. We have heard some other announcements recently, and let us hope that those announcements turn into real orders, so that Bombardier can achieve its goal of launching a new economical aircraft to compete with large manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus in their own airspace.

Now that everyone is so happy about Air Canada's decision to purchase Bombardier's C Series planes, we have to wonder about the government's decision to introduce Bill C-10 at this point in time. The Minister of Transport never answered our questions about the impact that the bill will have on the Aveos workers. He keeps repeating the same message spun by his communication advisers. Whenever we talk about Aveos and Air Canada, he replies that Bombardier committed to establishing two maintenance centres for the C Series in Montreal and western Canada. There is absolutely no mention of this in Bill C-10, even though this will have a huge impact on nearly 3,000 Aveos workers, who are watching as the new Liberal government is turning its back on them without even having the decency to admit that it sacrificed those workers on the bargaining table between the government, Air Canada, and Bombardier.

Those workers had no reason to expect that the new government would betray them that way. They were right, since they thought they could rely on the support of one very influential member, and I want to stress his influence, in the Prime Minister's Office.

I will share a quote from that very influential cabinet member, who gave a little speech on Parliament Hill. He said, “It is such a shame that we have to demonstrate to ask the law and order government to obey the law”. He said that the government had made promises and said that we should not worry about Aveos.

I remind members that this quote was from a very influential government member.

He continued, “We are losing the types of jobs that we need in this country.” He said that it was not true that our best resources are in the ground somewhere, that our best resources are human resources, qualified workers like them, who are building this country every day with their hands, arms, intelligence, and creativity.

As members have gathered, these comments were made to Aveos workers.

Lastly, he said that it was not right that the government was refusing to invest in what had made this country strong, and that thousands of Canadians who travel every day were being put at risk with potentially lower-quality maintenance. Then he thanked them for being there.

Imagine this emotional little speech given by a very influential member of the Liberal government. Obviously, this must have initially given Aveos workers renewed hope. However, today we have realized that, unfortunately, these words, which were spoken right here in front of our Parliament Buildings, were just rhetoric.

I get the feeling that members have a lot of questions. They want to know whether their colleague is finally going to tell them which very influential government member said those things. Which Liberal member spoke so clearly and eloquently in support of Aveos workers?

Members had better stay seated, otherwise they might fall down. They will be shocked by the answer. The very influential member of the government who said those things just a few years ago is the member for Papineau, the current Prime Minister.

I will quote him again. He concluded his speech to Aveos workers by saying, “It's not right.”

What has happened since the member in question, who went on to become the Liberal Prime Minister, gave that speech on Parliament Hill that would make him change his views so drastically and cause him to forget about all the wonderful promises that he made? The answer is that the promises that the Liberals made before October 2015 are no longer valid. The Liberals' sunny ways are promises that they do not keep once in office.

It is important for me to remind members of this incident because it clearly shows that Bill C-10 is improvised, that it goes contrary to the promises made by the Liberals before the election, and that it is going to cost thousands of Canadian jobs. The Minister of Transport is telling us that he is taking action because the provinces, including Quebec, decided to settle their dispute with Air Canada. Once again, it is important to set the record straight.

This is what the Government of Quebec agreed to. I am quoting from a press release issued by Air Canada.

Subject to concluding final arrangements, the Government of Quebec has agreed to discontinue the litigation related to Air Canada's obligations regarding the maintenance of an overhaul and operational centre...

It does state “subject to concluding final arrangements”, and those are important words. The Government of Quebec has not resolved the dispute; it has temporarily suspended the litigation while the two sides negotiate a settlement deal. Until Air Canada concludes its purchase with Bombardier, takes possession of its first C Series aircraft and begins the work, the deal with the Government of Quebec cannot be final.

Then why is the government in such a hurry to pass Bill C-10? We have to wonder. With Bill C-10, there is no longer a guarantee of any jobs or future maintenance, and by future I am talking about a rather distant future for the C Series. There is also no guarantee of current maintenance work for Air Canada's fleet. Therefore, Bill C-10, is premature, imprudent, and incomplete.

The Conservative Party believes that Air Canada must be a private sector company that is not supported by taxpayers and provides Canadians with reliable access to air travel. That was the original intent of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which put in place conditions to ensure that this was possible and realistic. Could it have been done better? Could we help Air Canada be more competitive? Of course.

There have been a number of proposals for helping Air Canada without affecting a single job in Canada. For example, the government could link airport improvement fees to specific projects with clear end dates. It could completely overhaul airport security funding models. It could increase the number of trusted traveller programs, such as NEXUS and CANPASS. It could increase the ownership limits to at least 49% for commercial passenger carriers. In short, there were other solutions.

In conclusion, we know that Air Canada supports these measures, because that is what the company said in the brief it presented during the review of the Canada Transportation Act. The question is, why did the minister choose to amend this bill without taking the opportunity to include other measures that Air Canada put forward in its brief? Neither the bill nor the minister took any of those measures into account. That is another reason why the Conservative Party cannot support this bill.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want to understand why the hon. member is not considering the creation of the centre of excellence in Montreal that could produce upwards of 1,000 jobs over 15 years, while the manufacturer of Air Canada's C Series aircraft could create an additional 300 jobs, plus more jobs in Ontario and Manitoba.

I would like to understand why the member is dismissing that.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, the answer to that question is pretty simple. It is because the jobs and the maintenance centres will be created by Bombardier, but the bill is all about Air Canada. Bill C-10 does not even mention Bombardier. We support Bombardier and encourage the company to create maintenance centres and jobs in Canada, but do we need to sacrifice existing jobs and the people who want to keep working and putting their expertise to good use for Canadians as they maintain aircraft here in Canada in a stable and safe environment? That is my answer to my hon. colleague's question.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated listening to the member's speech, especially his recounting of the Prime Minister's quotes in 2012. At that time, the Conservatives were in power. I would argue that the Liberals will do something worse now, because they actually will change the act, whereas the Conservatives just refused to uphold the act.

Could the member explain to the House, now that the Conservatives are in opposition, what has led to their forceful adoption of the act, and why are they such stern defenders of it now when they were not prepared to do so in 2012?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think we have to come back to the spirit of the legislation. Bill C-10 is about Air Canada. It is a bill that will allow Air Canada to stop having its aircraft maintained here in Canada. There is no guarantee that aircraft maintenance will continue to be done here. It can be done abroad. Why are we standing up today? We want to ensure that these good jobs to maintain Air Canada's fleet of aircraft are kept here in Canada.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the very good work he does on the committee.

I want to give him an opportunity to perhaps speculate on the number of measures that could have been put into the bill to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and why the minister and the government are so narrowly focused with the bill.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I too want to acknowledge the excellent work our party's transport critic does in committee. She is on top of what is going on with transport in Canada. She does an excellent job. She and her team prepared very good notes for us on everything that could have been done by Air Canada and in order to improve its competitiveness. I mentioned a few of those things in my speech. I could talk about others. The aviation fuel tax could have been reduced or eliminated. That could have helped Air Canada be more competitive. Nav Canada could have been overhauled. The governance in airport authorities could have been improved. We could have established guiding principles to help Canada's airports set user fees. We could have better aligned our regulations with those of the United States and Europe. None of that was done. Bill C-10 does the bare minimum.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege for me to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

Canada has had a long history when it comes to flight. In 1909, the Silver Dart in Baddeck Bay, Nova Scotia was one of the first flights that occurred in the world. In 1913, the first cargo flight was the delivery of the Montreal daily mail to Ottawa. Its return flight was a little iffy.

I have some concerns with the legislation as it stands. One of my biggest concerns is that 3,000 Canadian aircraft maintenance jobs are on the line as a consequence of this legislation. That is a lot of highly skilled, high-paying jobs. It would be a major loss to the communities affected were these jobs to vanish. It would be one of the most negative consequences of the bill.

I am concerned because this could negatively affect the communities of Mississauga, Montreal, and Winnipeg. I find it strange that Air Canada never mentioned aircraft maintenance costs as being prohibitive in its various comments made in the context of the past Canada Transportation Act review.

I am skeptical about the legislation. What does it seek to achieve? Why is it trying to fix a problem that does not seem to be a problem at all? If we really want to do service to Air Canada and other Canadian carriers, let us fix the situation that experts at Air Canada have identified.

Trans-Canada Airlines started in 1937. In 1937, the first stewardesses were hired. They had to be nurses. Why? It was to ease the concern of passengers for the safety of flying. We now have excellent maintenance that we can trust and Canadian flyers on Air Canada can trust this. For the younger members of the House, in 1995 the name was changed to Air Canada.

I have some suggestions for ways Air Canada could be made more competitive both in Canada and at the international level. My suggestions may not put the jobs of 3,000 Canadian workers in jeopardy.

One suggestion is tying airport fees to tangible projects with clear sunset clauses. When sunset clauses are effective and travellers see direct results of the fees in improvements, it may result in reduced ticket prices. That means more passengers on Air Canada flights and a direct benefit to the airline's bottom line. That is one way to help Canada without risking 3,000 jobs in Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Montreal.

A second way to make Air Canada more competitive is by reducing the excise tax on aviation fuel. There are high taxes on aircraft fuel. A variety of federal fees and taxes inflate the cost of air tickets in Canada, making it very expensive to fly within Canada. The air fuel excise tax is one of these examples. Therefore, why would the Minister of Transport not look at this as a possible way to make Air Canada more competitive? As was pointed out in its brief, these excise taxes were supposed to be reinvested in airport infrastructure. If we could fix the excise tax problem, I am sure Air Canada would appreciate such a change.

One of the major issues that ends up affecting Air Canada and all carriers at airports is the issue of security. What we need for security screening is an intelligence-driven, risk-based passenger screening process. This would lead to a smoother, quicker system that would save critical time for airlines like Air Canada and airport staff, and relieve the burden of the one-size-fits-all process we have now. Let us streamline the security process so we make a more simple and yet more robust security screening process at the same time.

Let us try to fix some of the issues Air Canada has stated. One of the issues with respect to security is the air travellers security charge, or ATSC. This is a fee that is charged to passengers to cover the costs of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. It was founded in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to ensure the security of those who flew within Canada.

The issue is, as Air Canada pointed out in a submission, that the amount of fees collected from passengers is too high. Looking at the numbers, the amount taken in surpasses the budgetary needs. In 2013-14, this left a surplus of $123 million. That is a problem. Why are we making such a small change to the act? What kind of support will this give to Air Canada?

We are not quite sure what it will do to help the airline. It has not been made clear to us. What we do know is that the bill would put the jobs of 3,000 airline mechanical staff in jeopardy, in Mississauga, Montreal, and Winnipeg.

The bill is not worth the risk, and an unintended consequence of passing the bill would be that these 3,000 jobs could leave Canada. I am asking the government to take another look at the bill and see that it is not the right course of action.

The Minister of Transport believes that somehow the legislation before us would assist Air Canada in cutting costs. I appreciate that he says this is his goal, but what we would like to see on this side of the House are some actual numbers. I know that our transportation critic, the hard-working member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, has asked for this from the minister. Therefore, I am asking again. Can the minister provide the actual amount that this proposed change would deliver in savings to Air Canada? If not, then I would ask him to give us more detail as to the rationale for the legislation.

As we are very concerned about these 3,000 workers, can the minister confirm that he has consulted with them about any of these changes? Has the minister consulted with their union on this?

Airport rent is another sticking point. Airport rent and fees in Canada are incredibly high, and it makes it very hard for airlines like Air Canada to operate in this business climate. I will quote directly from Air Canada's submission to the Canadian Transportation Act review.

In fact, depending on the type of aircraft, Air Canada landing and terminal fees in major Canadian airports are 35% to 75% higher than in major U.S. airports. When factoring in the difference between the Airport Improvement Fee and its U.S. equivalent (Passenger Facility Charge) that are paid by passengers, airport-related costs are on average 83% higher per departing seat in Canada than in the U.S.

This uncompetitive cost environment is not only causing the leakage of Canadian passengers to the United States, but also the loss of international traffic travelling to or via Canada.

This is from a recent National Post article:

The World Economic Forum ranks Canada No. 16 out of 140 countries for the quality of its airport infrastructure, but No. 130 when it comes to ticket taxes and airport charges.

This loss reduces our ability to position our country as an international gateway and to grow airlines and airports. There is potential to work something out, and I hope the minister is looking at other options to help the airline industry find solutions to these real problems that have been identified.

Air Canada is seeking a regulatory change as to how we manage the aviation industry. This is from its submission:

Our country also needs an efficient process for determining new aviation policy and rules--one that is able to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technology and operations of the industry.

The issues I have outlined in my speech are real issues, many of them raised by Air Canada itself. Why are we looking at such a small change, to the risk of 3,000 workers in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga?

I cannot support the legislation before us. That being said, I am looking forward to seeing what the minister might offer in terms of really supporting the Canadian airline industry, hoping there will be some future pieces of legislation that I can support.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, this issue was first brought to my attention because of a constituent who specifically lost his job as a result, in his view, of Air Canada's failure to live up to its obligations under the Air Canada Participation Act. We have not heard anything from the government in terms of what the economic benefits are to this measure. All we know is that job losses are involved.

I wonder if the member could speak a little more as to what other measures, alternatives, could exist that could make Air Canada more competitive, and which would not involve the loss of jobs that are associated with the bill.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question and for sharing his time today.

One of the things we understand that is really important is that in owning a vehicle, we learn quickly that the mechanical upkeep of it is important. When the dealerships have strong support staff and mechanical people, we trust our vehicles. Those people live locally in our communities. I think this is what is important. As my hon. member has said, we trust our vehicles because of the level of trust we have in the staff who maintain them.

The only way that works if one is flying is that we can trust the maintenance staff that keep our airplanes flying. Therefore, I think it is critically important to have those people in our communities so that we understand and trust that we are flying safely in this country.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

When the Conservatives were in power, nothing was done to keep the Aveos jobs in Canada. In their view, the Air Canada Public Participation Act, or ACPPA, is not clear and does not stipulate that heavy maintenance must stay in Canada. The Conservatives implied that just light maintenance would be enough to meet ACPPA's legal requirements.

I wonder whether my colleague could expand on that.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, speaking of history, I am speaking of when we had a tremendous aircraft industry in this country that was recognized worldwide for the safety it created, how well our flights were managed and our equipment was maintained so that we felt safe flying. Therefore, for me to change that to possibly moving jobs somewhere else, where we would not have that insurance, is a risk factor for our citizens who want to fly and feel safe in this country.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am a private pilot myself, and I can say that I would never do anything to endanger aviation safety. Therefore, I would like to ask the member for Bow River this: Does he believe that the existing act should be left untouched, or is what the government member proposing an improvement at all?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, speaking specifically to this amendment, this one piece only, I believe that it directly affects the safety that these jobs provide to our airline industry, and it affects where they may be in our Canadian cities. Therefore, I am speaking specifically to this particular amendment that I believe causes much concern with respect to the communities where these jobs exist, and for the ongoing safety of our airline industry.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague seems to be very familiar with the history of Air Canada.

I would like to know whether he thinks it is acceptable for a member to say one thing before he is in government and then take an entirely different stance once he is elected prime minister.

What does my colleague think of that kind of flip-flop?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, it reminds me of the Canadian passenger arriving at the Pearly Gates. There were clocks behind Saint Peter. One of the clocks was entitled “saints”, and Mother Theresa's hands had not moved on the clock. The passenger asked why: “She never lies.” The next clock was entitled “airline mechanic”, and the hands had hardly moved. He said, “They're very truthful. Let's be honest.” Then there was the title “federal politician”, and the clock was not there. The person wanted to know why. He said, “Well, years ago we took that clock and we used it as a ceiling fan.”

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the discussion today. I am also pleased to see you sitting in the chair and doing a great job on behalf of all women. It is a delight to see you constantly in that chair.

I am pleased to stand and speak in support of Bill C-10. It is legislation that, while somewhat technical in nature for a lot of people to follow, is incredibly important for Canada's national airline, for the aerospace sector, and for the related jobs and economic activity on which the Canadian economy so importantly relies.

However, before I get to my main points, I want to take a moment to offer my compliments to some of my colleagues who have already spoken on this important topic. We have heard a variety of issues raised. They are issues that the committee will have an opportunity to review and discuss and to look at very thoroughly.

There already has been very good debate on Bill C-10, as we heard on Friday, and of course from my colleagues today. I am eager to add my voice to that. However, inasmuch as debate in the House is important, as chair of the transport committee, I am eager to hear from the stakeholders once the legislation is referred to the committee.

Before we get to that, I would like to specifically compliment the parliamentary secretary, who touched off this debate by clarifying several important points. For example, the parliamentary secretary confirmed that the bill is being submitted for consideration by the House in the context of an historic investment by Air Canada in Canada's aerospace sector. That is very true. As members all know, Air Canada has announced its intention to purchase some 75 C Series aircraft from Bombardier. Adding to that investment, Air Canada has promised to ensure that these planes will be maintained in Canada for at least 20 years. That is a very significant investment, and a huge help for our economy. The importance of these decisions cannot be understated when it comes to jobs and growth of Canada's economy.

Allow me to be even more specific. The facilitation of the creation of centres of excellence will be a boon when it comes to jobs across the aerospace sector. The parliamentary secretary verified that Quebec has estimated that the creation of the centre of excellence in Montreal alone could produce 1,000 jobs in over 15 years, while the manufacturing of Air Canada's C Series aircraft could create an additional 300 jobs. There will also be more jobs in Ontario and Manitoba.

These are not just jobs. These are families who will enjoy a solid income, benefits, and stability for years to come. Those families will support communities, and those communities will fortify our great country. These are the kinds of investments and outcomes that Canada should be pursuing. They are market driven, promise to improve Air Canada's bottom line, and will allow for service improvements by prompting technological investment right here in Canada.

However, of course there have been genuine impediments to this approach in the past. For example, in 2012, Quebec's Attorney General took legal action against Air Canada, accusing the carrier of non-compliance with provisions of the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Madam Speaker, I must stop for a moment. I forgot to mention that I am sharing my time today with the member for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun.

Quebec has now made the decision to end that litigation, in light of Air Canada's investments in the aerospace sector and the related promise involving maintenance commitments in Quebec. This opens an important window for Canada to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which is what this is all about.

This goodwill, fortuitous timing, and opportunity must not be squandered. We need action now. The purpose of Bill C-10 is to amend the sections of the act that have to do with Air Canada's operational and overhaul centres. With these changes, Air Canada will establish a centre of excellence in Quebec, Ontario, and in Manitoba. These centres will be able to not only service Air Canada's planes, but also to offer those services to other national and international airlines.

Creating this new revenue stream, coupled with increased flexibility for Air Canada management, would mean a more dynamic and modern business structure, and clearly that should be good for everyone—Canadians, Air Canada, and all of our other spin-off industries.

However, let us not forget that the current legislation is nearly 30 years old and this is no longer 1989. The current act was the product of a time when countries around the world were moving away from high regulation and public ownership in sectors such as air transport. Canada was not immune to global trends, and so we followed by deregulating the air-transport sector, commercializing our major airports, and transforming Air Canada from a crown corporation to a private company. This was the right move at that time, but the world has changed, and to be successful in 2016 we must again look to modernize.

However, none of this can happen if we refuse to provide Air Canada and our aerospace sector with the tools needed to prepare for the challenges of modern businesses and the investment environment.

Now, many members across the way have raised questions in the House—justifiable questions, questions that are seeking answers. They ask why we must do this change now, and why this change must occur so quickly.

The truth is that the aerospace and air-transportation sectors exist in very dynamic environments. Other air carriers, Canadian and international, are not subject to the same obligations regarding their maintenance facilities. That means they can seek out efficiencies in ways that are simply not available to Air Canada, a fact that places Air Canada at a competitive disadvantage. Bill C-10 would help to establish a new balance. If we want the economic benefits of high-paying, quality, reliable jobs promised by all of the other sectors, we must arm the players within that sector accordingly. This is why we are here today, and it is why Bill C-10 is so important for all of us in the House and for all Canadians.

In other words, this government has introduced this legislation at a critical time in the history of Canada's aerospace history. Not only is Bombardier offering a game-changing product for the entire global industry, but Canada's most important airline is planning to take advantage of the technological differences and efficiencies and the heightened environmental performance by generously and wisely investing domestically for its aircraft fleet renewal.

Investing in a cutting-edge product that was designed and manufactured mainly in Canada will improve Air Canada's ability to compete globally and to serve all Canadians. Everyone would win, but only if we act now. To be clear, the government wants Air Canada to have the flexibility needed to organize and manage its business operations here and around the world. We understand that the air-transport sector has evolved and will continue to evolve, and Air Canada needs the tools and the regulatory supports to keep pace. However, this must be done while maintaining adequate safeguards for Canadian workers and suppliers.

That is why we are proposing to ensure that the act continue to require Air Canada to carry out aircraft maintenance in certain Canadian regions. I believe that Bill C-10 would do all of these things, and I am eager to hear from stakeholders at the committee so that we can give a thorough hearing to the many people who will want to make their comments, so we can ensure we have a strong, positive piece of legislation going forward that will ensure the jobs are here in Canada but that, if work is done elsewhere, it is also done to Canadian standards.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her speech. She said a number of things that might seem curious insofar as the bill does not mention Bombardier at all.

I wonder if the member could just clarify. Was the decision to introduce this bill influenced by Air Canada's decision to purchase the C Series? Would the bill have been introduced had the decision to purchase the C Series not been made?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, the issues before us require action to ensure that Air Canada—that is the issue we are dealing with—has the flexibility to go forward.

Those of us who spend a lot of time at airports see the amount of growth that is happening at any of our major airports and the number of new airlines that are coming in. It is important that Air Canada, in whatever it has to do, has the flexibility to be able to move forward, to be able to compete, to be able to ensure our aircraft are number one, and to give an opportunity to showcase Canada every step of the way.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think it is worth noting, in fairness to the hon. member who just asked a very good question, that there was not an answer to that.

It is odd to have the Liberals on the one hand wanting to invoke what is going on with Bombardier and the C Series order in their speeches. When they are asked a pretty obvious question, which is if we are talking about Bombardier and Air Canada in the same breath, it would be nice to hear the government just say so. I think it makes a lot of sense to be asking if there is a connection between the two. It seems obvious that there is.

In her remarks, the hon. member often talked about flexibility, about the need to compete. When we talk about the virtues of this deal in terms of jobs, centres of excellence, how wonderful it is that we will be building these centres of excellence, and how well suited the areas are in which Air Canada will build those centres of excellence or do the work it will be doing competitively, what is missed is that nothing in the act as it stands prevents those centres of excellence from being established. Therefore, why is it we have to give up legal guarantees for good jobs, different kinds of jobs, in order to get these other jobs, if these areas are so well suited to the kind of work that will be done?

I would mention, because we are giving up jobs with a legal guarantee, what legal protections are there for the jobs at the centres of excellence?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, every time, we can try to ensure that whatever legislation we pass is respectful of jobs, communities, and people who have those jobs, but opens doors and provides opportunities for new jobs in new areas.

Bombardier is a natural partner of Air Canada. We will have an opportunity to showcase new planes if it goes in that direction, but investing in our aerospace sector is effective. It is tremendous growth for Canada to be able to succeed, to be able to offer expansion, and to be able to offer jobs for many Canadians.

More important, a lot of young people are very keen to get more involved in the aerospace industry. I think our job as legislators is to make sure that companies competing in Canada have a level playing field, have the flexibility they require to do well, and not be held back by legislation and things that occurred in 1989 or 1997.

We need to be realistic. It is 2016. If we want our national carriers and our companies to be able to compete on a broader scale, we have to make sure that we take the handcuffs off and that we provide the opportunities for them.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want my hon. colleague to explain why it is so important at this point to move it on to the committee stage.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, many of the colleagues who have participated in this debate Friday and today have outlined concerns that they have. We will not get any answers for those concerns here in the House, but we have an opportunity to hear from various people, stakeholders and so on, at committee and to make other recommendations as necessary.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, on March 24, 2016, our government introduced Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures in the House of Commons. The purpose of the bill, more specifically, is to amend the sections of the act that have to do with Air Canada's operational and overhaul centres. It is important to point out that this bill is being introduced at a time that is quite historic for the Canadian aerospace industry.

In February 2016, Air Canada announced that it planned to purchase up to 75 C Series aircraft from Bombardier, and that it would carry out the maintenance of those planes in Canada for at least 20 years, beginning with the first delivery. Air Canada will also help establish a centre of excellence in Quebec for the C Series aircraft, as well as another centre in western Canada, to be located in Manitoba.

These centres will be able to not only service Air Canada's planes but also to offer those services to other national and international airlines. In other words, we have introduced a bill at a time that is pivotal for Canada's aerospace industry. Not only is Bombardier offering a product that is a game changer for the aerospace industry worldwide, due to its efficiency and environmental performance, but our most important Canadian airline, Air Canada, clearly intends to make massive investments in the renewal of its fleet of aircraft.

Investing in a cutting-edge product that was designed and manufactured mainly in Canada will improve Air Canada's ability to compete globally and to serve Canadians. In this historical context, we propose to modernize the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which we find to be outdated in part.

More specifically, the bill amends paragraph 6(1)(d) in the provisions requiring Air Canada to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community, and the City of Mississauga.

The law clearly intended for Air Canada to continue maintaining its aircraft in certain regions of Canada. At the same time, the law was designed with one key public policy objective in mind, which was to privatize a crown corporation and allow it to become a competitive and viable private company. The airline industry has changed quite a bit since the law came into force in 1989.

In 2015, Air Canada carried more than 41 million passengers and provided regular, direct service to 63 Canadian airports, 56 American airports, and 86 other airports worldwide, in Asia, Oceania, Europe, Africa, and South America.

Air Canada cannot escape the highly competitive international market. For example, the other national and international airlines are not subject to the same requirements regarding their maintenance facilities. We must also consider Air Canada in the context of the global marketplace, a market that is dominated by large, multinational companies that operate over vast networks and with extremely expensive equipment.

Given the market's cyclical nature, it is also very sensitive to fluctuations. All it takes is an unfortunate incident, such as a pandemic, an accident, or a terrorist act, for the market to flounder and for an airline's revenue and profit to be significantly affected.

Air transportation provides vital connectivity both within our vast country and with the outside world. It is also a significant source of jobs. For example, Air Canada alone employs nearly 25,000 people.

In light of this economic context, we believe that the Air Canada Public Participation Act may be imposing limits on the company's ability to be competitive and profitable.

We therefore believe that the current law inconsistent with an approach to air transportation based on competitive and market forces as the best way to provide passengers with reasonably priced services. Like any company, Air Canada needs more flexibility in order to operate in a competitive environment and remain viable in the long term. Accordingly, the federal policy on Canada's air transportation industry focuses on competitive and market forces.

We also apply the user-pay principle for infrastructure and services, which is not the case in all of the countries that compete with us. As such, we cannot rest on our laurels because the aviation world is changing rapidly. Naturally, we were all concerned by the closure of Aveos Fleet Performance, which resulted in layoffs across the country.

Although portions of Aveos were purchased during bankruptcy proceedings and continued to operate, some employees did not end up finding work in their field. Of course we were concerned by this closure and by the fact that Air Canada stopped having certain kinds of maintenance done in Canada.

Air Canada's recent announcement about the C Series and its collaboration in developing centres of excellence gave us hope that highly skilled workers would find work in this high-tech sector. Air Canada's plan to purchase C Series aircraft would bring together two sectors that are vital to Canada's economic development: air transport and the aerospace industry. It would enable Air Canada to operate cutting-edge planes, thereby reducing its costs, its fuel consumption, and its greenhouse gas emissions, while minimizing noise.

As we know, the planes will be designed, built, and maintained in Canada. The creation of centres of excellence for the maintenance of C Series planes in Quebec and Manitoba will certainly have a positive impact on the industry and will probably attract other air carriers to use the services available. The Government of Quebec estimated that the centres of excellence could create 1,000 jobs over 15 years. In addition, manufacturing the C Series planes would enable Air Canada to create another 300 jobs. Moreover, the creation of a centre of excellence for western Canada would create an additional 150 jobs in Manitoba.

In closing, changing the language used to describe the activities and where they may be performed will allow us to modernize the legislation and make it more relevant.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, could my colleague opposite tell the House what government intervention should be used, if any, to sustain Bombardier should it come to the government requesting funds?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, that dossier is before the government.

We are trying to promote in this country the technological advances that come with the aerospace industry. We are trying to protect jobs, and we are trying to do so in a responsible fashion.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I detect a contradiction between the Liberal members' two arguments.

On the one hand, they say these changes will create more jobs for Canadians because we will have centres of excellence in Winnipeg and Montreal, but they are forgetting that there are no guarantees these jobs will exist from one year to the next.

On the other hand, they say that the industry has changed a lot since 1989 and that Air Canada needs to be flexible and competitive. They are talking about opportunities available to other companies and having work done in other countries. That is the competitive advantage we are talking about here. We do not need to change the law to have the centre of excellence jobs. For Air Canada to enjoy the benefits of flexibility, jobs have to be exported out of Canada.

Will the government at least admit that this bill will result in quite a few jobs leaving Canada?

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

I am going to answer the second part first. Now is an appropriate time to amend the law because the situation has changed in the past 30 years, and this law was designed to privatize a crown corporation. Now, we are trying to help Air Canada be more competitive on the market. The present situation is very important to this bill.

As for the member's first question, we are investing in an industry. There are risks because there is a market. We cannot guarantee jobs, but we sincerely believe that the changes will create jobs.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, given that Air Canada provided a comprehensive submission to the Canada Transportation Act review and this measure was not a part of that, and given also that the minister has had this report in his hands since last December, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could explain why the minister would undertake to amend this legislation and not take the opportunity to address all of the measures that Air Canada did put into its submission.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are proposing modifications that we feel would give Air Canada the tools it needs to compete in an international market. We did not accept every suggestion. We picked the ones we thought were the best.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Huron—Bruce.

I am really impressed that the Liberals have been able to bring the debate about Bombardier and government intervention to the House in a bill that does not mention Bombardier at all.

My colleague, the opposition critic for transport, outlined what the bill is all about. In her speech last week, she outlined the curious timing of various announcements around Air Canada's order for the Bombardier C Series aircraft. The same day Air Canada made its announcement to purchase these airplanes, the Minister of Transport announced that he would lessen Air Canada's obligation under the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Then the minister put the bill we are debating on the Notice Paper, and on March 14, Air Canada made an announcement, and so on and so forth.

Let us just call a spade a spade. What we are talking about here is that the bill is quid pro quo for Air Canada buying the C Series aircraft.

I wish we were just having a simple debate about what the government is going to do, if anything, for Bombardier, because since the dawn of time, this has been an issue that is essentially about robbing Peter to pay Paul, with Peter being western Canada and Paul being Bombardier.

I have a few questions with respect to this bill.

There was a report that was completed in, I believe it was the middle of 2015, around the transportation industry. Air Canada put forward a series of recommendations on different legislation or requirements that could be put in place to make its industry more competitive internationally. It is quite a thick document, over 95 pages long. It put forward, actually I counted 66 recommendations to do just that. What is in this bill is a very small component of that.

My big concern is that I do not understand the impact this would have on western Canada, specifically Winnipeg's aerospace sector. There has been so much effort put into building up Winnipeg's aerospace sector by various different levels of government. It is arguably a success. What would this bill do for that? That is my concern.

This bill would actually remove the requirement for Air Canada to have its maintenance jobs located in the places that it does right now. However, for the purposes of my speech, I am going to talk about Winnipeg.

Manitoba, I believe, dropped its litigation against Air Canada in return for the building of a centre of excellence, as many of my Liberal colleagues have talked about today. However, what would happen, when the bill passes, if Air Canada decided to, let us say in five years, close down the centre of excellence, or what if it did not exactly comply with how many jobs it is touting? Frankly, we have not even heard what type of jobs are going to be created through this centre of excellence.

For me, this is a terrible example of government intervention run amok, because by trying to use this quid pro quo bill to bolster Bombardier, it is going to have a huge unintended consequence on the aerospace sector in Winnipeg, and this is in an academic exercise. If we talk to the employees of Aveos, I think that they would probably have something to say about this. There is a really good article that I got from CJOB. As a former Winnipegger, I have to give a shout-out to one of my favourite radio stations. Employees were saying that they do not understand why a centre of excellence is needed for aircraft maintenance, that they already are a centre of excellence for aircraft maintenance.

I really like this quote:

We know that, for people that lost their jobs, they’re not entirely happy because they lost good, well paying jobs. But right now we don’t have any of those jobs. Now we’re getting 150 back, and we think we can grow that starting in 2017 to a higher number of jobs.

The article talks about how many of these jobs moved to El Salvador when Aveos closed:

Quebec was suing the airline after the closure of Aveos Fleet Performance in 2012, which led to 2600 employees in three provinces lose their jobs, including more than 400 Manitobans. Those jobs went to El Salvador.

Why would the Liberals not bring forward the issue of Bombardier to study? They voted down a study at industry committee to have Bombardier executives come and talk about their needs. I have read things like one of Bombardier's vice presidents saying that they do not need a backup plan because what is secured is already more than they require.

As a legislator who is responsible for voting on public policy that impacts the jobs of people', these things would be good to know. My suggestion for the Liberals is this. Rather than simply tabling the bill and ignoring the fact that many jobs are on the line in western Canada, which always gets the short end of the stick when we talk about Bombardier, they should be bringing that forward for us to discuss. This is not the right option at this point in time.

Since we are talking about Bombardier, what I do not understand is that the government is bringing forward legislation essentially to prop up Bombardier, when over 100,000 people are out of work in Alberta right now. The Liberals are going out of their way to ensure that there is quid pro quo for a company that is going to receive orders for an aircraft. They are changing legislation to ensure there cannot be countersuits for Air Canada offshoring some of its jobs, as there has been in the past. They are doing all of this, but have we heard one thing about them making the regulatory environment better for the energy sector? No, we have heard the opposite.

We heard they would change the regulatory environment for the energy sector such that it would become a lot less clearer for investors looking at new projects. What else did they say? They said that they would look at a carbon tax and put more burden on investment in that area. They went out of their way to say even that if a major energy infrastructure project like energy east went through the review process and got a green light, they did not know if cabinet would approve it.

Also relevant to the bill, the Liberals have not talked about retaining skilled labour. In western Canada, one of its key determinants to economic growth is the retention and attraction of skilled labour. It does not matter what industry we talk about. In fact, Economic Development Winnipeg in its brief about the aerospace sector talks about the skilled labour workforce, a very specialized workforce. What happens if these jobs disappear? How does that impact other companies in the area?

It is the same thing with the energy sector. The Liberals have not talked at all about how they will ensure that people in Alberta stay in Alberta. If there is an opportunity to see new projects in the future, investors will see that all the people with expertise with this awesome, world-class infrastructure of talent have moved away and maybe think they should not build there.

The bill is so short-sighted. It shows the Liberal approach to dealing with economic issues. First, look at a squeaky wheel company in Montreal. I am not saying it is not important to the Canadian economy, but we should have a debate if we are to talk about legislative measures on how we support it. Let us talk about Bombardier. The second component is where is the discussion on western Canadian jobs both in the aerospace sector and energy sector? We are not seeing that.

It is incumbent upon the Liberals to look at what they are doing here. The bill should be called the “quid quo pro bill”. We should be voting on it as such. There is no guarantee that these jobs will stay in Winnipeg and we have no information on what this would do for the aerospace sector as a whole. They should also talk about why they have not raised this for the over 100,000 people who are out of work in my province. This is crazy and I really hope the Liberals reconsider their priorities in future legislation.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for joining me in noticing the way the western Canadian aerospace industry has been left out of the discussion. We should be taking a more comprehensive approach and trying to develop an aerospace strategy for the country that involves all of its regions, rather than engaging in these kinds of one-off deals.

Part of the narrative that we are hearing from the government side has to do with this happy coincidence of Air Canada just happening to make an order for Bombardier jets and provincial governments just happening to drop their lawsuits. Is the time not propice, which I think was the French word used earlier by the parliamentary secretary, to bring these changes forward?

I do not know if it is sunny ways sort of occluding the government's view of how negotiations actually happen or if there is something more cynical at work. However, could the member comment on how a changing government and a government that is willing to gut the Air Canada Public Participation Act changes the bargaining position of provincial governments that, heretofore, had a case to make in court and no longer do? Of course, they are willing to sign up for a centre of excellence, because it is the best they can get in a context where the federal government is selling them out.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have two points in answer to my colleague's question.

First, yes, this bill would allow Air Canada to set up a centre of excellence, but it would remove the legal recourse for provinces to take Air Canada to court should it offshore its maintenance jobs. That is a problem.

He also raised a very interesting point in terms of looking at a strategy for the competitiveness of our aerospace sector in general, things like how we can ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are certified and ready to get into the supply chain of OEMs, or how we can retain and attract the best and brightest labour from around the world to ensure that have innovation, that we have receptor capacity such that technology developed in Canada is manufactured in Canada, and companies are started in Canada.

There are so many things the government could be doing, but instead it has chosen the quid pro quo bill.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge the experience my colleague brings to this conversation as the former Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, and the importance of legislation as it pertains to retaining skilled expertise in our country.

Taking that into consideration, would she be willing to comment on the very narrow focus of this legislation? We know the minister has in his hand the Emerson report, in which Air Canada made a number of recommendations on what could be done to ensure it was more competitive. Would she be willing to comment on that?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would gladly comment on that. In fact, I have the recommendations in my hand. There are over 66 of them. Many of them have to do with taxation structure, building global hubs, and developing strong airport infrastructure. I think there are over two dozen on that. I think there are also two dozen on an efficient regulatory system. There are quite a few.

There are so many recommendations that the government could look at that would benefit other industries as well and bolster things like the Winnipeg aerospace sector. Instead, again it puts forward, as the short title, the quid pro quo bill.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in the House to speak to the bill.

I like Air Canada. I fly it whenever I can. I generally support what it has done. Therefore, I am not just any Air Canada person up here speaking.

How did we get to this point? Many roads and paths have brought us to this point. However, one of the biggest impacts to Air Canada in recent times, certainly in the last decade, and we do not need to go too much further than back to 2008-09, was when we saw sky-high fuel prices in the midst of an economic downturn. That caused many problems for Air Canada, and many other corporations as well in North America. Pension solvency was a huge issue, as were massive debt load, and many other issues.

If we take a look back almost 10 years now, that really put Air Canada in a make-or-break situation. I give it full credit for what it has done in the last decade. It has turned a company that is over 70 years old around and has a 40% top-line revenue growth. Therefore, it is obviously doing many things correctly, and I congratulate it on that.

There is one thing that would be tremendously helpful. We have heard this today and have heard it in the past. When I was at the technical briefing some weeks ago, I was not quite sure if this bill passed all of the litmus or smell tests that we would like to see in a bill. It would be great if the minister would turn over the correspondence he has had with Air Canada, Bombardier, and the Government of Quebec, so we can understand the timelines we are now looking at. I do not know if it is coincidence, but certainly many things have happened in a very short period of time that have caused the raising of a Spockian eyebrow.

I give full credit to Air Canada for turning around its finances. Its 2015 annual finances were reported a little while ago. It showed record profits of $1.22 billion in net income for 2015. In 2014, its previous record, it showed $531 million of net income. Therefore, many things have fallen into place for that to occur.

Another accounting and reporting term Air Canada uses is EBITDAR. I always refer to it as EBITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. I guess the aviation industry adds an “R” to its reporting for restructuring. That was also a record $2.5 billion.

Another great number that is working in Air Canada's favour is the cost per available seat mile, which was another record.

In addition to that is the average projected fuel cost, which plays a huge part in the success or failure of an airline's finances. I believe Air Canada is projecting about 52¢ a litre, if memory serves me correctly, compared to last year which was over 60¢ a litre. If we compare that to 2008-09, the numbers are really good.

Therefore, a lot of things are trending in the right direction for Air Canada and its finances. In fact, everything is going so well that it has also announced it will repurchase up to 10 million shares, with the option of repurchasing an additional 5 million shares. Those shares are close to $9 per share. Therefore, there is some available capital to Air Canada at this point in time.

I want to read directly from Air Canada's media room site with respect to its expense side and what it experienced in 2015. This highlights one of the points that I think many members are scratching their head over with respect to the argument of where, when and how we should perform maintenance.

It states, “Aircraft maintenance expense to increase $250 million from the full year 2015...”. If we read that on its own, we would think that it is making a point here. However, if we read further, it states, “...of which approximately $100 million is estimated to be due to the weaker Canadian dollar when compared to the U.S. dollar.” That means it is performing maintenance contracts around the world and when it brings all of those financials back home, there will be a $100 million negative impact on that, which would also raise an eyebrow.

In addition, the remaining increase is mainly due to higher end-of-lease maintenance provisions, which is due to fewer lease extensions in 2016 versus 2015, the impact of a higher number of operating leases, an increase to maintenance expenses to the Boeing 787 aircraft, and the fly-by-hour arrangements that they have.

My point is that in doing business in Canada, if the maintenance of Canadian labour were such a burden, we would have certainly seen this in the 2014 annual report and in the 2015 annual report, where the CEO or the CFO would have made explicit mention of these high costs. In addition to that, CEOs travel the country, go to conferences, and make presentations to investors and industry. I am not criticizing the CEO, because he has done a fine job of the economic and operational performance of the company, but I would think that the long-term concern for high labour costs would have to come up in a presentation or an official document that the company sends out in annual or quarterly reports. We do not see that, and I am not the first to mention this point. Today the narrative is certainly not being made for these high costs.

I go back to my time when I worked in the automotive parts sector. In 2000 we started seeing these problems on a competitive front, and 15 years later we are still seeing them. In annual reports we would see the CEO and the CFO always commenting about the lower labour rates in developing countries.

Also, today I have heard other members, mainly government members, saying that this would unshackle Air Canada, that it would now be able to become competitive around the world on maintenance, etc., which is fine. However, what I would say goes back to the review of the Canada Transportation Act. It is that we cannot do just one thing on competitiveness. This is just picking a low-hanging fruit while neglecting all the other issues that would allow the aviation industry here in Canada, and the airline industry more specifically, to be extremely successful.

One key component that is a long-standing issue is traffic rights—landing slots or spots—and the issues around the protectionist nature that we have in this country.

As an example, Air Canada flies to Dubai every day. It flies from Dubai back to Canada every day. We would think that reciprocity would be extended to the Emirates airline so that it would be able to fly every day into Pearson and every day from Pearson back to Dubai. My research indicates to me that it is only three days a week.

It is the same with the major airline out of Qatar. It has three flights a week from Qatar to Montreal and vice versa. Why not include landing slots? Why not make it available? Air Canada has increased the number of flights to Dubai. Why not reciprocate? This is all about competition. It is all about thinking about the consumers, the travellers, and letting them have choice. That is just one example.

The review act actually mentions that there should be seven days a week for flights to those countries, so I lay that out for consideration.

I have talked about timing. Others have talked about Aveos. I would be interested as well to hear if the union, which just ratified an agreement on behalf of 7,500 members, was aware of this legislation coming forward. I am sure they would have some interesting comments for the public on that point.

As for getting it cheaper elsewhere, I do not believe that. I know that the company I used to work for, Wescast, dealt with China, South Korea, and Mexico. We dealt with all these, but where do they go now to get world-class R and D work? Right in Ontario, because we have the know-how.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want to take the time to reiterate that the government wants to ensure that the changes to the act would continue to require Air Canada to carry out aircraft maintenance in certain Canadian regions, and this proposed legislation maintains that commitment.

The act currently refers to the City of Winnipeg, the City of Mississauga, and the Montreal Urban Community. I take note that the Montreal Urban Community, which no longer exists as a jurisdiction, did not include all of greater Montreal. For example, it did not include Mirabel. Also, Air Canada's activities extend throughout the greater Toronto area, not just Mississauga. There have been a number of changes, and these changes to the act would enforce the requirement that jobs stay within Canada.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would call that, at the very best, a technical amendment of very little subsequent consequence, so what is the urgency? If that is one of the only things that we need to change with this bill, why waste all this debate on one little line in the legislation? Why not tell Air Canada that we will do this, but we also want to have a much larger bill that has many more benefits that would dovetail in with what the review said.

Why do this little bit and then tell us that next year we are going to do another one? We know there are four years to a mandate, and there is really only one chance to do a piece of legislation like this. That is not going to work. This is going to be post-2019.

We should have waited. We should have done a lot more to help make aviation in this country competitive.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, part of the issue around Bill C-10 is really about the nature of a deal and the worth of a deal.

In 1989, when Air Canada was privatized, there was a deal made with Canadians that we would continue to enjoy the benefits of having a major aerospace company that was Canadian, which meant doing the work in Canada. We have heard a lot from the government about how deals cannot be broken, how the deal is sacrosanct, and asking what the word of the Government of Canada would be worth if we went back on a deal. Well, what kind of responsible conviction is it that allows the government to break a deal with Canadian workers while not being willing to say no to a country with a terrible human rights record and selling that country arms? What kind of responsible conviction is that?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, all I will say is we will get no better results than we will get from the people who are currently doing the job today. The people who are doing those jobs are the centre of excellence. It is fine if the company wants to move 20 miles, but if it thinks it is going to move to a place in my riding, for example, where are all the workers going to come from? The skill is in those communities. Let them do the work and let them do it well.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member will have approximately two minutes when we resume debate on this matter.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to mention that I will share my time with my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona. He will have an opportunity to speak to this very important bill, which will have a real impact on people's lives.

Most days, I am pleased to rise in the House and participate in debates with my parliamentary colleagues. Today is a bit different. Today, I feel bitter and disappointed about a major decision made by the Liberal government that is the culmination of betrayal, deceit, and a lack of trust. This Liberal government is letting down 2,600 families across Canada, including 1,700 in the Montreal area. These families are being completely rejected by this Liberal government and Bill C-10. They are being left high and dry.

I will try to give a little bit of background. The Air Canada Public Participation Act took effect in 1988 and set out the conditions for the privatization of Air Canada, which took place the following year in 1989. Section 6 of the act specifically states that maintenance on Air Canada aircraft must be carried out in three specific cities in Canada: Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Montreal. That worked for years. Air Canada complied with the act, awarding a contract to a subcontractor in the Montreal region named Aveos, which went bankrupt in 2012. That is where things start to get complicated. Aveos went bankrupt and disappeared, but Air Canada did not find a replacement. On the contrary, Air Canada took advantage of the situation and relocated those jobs to various countries around the world, such as the United States and countries in Europe and Asia. These 2,600 workers lost their jobs, even though they were guaranteed by a federal law duly passed by the House of Commons and applied for years.

The Conservative government of the day stood by and did nothing to enforce the law, but the Liberals wanted to demonstrate their support for the workers as well as their camaraderie and solidarity. We even saw the current Prime Minister, the member for Papineau, demonstrate with unionized workers on Parliament Hill chanting “So-so-so-solidarity” and demanding that the Conservative government of the day enforce the law. His argument, a good one, was that the least a law-and-order government could do was enforce the law, particularly when doing so would save good, well-paid jobs in a high-tech sector.

As soon as the Liberals took over, they changed their tune. So long “So-so-so-solidarity”, hello “Relocate; forget about our good jobs; who cares about the aerospace sector?” The government is basically telling these people that their jobs are gone for good.

When they came to power, the Liberals realized they did not have to enforce the law because they could just change it. That makes things much easier, for sure. There is no need to enforce the law when it can be changed so that Air Canada is no longer required to carry out aircraft maintenance in Canada.

We have to wonder whether that is the Liberal plan for job creation, namely eliminating the good jobs we have here in Quebec, in Mississauga, and in Winnipeg and shipping them off to the United States and Europe, because that is what will happen under Bill C-10. This bill means abandoning the workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, supported by the FTQ. They took their case to the Quebec Superior Court, which ruled in their favour in 2013. Air Canada appealed that decision, and the case went to the Quebec Court of Appeal. In 2015 the Quebec Court of Appeal also ruled in favour of the workers.

I would like to quote Justice Marie-France Bich, of the Quebec Court of Appeal:

From the moment that Air Canada decided to close this centre [the Aveos centre in Montreal] or reduce its activities in such a way that they were no longer at the same level as they had been in 1988, it broke the law.

This could not be any clearer. Bill C-10 threatens to pull the rug out from under the workers by making it that much harder to take this kind of legal action. When they are arguing their case before the Supreme Court, if section 6 of the act is amended, there will be a whole new legal framework. The changes to the Air Canada Public Participation Act set out in Bill C-10 are extremely weak, or virtually non-existent, in terms of Air Canada's obligations.

There is no longer any requirement to keep jobs in this country, let alone a minimum of jobs, a certain volume of work, or a percentage of tasks that must be carried out in Canada.

In short, they are giving Air Canada a blank cheque. The government wants to provide flexibility, but before long Air Canada will be doing contortions to outsource the good jobs that we have in Canada. I am saddened to know that our government is not giving a second thought to the lives of 2,600 families and is prepared to cynically abandon them after publicly supporting them. That is sad.

I am rising in the House of Commons today with a sad story of employees at Air Canada who lost their jobs in 2012. We are talking about 2,600 families around the country. Air Canada had the legal obligation to do the maintenance of its planes in Canada, especially in Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Montreal. Now it can do whatever it wants.

When the Liberals were in the opposition, they stood outside this building with the workers, with the union, singing “solidarity, brothers and sisters”, saying that they would support the union's jobs because they were good jobs. They were asking the Conservative government to apply the 1988 law about Air Canada.

When they gained power, it was like some magic appeared, and the Liberals changed their mind completely. Now they are singing another song. It is no longer “solidarity forever”, but “job creation for United States, Europe, or Asia.” With Bill C-10, there would be no more legal obligation for Air Canada to keep those good jobs in Canada. Air Canada would have a blank cheque; it could do whatever it wants.

It is sad because the workers and their union, the machinists and in Quebec the QFL, went to court and won twice. They won in the Superior Court and in the Court of Appeal of Quebec. The decision of the judges was crystal clear that Air Canada was not respecting its legal obligation about the maintenance of its planes. Now the Liberals want to change the law and that might have a profound and brutal impact on the legal pursuits in the Supreme Court of Canada of those hundreds of workers.

Now the Liberals are saying they do not want to help them anymore, that Air Canada can do whatever it wants, and workers can find another job. However, aerospace is a very important sector in our economy, especially in the Montreal area.

We do not agree with the Minister of Transport's argument that Air Canada will create jobs by buying Bombardier's C Series aircraft. That is comparing apples and oranges. If Air Canada buys the C Series, it will be because it is a good aircraft and they need it.

We refuse to pit the aircraft manufacturing sector against the aircraft maintenance sector. We can and should support both. The Liberals should understand this. They should be ashamed that they are giving up hundreds of good jobs and sending them abroad. We are asking them to finally listen to reason and to withdraw Bill C-10.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member and I can agree that our aerospace industry is very important, but he has forgotten some of the key points to the changes to this act and what this would do.

Quebec has estimated that the creation of the centre of excellence in Montreal alone could produce 1,000 jobs over 15 years, while the manufacturing of Air Canada's C Series aircraft could create an additional 300 jobs.

Air Canada also intends to support the creation of 150 jobs in Manitoba with the possibility of expanding beyond that.

It is obvious the opposition is not understanding the positive impact that the changes to the act would have.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague does not have the facts right. First, the centre of excellence is not in Montreal. It is supposed to be in Trois-Rivières. She needs to have the right city first.

By the way, Bill C-10 has nothing to do with the fact that Air Canada will buy Bombardier's C Series, and that is a good thing They are good jets. However, we are talking about legislation that will change the law about the maintenance of airplanes. They are two different things. We should not compare bananas with oranges, or apples or whatever fruit.

Regarding the excellency centre in Trois-Rivières, it maybe will do the maintenance for the C Series in 15 or 20 years, but we have absolutely no guarantee about job creation there.

We are talking about real families and real jobs that the Liberals are abandoning right now, and that is bad.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit incredulous about the arguments the government is making, especially as it respects the C Series. Many of the speeches and comments made by the government allude to those jobs associated with the C Series, but Bombardier is a separate company.

The government will not be clear about the connection between the Air Canada Public Participation Act and the investments being made by Bombardier. It is curious that the government seems to draw this connection, but will not answer a direct question about whether the introduction of this act was dependent on the purchase of the C Series by Air Canada. It it curious that it will not identify the connection.

Could the hon. member perhaps speculate on what the connection between these two things is and why the government continues to refer to Bombardier in the context of this debate when the Air Canada Public Participation Act does not directly mention Bombardier in any way?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. I will probably not say that for many issues, but on this one he is on target.

I think the Liberals are trying to put forward some job creation fabrication about the C Series to make people forget they are abandoning 2,600 families and not respecting a promise they made and repeated to those workers and those families.

The Liberals should reconsider Bill C-10. Air Canada should continue to keep those good jobs in Canada. It is good for our regions, our cities, and our economy. That would be a good job creation plan from the Liberals. It is really sad they are doing otherwise.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Quebec.

I imagine there are two versions of the Liberal Party now. One is the election version of the Liberal Party. There are also two versions of the hon. member for Papineau, who is also the new Prime Minister. He made some bold statements when he was standing before the workers and their families. He said he would comply with the law.

The other version of the Liberal Party is the governing version. During the election campaign, the Liberals said the same thing to the workers that we are saying today. I am sorry, but the Liberal government is going to change the law and jeopardize the jobs of 2,600 people and their families.

I imagine there is a quid pro quo: Air Canada wants something, so it asks the government to change the law and the existing bill in exchange for buying a few planes. It is settled then. The hon. member for Papineau, the new Prime Minister, says yes, no problem. That is good for the bosses, but not so good for the workers.

Which version of the Liberal Party and the hon. member for Papineau are we dealing with now?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.

This is classic behaviour. When the Liberals are in opposition, they are friends with workers, associations, groups, and unions. When they are in power, they suddenly become the best friends of Bay Street and CEOs.

My colleague is right. If they had been honest during the election campaign and told people they were going to change the Air Canada legislation and legalize these job losses, they would not have gotten the number of votes they did in many ridings, because people would have known the truth.

Today, those workers feel betrayed and misled. They are disappointed and angry with this Liberal government. We will keep fighting for these people and their jobs.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying how disappointed I am at having to rise to speak to this bill. This is not the kind of bill that I expected to have to deal with. If I had been told a year ago that the Liberals would be in government and then base a projection about this kind of bill on what they were saying at the time, I never would have thought that I would be speaking to such a bill.

In the last Parliament the now Prime Minister was standing on picket lines with Air Canada workers, shouting about solidarity, and probably taking a few selfies, too. That was great, because he was out shopping for votes. Many workers who felt that the Prime Minister was serious in his expression of solidarity may well have gone out and voted for the Liberals because they never would have suspected a Liberal government to bring forward a bill like this.

Some of the prime minister's members, some of whom have returned, like the member for Winnipeg North, were saying, “The law is clear. The corporation is to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the city of Winnipeg, the Montreal urban community, and the city of Mississauga. That is the law. The Conservative government says it is tough on crime. It is time to get tough on Air Canada”. Those are the kinds of remarks we were hearing at the time from Liberal MPs like the member for Winnipeg North.

Fast forward to today. As I mentioned in debate on a motion earlier, we are six months into the new government. Most of the legislation that has been brought forward is either routine business with respect to the finances of government, bills responding to Supreme Court decisions, usually with a court-imposed timeline, or they are straight up and down repeal of certain measures brought in by the previous Conservative government that were explicit election commitments by the Liberals.

If we want to look for a bill that does not involve any of that, that goes beyond those things, then really the only indication of what the government is going to be like for the next four years on issues that were not foreseen in the election is this bill. I have to say that this bill is a complete betrayal of the workers that the Liberals pretended to be the champions of when they stood beside them on the picket line. It is absolutely shameful. It is a sign of the kind of cynicism and condescension the Prime Minister must feel toward Canadian workers. How could he stand on a picket line with them and say that he is going to protect their jobs, to shame the government of the day for not enforcing an act that in the end it was his intention to change when he came into government? That is a rhetorical sleight of hand the likes of which even the previous government was not capable of doing. During the campaign the Liberals were righteous in saying “Oh, the government should enforce the act. We will enforce the act.” Yes, they will, right after they change it to get rid of the very provisions that would protect the jobs and the very reason for which the workers would like to see it enforced.

I am appalled, frankly, but maybe having spent as much time around politics as I have I should not be surprised, particularly not by Liberals. We are six months in and they have already managed to teach me a new depth of cynicism when it comes to politics.

If it is a contest of narratives as politics so often is, the Liberals would have us believe there is a happy coincidence of factors, that it just so happened that without any prodding or conversation between the government and Air Canada, Air Canada decided to buy some Bombardier C Series jets, and it just so happened to be at a time when Bombardier was in trouble. Some other hon. members have done a good job of poking and prodding at this issue to get the government to affirm that there is a connection between those things, but if we listen to the government members' answers, they say, “No, no, no. There is no connection. It is just a happy coincidence. Bombardier was in trouble and Air Canada came forward.” It just so happened that when Air Canada came forward and there were some rumblings about the federal government selling out Canadian workers that the provinces just happily decided to drop their lawsuits.

As a result of all of these things magically coming together by some unseen force, the government feels this is a great time to change the act because we need to be fair to Air Canada, the very same Air Canada that the Liberals not that long ago when they were in opposition thought it was time to get tough on.

That is the story.

The Liberals have said that a whole bunch of benefits are going to accrue from this bill. It just so happens that none of them are in the bill. The centres of excellence are not in the bill.

There are no legal guarantees for those jobs. There are for the ones that are getting gutted. However, for the new jobs that we are supposed to get in this great trade, there are no legal protections for those jobs and there is no guarantee that Air Canada would not turn around, walk away, and put those jobs somewhere else.

Under the terms of this bill, by far the most contentious clause is not the clause that says instead of having the jobs in Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Montreal we would have them in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. It is the one right under it that says Air Canada would define for itself the type of work that would be done and the type of work that would satisfy the requirements of the act. It is the clause that says it would determine the volume of work and the level of employment. Air Canada could rent a closet in Winnipeg, put some engine parts in it, and pay a guy to come around once a year to check up on them, make sure they are still there, maybe dust them, and that would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the bill.

The Liberals cannot tell me that we are supposed to be happy with that situation and accept a bunch of jobs that have no guarantees at all, particularly with the language of the company, and the government, incidentally. Next time there is a spot for a Liberal speaker on this bill, I wonder if they should not just invite the Air Canada corporate executives in and hear from them directly and cut out the middle man. They are expensive middle men for Air Canada in this debate. We do not need them.

We have heard these kinds of arguments before when we have heard about flexibility and the need to compete. I am sensitive to some of that, but one wonders, there is a tension here. That is, are we saying that we have come to the point where we cannot do maintenance on planes in Canada and have a competitive company? Is that what we are prepared to say? Is the Liberal government encouraging Canadians to believe that the global economy has come to a point that we cannot do maintenance on planes in Canada, that they have to be shipped somewhere else in order for companies to be competitive?

One wonders why one should be so concerned about the viability of a company once it does not mean any direct employment in Canada anymore. We are giving up guarantees for these jobs because we need to be flexible and competitive. That language means moving the jobs out of Canada. The government cannot have its cake and eat it to. It cannot say this is all about creating jobs when all of the jobs it is talking about, frankly, are completely consistent with the act as it is. There is zero reason in order to establish those centres of excellence to change the act. If this is not about exporting jobs, if this is not about sending jobs to Mexico or elsewhere, then why the changes to the act? It does not make sense.

On the face of it, this is about taking good-paying Canadian jobs and moving them out of Canada. The rest of it, the window dressing, none of which is in the act, and none of which is legally enforceable, is all about giving a fig leaf to cover the government in this, and it needs a big one because there is a lot that is ugly to cover.

There is nothing to say that a month later Air Canada would not take those jobs away. I am not saying it will. Maybe it will be three, four, or five years, but there is nothing to prevent those jobs from being taken away. The Liberals knew that well when they were opposition. That is why the Liberals said that the Conservative government should enforce the act. The Liberals must realize that now there will not even be an act to enforce, not in any meaningful sense, because under the bill Air Canada will be given every right to define the scope of this work right out of Canada.

The Liberal narrative on this is so contorted it is just shocking. I hope Canadians will listen to this debate. They do not have to listen to a lot of it to understand what is really going on. I hope they are paying attention, because what is going on here is completely unacceptable.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. I worry that I am agreeing with New Democrats a little too much today. He is absolutely right to highlight the strangeness of the government's arguments. We have these repeated kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge references to Bombardier, yet there is no reference to Bombardier in the legislation.

Even so, even if there is some kind of quid pro quo going on here, it is rather poorly set up, because after this legislation passes, there is of course no guarantee that the purchase of the C Series will go forward. These are not guaranteed jobs at all. The government really is giving up something for nothing at this stage.

I wonder if the member has thoughts on why, at this stage, the government is giving up these Canadian jobs and getting absolutely nothing in return for workers or taxpayers.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is the question that the government has yet to answer. What is here, really? As he says, we have some nods and we have some winks. This may help out Bombardier, and that would be nice because that seems like a big issue; and it is. It is important to continue to have work at Bombardier.

The proper response by the government would have been to say it needs a strategy for the aerospace industry; that is what it needs to do. I do not know if it was panic or inexperience, or just what it was, but it said, “Here is a one-off deal. We can give something to Air Canada and make Air Canada executives happy. We can create some jobs at Bombardier. Oh yes, western Canada; where is that again?”

We need a national strategy so that we are not doing the same old thing of pitting region against region, but making sure that each region gets its due. There are serious challenges in the aerospace industry today. The way to do it is to come up with a strategy instead of cutting a bunch of one-off deals and finding out later it was the wrong play.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I want to read the member something that a Liberal member said in the transport committee in 2012 when this issue was before it. He can try to guess who said this at the time. The member stated:

What interests me...is it's important for us to note that there must have been some form of a fairly strong relationship between Aveos and Air Canada. I talked with numerous employees of Air Canada, who were ultimately shifted over to Aveos. I can recall very clearly that many of the employees who made that shift indicated they were concerned that this was just a shell game Air Canada was playing, and Aveos was just executing what Air Canada wanted: to be able to ultimately facilitate the demise of those very important jobs.

Who said that? It was the member for Winnipeg North, who stood in this place and presented petition after petition. In committee, the member, in the excerpt I just read, was fighting for a motion to get Aveos in front of the committee to stand up for workers, workers who I assume live in his riding—my colleague will be able to tell us that—workers he has now betrayed.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on that.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to note that the reversal of the position by the member for Winnipeg North on this is totally appalling. Many times in the last Parliament, 15 or 20 times, he presented petitions, saying that this was terrible, that we needed to get tough on Air Canada, and that we needed to enforce the act.

As a politician, first at the provincial level and then at the federal level, he spent more than 20 years in opposition. He finally got a chance to do something for those workers whom he stood beside all that time, and he dropped the ball. Not only did he drop the ball, but he has since stood in the House and talked about how we need to be fair to Air Canada and recognize its difficult position. If the very same things had come out of the mouth of a Conservative cabinet minister no more than 12 months ago, he would have been all over the Conservatives in the House.

It is shameful and a testament to the fact that, if the member for Winnipeg North belongs anywhere in the House, it is in opposition.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member.

I was flying from Edmonton to Ottawa last weekend, and I remember looking at an Air Canada brochure that talked about carbon pricing, a carbon tax, and using light food containers. I wonder what the member thinks about flying across the United States to Mexico and how much fuel would be used versus putting light food containers in Air Canada's aircraft to save on carbon taxes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am really heartened to hear a concern from a Conservative member about the carbon footprint of Air Canada's operations. I would agree that when it comes to this, given where the jobs are most likely to go, as with a number of issues when it comes to global trade, assessing the carbon footprint of goods and not simply the cost charged to consumers at the counter is very important, indeed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly, Rail Transportation; and the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Telecommunications.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise to speak to Bill C-10 and to join in the debate today. This is one of those unique circumstances where the opposition, in many ways, is united in part and is in some ways speaking with a unified voice, but for different reasons, perhaps. In many ways, this debate is an interesting one for me, given my background in the Air Force and my background as a lawyer. In my early days, articling as a first-year lawyer, I was involved in the CCAA restructuring of Air Canada. That was a time when Canadians worried about losing our flagship carrier. The company successfully restructured under CCAA, which protected a lot of jobs, a lot of commercial relationships across the country, and the airline.

We all remember years when there were many more serving the country, companies like Canadian and Wardair. It shows how globally competitive this industry is.

I was very proud, as a young lawyer, to be involved with the firm that represented Air Canada in that restructuring many years ago.

Its heritage as a former crown corporation is really why we are here with Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which was a creature of the privatization. Most of the comments from my NDP friends along the way relate to the commitments made back in 1987 and 1988 when this crown corporation was privatized.

I do not think even my Liberal friends would suggest that the industry is the same today as it was in 1988. To suggest even the members of the unions they are talking about are performing the same tasks on the same type of aircraft would be false, because certainly the industry has changed in terms of technology, in terms of the needs of the workforce, and in terms of the globalization of the supply chain. Therefore, we have to have these debates in the House of Commons.

Where I am united with my NDP friends in my concern is really how this debate is coming to the floor. In many ways, the new Liberal government is showing that the old ways—and in fact the ways a lot of Canadians disliked about the Liberal governments in the past—appear to be back, when deals are made to benefit special interests or certain groups and the public policy ramifications of an issue are not actually spoken about.

I am going to raise a few of these points, in relation to the debate of Bill C-10 because I think they are important.

In many ways, the Liberals prove that old adage: why take one position on an issue when one can take two positions on an issue politically and advance both?

Here is one. Most of the Liberal Party at the time, in the 1980s, opposed privatization of Air Canada at the time when the Mulroney government proceeded with that privatization. Yet, here it is sneaking in an amendment to the participation aspects and sort of the job guarantees provided in the 1980s, with limited discussion and no real mention in its election document, which it holds sacrosanct in all other aspects of what it is doing in its early days, and we are here as a result of it.

It is also the result of its bad policy decision with respect to the Toronto island airport and the fact that a private sector operator was looking at buying a Bombardier aircraft at a time that Bombardier was seeking government assistance. However, because of a small lobby group in downtown Toronto, very influential within its caucus, it circumvented the regulatory process looking at the expansion of a regional airport.

That is not just a decision made in isolation, because our transportation networks are integrated. What happens about Billy Bishop airport will impact Hamilton, the airport in Kitchener-Waterloo, Pearson airport, and the Pickering airport and what size that takes in the future.

These decisions cannot be taken in isolation, but they stopped expansion applications and review for the Toronto Island, thereby eliminating a private sector sale for Bombardier at a time when it is teetering. Yet, behind Bill C-10, is really a deal, I believe, that was crafted by the federal government in relation to another purchaser acquiring said aircraft and coming to the rescue, so to speak. I would like the minister to bring to the House whether Bill C-10 was discussed as an element of the private sector sale to Bombardier that we see Air Canada announcing? The announcement came mere days after that company met with the minister, so what someone needs to do is connect the dots on all this and see what led up to Bill C-10. The reason it was not in the Liberals' election platform was that it has come about as a result of the challenges Bombardier is facing. That is my concern.

We need to have a full debate, with discussion of the impact of Bombardier's financial difficulties alongside sales of aircraft and alongside litigation that several other provinces were party to, in relation to the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Bill C-10 is a small bill in terms of the number of words, but when the onion is peeled on the issues underlying this, as all members of the opposition have been doing today, we see there is a lot more to the bill than the couple of pages that it appears to represent, and the government has not been transparent on that at all. For a government whose hallmark is transparency and sunny ways, we have seen that jettisoned on most issues within weeks.

In my remarks I am going to explore why I think these underlying public policy decisions relate to what is before us in Bill C-10, and that is why I have serious concerns with the bill. The government has not been transparent on the road that has us here considering this amendment to a longstanding act and a longstanding practice.

I am also very proud, as a former officer of the RCAF, of our aerospace industry, very proud of Bombardier, proud of Air Canada, our carriers, and proud of the suppliers, which are world-class. That is why, when the government made a quick move to scuttle the expansion of the Toronto island airport without proper consultation, that impacts our industry, which is world-class. Many Canadians do not realize that Canada was the third nation in space, with Alouette I. Canada basically trained most of the pilots in the free world that won World War II with the British Commonwealth air training plan.

On the weekend, I played the Hon. George Hees, John Diefenbaker's transport minister, at a dinner that re-created the Avro Arrow dream. We celebrated aerospace and our achievements. Diefenbaker himself was not celebrated at this dinner, because he did cancel the Arrow, but we have a tremendous heritage, and the opportunities in this industry are really not well known by Canadians. We remain the number one producer, from an R and D and a production standpoint, of flight simulators around the world.

When I was in Seoul as the parliamentary secretary for international trade in the previous government, I toured CAE's simulator just outside Seoul, which provides flight training and aircrew training for Asian airlines. We were there as part of the South Korea trade agreement. That is a company with a global reputation as the best in the business, and we should celebrate that.

Canada remains the number three producer in terms of aircraft production, small and medium-size aircraft with a new larger one on the horizon from Bombardier, which will again be best in class. We are third in engine production for civil air purposes. These are incredible numbers. They are all well-paying, all highly skilled and high trade jobs, and they are all trade focused.

At a time when our dollar is lower and we have the ability to trade very competitively, we should be taking advantage of leveraging this industry, not secret deals that hold it back. There are $28 billion in revenue across the companies within this sector, both in the supply chain and in production and manufacturing; and 76,000 jobs across the country, in all provinces, with particularly well-regarded and highly concentrated industries in the Montreal area, Winnipeg, Toronto, and also in Mainland B.C. We should foster these jobs and work with them.

Our previous government did in terms of reforming research and development. In fact, the previous government outlined the Red Wilson report to ensure we constantly looked at our competitiveness. Red Wilson had been a corporate leader at CAE.

It is worth noting some of these companies, and I have a particular passion for them, not just because I am ex-air force, but because I am ex-minister of veterans affairs. A lot of these companies are veteran employers. In some cases, their senior leadership are veterans. They include MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the famed Canadarm, probably our biggest iconic R and D development; Viking Air, which has recreated some of the old classic de Havilland aircraft that have been flying for generations; Cascade; Avcorp; Bombardier; CAE; and COM DEV. We also have global companies producing in Canada, including Boeing, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin, through our industrial regional benefits programs that provide supply sector jobs as a result of our defence purchases, which at times the government seemed somewhat uncertain. However, if something is acquired, there is money put in to research and development into jobs on the ground here.

That supply chain is critical and is why our industry has to modernize. We need to have a debate on the ground about public participation and about the industry so our manufacturers, including some of the businesses I named, do not take advantage of servicing for Air Canada, or WestJet or Porter. They really need to be involved in the global supply chain for both maintenance and production.

What are we here for on Bill C-10? We have heard a lot of passion on the side of members of the New Democratic Party, but it boils down to three subtle changes to the act, which came in as a result of the privatization of Air Canada in 1988.

The bill would amend section 6(1)(d) of that act, changing the maintain operations and overhaul description of securing jobs as they stood in the 1980s into “...carry out or cause to be carried out...”, which recognizes that a lot of specialized manufacturers, whether landing gear or components, can provide that specialized life cycle maintenance that is important in the airline industry, and that specialization can happen through the carrying out. That makes sense in this environment, but we have not heard that because of the secret deals that have brought us to Bill C-10.

The operation and overhaul would be expanded to show that it would include any type of work related to airframes, engines, and components mainly because we have some expertise on a sub-component basis in Canada in terms of some of the leading producers.

The geographic areas protected back in 1988 with the privatization at that time were described as the city of Winnipeg, the city of Mississauga and the Montreal urban area, because I think they needed to describe that in a wider sense. The new amendments proposed in Bill C-10 will refine that to the provinces, as opposed to those cities proper.

The substance of Bill C-10 in some ways recognizes the fact that the industry is not the same industry it was in 1988. I can certainly understand why Air Canada probably wants to be unshackled from the requirements put on it in 1988 to ensure that the privatization was not too disruptive.

If we look at the airline as it stands today, it is strong and a global leader in many ways, but it is also subject to global competition. It has to be able to take advantage of the same expertise and opportunity. Therefore, if we are carry out, or cause to be carried out in a certain part of Canada, as long as we are getting that best-in-class ability to maintain and modernize fleets, then that is what we want to see.

The other thing I said at the outset, which has us here in this debate today and that the government has not been transparent on, is the fact that Bill C-10 is really the result of litigation in relation to adherence to this act. As I said, Air Canada probably, understandably, feels unfairly shackled by something that was done, not just by the last government or the previous government, but three governments ago, in the 1980s at a time when privatizations were a little newer. However, I think today most Canadians would certainly not expect the federal government to operate its airline in a competitive environment where there is a lot of choice.

Quebec and Manitoba joined the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in litigation related to business changes in those jurisdictions. Certainly, with that union involved, it is why my friends in the NDP are as passionate, and I respect their standing up for workers and items they believe. However, I would suggest that their workers would tell them that this is not the same industry that it was in 1988.

What we saw was the government of Quebec drop its participation in this litigation as a result of an Air Canada decision to purchase aircraft. Obviously, there was some political horse-trading that went on, and the Quebec government removed itself from the litigation in return for Air Canada supporting the industry through the acquisition of Bombardier aircraft.

Manitoba also removed itself from this litigation by carving out a deal whereby Air Canada supported three world-class aerospace services suppliers in Manitoba and leased one of the Air Canada maintenance hangars to an operator in Manitoba on favourable terms. In that case, there was another provincial government coming up with a deal it thought was sound enough to remove itself from a civil action in relation to an act from 1980s.

As I said at the outset of my remarks, I would have much preferred it if the Minister of Transport had come to the House and told us that Bill C-10 was the result of yet another pragmatic deal that was made. However, to do that, he would have had to outline all aspects of that deal, what exactly happened, and if the government approached a private sector player to help it with respect to requests from Bombardier for assistance.

This is where we get into some difficult territory. Should the government be convening these meetings behind closed doors to cobble out a position, particularly when the minister was getting heat for ending the exploration of the expansion of the Toronto Island Billy Bishop Airport, and cancelled that with a tweak after demands from people within his caucus and within a group in Toronto advocated against an expansion? What that cancellation led to was a private sector company that was planning an acquisition of Bombardier aircraft could no longer proceed. All of these events gather, and that is the run-up to why we have Bill C-10.

We can actually have a rational discussion on whether it would be helpful to unshackle a company from requirements that limit its competitiveness from 1988 legislation. We can have that discussion, and I would like to, because the minister and the Liberal government have not come to the House in an open and transparent way, much like the parliamentary budget officer said they approached their recent budget, the least transparent in over 15 years.

I would like the government to outline all aspects that went into Bill C-10: the related litigation, the pressures in relation to the financial stability of Bombardier, and Air Canada's need to be competitive in a global age. I think we could have a proper debate if that was before the House. I am disappointed the information is not here for this debate.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to underscore a couple of points for clarity.

The government wants Air Canada, which is a private company, to have the flexibility it needs to manage its business operations in 2016. We understand that since 1989, the air transportation sector has evolved and will continue to evolve. Air Canada needs the tools and regulatory supports to keep pace. However, this must be done within a framework that maintains adequate safeguards for Canadian workers and suppliers. That is why we propose to ensure the act continues to require that Air Canada carry out aircraft maintenance in certain Canadian regions. Therefore, we want this bill to proceed to the committee stage so we can hear from stakeholders and have more debate at the committee level.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary could detect from most of my remarks that it is not the actual policy within Bill C-10 that I take issue with, but it is the road getting to Bill C-10 that causes me some difficulty.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, having worked on the restructuring of Air Canada and seeing its growth and success in recent years under the strong leadership of Calin Rovinescu and the team, there is a good debate to be had on whether it should be shackled exactly to the purposes of the 1988 act.

Therefore, I would ask her this. Was she part of the meetings on February 15 that the minister had with that company? Did the minister facilitate this deal, much like the Quebec government facilitated a settlement of litigation, much like the Manitoba government facilitated a deal? It is the facilitation that is an important part of Bill C-10, and that has not been explained to the House.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

The two opposition parties are both opposed to the bill, but not for exactly the same reasons. I would like my colleague to talk briefly about the Liberals' about-face on this file.

I had an opportunity to read a quote before. I would like to read another one. Let us keep going and digging through the archives of the transport committee.

One member stated:

I do believe in the rule of law. I do believe that whether an individual or a corporation breaks the law, there should be some justice that comes out of it....The workers of Aveos, who were formerly Air Canada employees, feel that there has not been any justice, that their government has let them down.

He then reads the law as it currently exists, before Bill C-10 of course.

He then goes on to accuse Air Canada of wanting to privatize. He states:

...as someone who is concerned about the worker, we read that and interpret it as meaning that Air Canada is obligated to maintain those overhaul centres. Then Air Canada kind of privatizes and pushes that responsibility over to Aveos. A court then makes a decision that because Aveos is now there, Air Canada is indirectly keeping those jobs.

Who said that? Once again, the member for Winnipeg North, who is showing us how the Liberal government opposes one way and governs another.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on that.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passion on this issue. We have heard some of his colleagues express the same concerns. Where we do differ is that the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Mulroney privatized Air Canada. At the time, the public policy decisions were reflected in the Public Participation Act. I would think it would be fair to say, and I think my friend would agree, that the centres for excellence in the aerospace industry are still quite strong, and I have mentioned our strengths in that industry in Montreal, in Winnipeg in particular, and in Toronto. What has changed is the nature of the global supply chain. These are the debates we should be having in this Commons, not in a court of law, which is the route some of the unions have taken.

To hold the industry to a frozen moment in time in 1988 would not be prudent. However, what we have not had here is the full discussion that has taken place in Quebec or in Winnipeg with respect to how those governments took pragmatic public policy decisions to then remove themselves from litigation related to this act. The same thing has happened here. I have outlined in my speech where I think it has happened. However, I would prefer that the minister would get up and say that in the House.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to note that there are many other things the government could be doing that would improve the competitiveness of Air Canada that do not negatively impact workers. For instance, they could raise the foreign ownership threshold. They could work to streamline processes in terms of customs. They could work to realign regulations. Air Canada has mentioned a variety of things as contributing to and helping its competitiveness, and this is not one of them.

Could the member speculate on why the government is moving in this direction, and maybe identify, as I have, alternative ways that we could help to increase Air Canada's competitiveness?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are a variety of public policy options available to the government.

In the previous government, the capital cost allowance acceleration and a variety of other R and D credits and reforms were ways we were trying to help a range of manufacturing industries across the country, and particularly in my province of Ontario. I met regularly with the Aerospace Industries Association in Canada on ways that we could help them.

What we see here, as I said earlier in my speech and in previous answers to questions, is something that is the result of litigation, which is the result of the financial instability of one of those aircraft assemblers. What we have not had is a proper talk on that industry.

Having lived and served in the air force in Winnipeg, I know the excellent track record and global reputation of that industry. How can we best facilitate the success of that industry? Some of the policies of the previous government are the answer, as well as letting the regulatory process for airports like the Toronto island airport run its course. Then the private sector will actually help before the government has to come in with a bailout.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Durham made reference to celebrating the Avro Arrow. The cancellation of the Arrow by Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker represented a substantial and significant hit—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Well, he mentioned it, Mr. Speaker.

It was a hit to Canada's aerospace industry and took away our leadership position in the military aerospace sector. It would be hard to argue that we ever recovered from that missile hit, in a manner of speaking, as recent discussions over new fighter jets clearly demonstrate.

Could the member please tell us why we should take his party's advice on questions of leadership in aerospace with such a disastrous legacy and with the significant long-term consequences that resulted from the prior attempts at Conservative leadership in aerospace, or am I off the Bomarc?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member is asking a question that admittedly is a little off the topic that is in front of us today. Nonetheless, as he pointed out, the hon. member for Durham did raise the point in his remarks, so we will certainly allow the question.

The hon. member for Durham.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, he certainly was off the Bomarc. I did get his reference, so kudos to him.

Mr. Diefenbaker was almost burned in effigy at this dinner that I had. I had a hard time staying in form pretending to be George Hees, one of his ministers at the time. I would like to thank the Clarington Museums for such an amazing event.

However, I do not think there has been any government that has consistently supported this industry better than Conservative governments. The industrial regional benefits program, from our procurement programs, is what keeps these supply chains alive.

That is why this Minister of National Defence is asking the Prime Minister to reverse his position from the election. As I said in my speech, the Liberals like to take two positions on one issue. In the election they were going to cancel the F-35s, and now maybe not.

I would remind that member—and I would thank him for teeing up this response—that as a former Sea King aviator, I certainly do know the hundreds of millions of dollars lost and the job cuts and losses to the aerospace industry, as a result of the move by Prime Minister Right Hon. Chrétien. In fact, his first move as prime minister in 1993 was to devastate the aerospace industry and set the air force back.

I would like to thank that member for taking us back on a bit of a history lesson.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

Speaking in technical terms, this legislation will remove the articles of the act that stipulate that Air Canada undertakes operational and overhaul maintenance in Mississauga, Montreal, and Winnipeg.

In plain English, the proposed amendments to the 1988 Air Canada Public Participation Act mean that the jobs of 3,000 Canadians who provide aircraft maintenance will be affected. Under the amendment, Air Canada would still be required to do some maintenance work in each of these provinces, but would be allowed to change the type, volume, or scope of any or all of those activities in each of those provinces. As well, the level of employment in any or all these areas could be changed, depending on the scope. Air Canada would be free to dictate how many people would be employed by these centres and what work they will do.

Let me be clear with regard to one particular aspect of this. The Conservative Party believes it is time that Air Canada becomes a private sector company that is not supported by taxpayers. We agree that Air Canada, and all of our carriers, should have the ability to be more competitive, a level playing field, and this does not have to be at the expense of high-quality, well-paying jobs of Canadians. Having spent almost 20 years in aviation, I am aware first-hand of the challenges that Canadian aviation industries face in remaining competitive in an ever-changing global industry.

However, before getting into the weeds of the bill, let me speak about the history of Air Canada in this country for a moment.

Air Canada inherited a fleet of 109 aircraft upon being privatized in 1988. All of Canada's major airports where Air Canada first flew were built with the financial support of the Government of Canada at the time. Air Canada is the largest airline in this country, and an important international player in the aviation sector. However, that is because of, not despite, the support from the Government of Canada and Canadian taxpayers over the years.

Today Air Canada is the largest tenant in nearly every major airport in this country, with the exception of Calgary and the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. This gives Air Canada significant influence over each airport's operations, and access to the best landing slots in all of our major airports. One might be tempted to say it is a bit of a competitive advantage over other carriers, including our other national carriers.

As I said before, we welcomed the original intent of the Air Canada Public Participation Act when it was introduced in 1988. The act put in place clear conditions to ensure that all of the support that Air Canada had received from the government to turn it into a profitable crown corporation was not lost. The government could be seen as perhaps protecting its investment.

The conditions were that Air Canada would be subjected to the Official Languages Act, would maintain its headquarters in Montreal, that 75% of its voting shares had to be held by Canadians and, finally, it had to “maintain operational and overhaul centres in the city of Winnipeg, Montreal urban community, and the city of Mississauga”. Given all this, it is surprising that the government would only make such a narrow change to the act. While it is unclear what level of benefits this legislative change will give Air Canada, it is clear that the intended change will make it possible for the carrier to move thousands of jobs from Canada to other jurisdictions.

If we are talking about giving further competitive advantage to one of our national carriers, perhaps it would be appropriate to look at the industry as a whole. If afforded all of the advantages previously and Air Canada is still having difficulties remaining competitive, it might be a sign that our national aviation industry might need some retooling.

Let me talk about some of the challenges facing the aviation industry as a whole, because to understand the issues, one must first understand the product. Air transport is a critical, economic, and social infrastructure. It provides access to trade and investment; connects people to jobs, friends, and family; and delivers vital goods and services in remote areas, such as air medevac.

Geography, population size, and environmental conditions increase the operating costs of air transport in Canada compared to other jurisdictions. The Canadian passenger travel market is relatively mature, and it has enjoyed small to medium growth over the years. The total Canadian passenger market is estimated at between 122 to 125 million enplaned and deplaned passengers. However, this pales in comparison to the emerging and developing markets around the world.

In some measure, this is due to some of the very same policies developed for the industrial and economic environment in the 1990s. Simply put, the very same policies that were designed to protect our industry are now the ones hindering it.

Most of Canada's domestic air services are provided by Air Canada and WestJet. A small number of regional and local air carriers across the country service some small communities from coast to coast. This allows for better customer service and connectivity.

In the 1990s, Canada saw the Southwest Airline low-cost airline model introduced by WestJet. This came at a time when consumers and communities were held hostage by predatory pricing by Canada's two major airlines of the time, Canadian and Air Canada.

Canada's main charter carriers are Transat and Sunwing. They are focused primarily on seasonal vacation destinations. WestJet's entrance into the Canadian market created excitement by offering low-cost travel. It allowed many Canadians to experience air travel for the very first time. It was an exciting time and it was an exciting project of which to be part.

There was a time that air travel was only for the elite and was considered glamourous and accessible to only those who could afford it. With the entrance of low-cost carriers and competition, air travel is now easily afforded and this has stimulated market growth.

Both Air Canada and WestJet have now introduced lower cost, lower fare vacation or charter subsidiaries, Rouge and Encore. Respectively, this has stimulated some vacation or destination growth in a number of markets and, as we speak, there are a number of start-up low-cost carriers at various stages of financing that are expected to enter the market in the short term.

Ultimately, this will lead to a price competition with existing carriers. For a time, our national carriers will react with even greater seat sales and maybe even new routes, but as past experience suggests, only the new entrants with deep pockets will be able to survive.

Unable to compete or go head to head with the big boys because the deck is stacked against them, airline start-ups and failures are frequent. The ones that suffer the most are the communities and, ultimately, the consumer.

All of this is to say that maybe it is time to reconsider policies that may have served us well when the Canadian aviation industry needed protection to flourish, but now impairs our competitiveness. Of course, such protectionism comes at a cost that is largely borne by consumers, who pay relatively high airfares, and the Canadian travel and tourism sector that also, due to higher costs, has been losing market share for over a decade. Simply put, Canada is sliding backward in its competitiveness.

The Conference Board of Canada estimates that Canadian airports in 2012 accounted for $4.3 billion in real GDP, but had a total economic footprint of $12 billion, generating almost 63,000 jobs, and contributing over $3 billion in federal and regional taxes. Canadian airports are vital to the success of the Canadian economy, key gateways for inbound and outbound tourism, business, and personal travel. Domestic commerce and international trade are dependent on our key gateways, our airports.

Canada is blessed with strategic geographical location. We are at the crossroads of the great circle routes among Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and we have this competitive advantage, but yet our nation has never taken full advantage of it. Competition has successfully negated this competitive advantage with integrated policies and programs aimed at stimulating inbound tourism and facilitating connecting traffic through their global hubs, essentially overstepping or, to use an aviation term, doing a flyby of Canada.

Canada's airports face increasingly aggressive competition from countries that have recognized the importance of air transportation as a driver of economic growth. Our neighbouring U.S. counterpart markets directly to and easily accesses a large portion of Canada's U.S. transborder and international travel market. Finally, Canadian airports also compete with each other for the allocation of limited carrier capacity.

Our regional airports and communities are oftentimes pitted against one another in competition for airline service. As mentioned during the Billy Bishop debate, Canadian airports also face challenging times with changing aircraft capacity and the continued focus on environmental issues such as noise due to residential encroachment.

In the 1990s, with the introduction of the national airports policy, a new framework was defined with relation to the federal government's role in aviation. NAS airports, comprised of the 26 airports across Canada that were deemed as critical links for our country, were deemed essential to Canada's air transport system. They served 94% of the air traffic in Canada. These airports were transferred under lease to airport authorities, and in some cases, municipalities.

The infrastructure in many of these airports was antiquated. Some, if not all, of them were in need of attention. Through the transfer negotiations, reinvestment monies were given, but the expectation for these airports was that they were to do everything in their power to be self-sufficient.

Airports have very few revenue generation streams. With the transfer of airports and the newfound independence also came the realization that user-pay systems were needed. Airport improvement fees have now become the norm, and today we have airports that are incredible examples of the NAS airport of the 1990s. We have also seen airports that continue to struggle to be competitive and to be innovative.

The user-pay approach to financing air infrastructure and services is effective and sustainable, but it further increases costs for the sector and for users. It costs more for airlines to fly into our airports because it costs more for our airports to operate.

Canada is unique among its competitors in charging onerous rents and taxes that undermine competitiveness. Airport rents, for example, can represent up to 30% of airport operating budgets, far more than what would be expected in dividends and income tax from a private for-profit airport, such as what we see in Europe.

The federal government takes in about $300 million annually in rent, but it only invests $50 million back into our airports. Canada cannot become a world leader in terms of cost competitiveness of air transport without heavy public subsidization of the sector, not only to match the subsidies offered by some of our competitors, but also to overcome the naturally high-cost operating conditions and lack of economies of scale.

If Canada wants to remain competitive, we need to fully integrate parts of our local transportation system and recognize essential partners, such as the government, airlines, tourism and business interests, using an overall team Canada approach to align policy and promotion. We need to stimulate air travel to, from, and within Canada. This alone would have a broader, far reaching, positive industry impact than continually giving a single private sector company competitive advantages over others.

Arguably the most important challenge facing Canadian industry today is our air policy. The key to enhancing Canadian connectivity, global competitiveness, and economic prosperity is to realign Canada's air policy. The government can improve Canada's competitiveness and help create opportunity in trade and tourism, which in turn would create more demand for air services, strengthening our national carriers, all of our carriers and not just one, by using their time not to pick off the low-hanging fruit, the easy wins, and looking after friends.

Let us look at our air policy. Let us apply our blue sky policy more progressively and in a manner that is strategically aligned with Canada's international trade and tourism objectives. Let us pursue more aggressive open skies agreements with Canada's free trade partners. Let us pursue progressive and more open agreements with Canada's tourism markets. Open up more markets for tourism and trade: wow, what a novel idea.

Tourism is a large and high growth industry. It has a significant impact on the global economy. In 2013 alone, the tourism industry saw more than one billion international tourists worldwide, generating more than $1.3 trillion in receipts. Canada's tourism industry contributes $84 billion to the economy and employs more than 600,000 people.

Competition for tourism is heating up more and more as more countries are investing in tourism marketing, aligning their aviation and visa policies to attract a greater share of this market. Canada is lagging further and further behind. Aligning our tourism objectives with our aviation policy would only serve to build a stronger Canadian aviation industry and stronger carriers.

I have a quote from Air Canada's president and CEO, Calin Rovinescu:

It is indeed time that the Air Canada Public Participation Act, dating from the company's privatization nearly 30 years ago, be modernized to recognize the reality that Air Canada is a private sector company, owned by private sector interests, which operates in a highly competitive global industry that has undergone dramatic transformation over the past three decades.

I agree, but there needs to be a level playing field, and protecting Canadian jobs should be the number one priority.

The announcement made by Air Canada to undertake and overhaul maintenance comes only after the airline announced that it would be purchasing Bombardier's C Series jets.

Air Canada until very recently had been subject to lawsuits from Quebec and Manitoba as a result of the service centre closures in those provinces.

In the Quebec case, it failed to reopen a factory that went bankrupt in 2012, putting 2,000 skilled workers out of work. The Quebec government filed a lawsuit that accused Air Canada of breaching its legal obligations when it transferred some heavy maintenance work outside the country. The Quebec Court of Appeal sided in a ruling last November. However, Quebec dropped the case when Air Canada agreed to purchase 75 Bombardier C Series jets and service them in the province. Was that convenient timing? I think not.

The Manitoba government also ended legal proceedings after the airline signed a new maintenance agreement that is expected to create at least 150 jobs in the province.

Air Canada already outsources its maintenance work to two suppliers in Quebec, in addition to providers in the U.S., Singapore, Ireland, and Israel.

While the Minister of Transport's proposed legislation should have nothing to do with Bombardier, this bill unfortunately has everything to do with Bombardier. While the government has yet to announce whether it will provide Bombardier with yet another billion-dollar bailout as requested on December 11, 2015, it seems it is finding ways to skirt the public with backroom deals.

In his short justification for introducing Bill C-10, the minister hailed Air Canada's decision to purchase the C Series aircraft combined with the Government of Quebec's and the Government of Manitoba's intention to discontinue litigation against the carrier as the main cause. That is so nice of them. The minister also noted that this would allow Air Canada to be more competitive in an evolving and ever-increasing globalized industry. I think that line alone speaks for itself.

The taxpayers of Canada have done a lot for Air Canada and the company is rewarding them by taking away high-quality, well-paying jobs. The Conservative Party does not support any bill that seeks to eliminate jobs, especially when there are viable alternatives to do so that will not affect the company's bottom line.

The government has an opportunity to look at all of our industry and make some real change. If the government really wanted to take a measure that would stimulate the entire Canadian aerospace sector, and as I said, create real change, including Air Canada, it could choose to tackle any of the issues I have mentioned previously. I would note that all of these measures have near universal support in the aviation sector and would not lead to a single loss of jobs in Canada.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a few tautologies from the government. We have heard that a deal is a deal. The government has invoked that in order to refuse to stand up to Saudi Arabia with respect to its record on human rights and proceed with a contract that would deliver arms to that country. We have also heard that the law is the law is the law. This is a deal in law. It is a deal that was made when Air Canada was privatized. It is a deal that was made with Canadian workers and aerospace workers. We have a deal that is in the law. We know that the law is the law is the law, and that a deal is a deal. Why is it that that is good enough for the government to go ahead and protect the interests of the Saudi government, but it is not good enough to stand up for the sanctity of a deal when it comes to protecting Canadian workers?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure if there was a question in the member's remarks.

The Air Canada Public Participation Act was done in 1988 and as we have talked about, times change and things change. We have to be able to compete in an ever-changing global environment.

Fundamentally, that act was put in place to protect Canadian jobs and to protect the government's investment. As we move forward, it would be wise for the government to take a step back, and not rush to pass this legislation. If the government were really serious about creating jobs and creating a great environment for trade and tourism, it might consider some of the thoughts and suggestions that members on this side have put forth in the debate today.

If we are to remain competitive, we need to not just look at one carrier, but we need to look at the industry as a whole in order to make Canada a sound trading partner and competitive on the global stage.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I understand that the member's background is in aviation. He talked about the downloading of costs to the airlines and to the public. It reminds me of security at most of our airports. The security costs are downloaded directly to the airlines and to the public that are travelling.

Does the member think that the whole regulation system needs to be looked at and changed? I feel that the global security at our airports should be a national requirement by government and the costs should not be put onto the general public or the airlines that are using those airports.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, on a point of clarification, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority is in charge of Canada's security system at our airports from coast to coast to coast. However, the costs always come down to the user pays. The end user has to pay for that. We live in an ever-changing global environment that places challenges on all of our security systems and our transportation systems. We want to make sure that the safe travel of goods and people is always paramount. Our Canadian airports are second to none in this.

Again, if we are to be competitive, if we want to stop carriers overflying Canada, if we want to remain competitive on the global stage, if we want to take advantage of our strategic geographic position, we need to look at the aviation transportation sector as a whole. We need to align that with our trade, our tourism, and our air policy environment. If we do that, our carriers, our airports, our trade, and our tourism will be healthy.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is an interesting rolling out of history. Just a few years ago the Liberals of the day, when they were the third party, were extremely critical of the Conservative government for not upholding the legislation which was a term of privatization of taxpayer assets, a commitment to protect Canadian jobs in place as a trade, as a term for that privatization. Just a few years ago, the third party was very critical of the Conservative government for not taking stronger action.

We now have legislation before the House that looks like a very clear reversal of that position. We are seeing a very strong protection of the corporate interests and not seeing the proposed legislation standing up for local good-paying jobs that are guaranteed to stay in Canada.

I am curious about what my Conservative colleague feels about this story now that the narrative has turned around.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, I would have to say that the timing of this legislation is awfully suspect. Only after Air Canada has announced that it will indeed purchase the C Series aircraft from Bombardier, a commitment of maybe up to 75, we have seen some lawsuits dropped with Quebec and Manitoba.

There seems to be a rush to get this legislation in place and perhaps a loss of memory of the Liberals' previous stance. Again, we have seen a loss of memory in recent months after October 19 and after the Liberals' campaign when they made a lot of promises. As one of our colleagues said, there were promises of rainbows and unicorns. We now see the loss of memory of their stance in the previous Parliament, and so they are changing it. It is a rush to judgment and I think it is a matter of merely looking after friends.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona earlier referred to Liberal tautologies, such as “a deal is a deal” and “the law is the law”. I thought maybe he should have added “a proof is a proof is a proof”, because we clearly have proof here that there were clear rules in place and that those rules were not followed, and now the government is trying to change the law to allow for not following the law and not respecting taxpayers in this context.

We talked about the interests of corporations and the interests of workers, but there is a more fundamental issue here, and that is basic fairness.

What message does this decision by the government send about fairness in the marketplace, about actually honouring the law and honouring our commitments?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think it speaks volumes about the government's ability to have blinders on when it comes to friends and things it needs to get passed and wants to rush through.

The government's role is create the environment so that companies, whether private or other corporations, can succeed. That means creating a healthy tax environment, a healthy and competitive environment, so that industry can flourish, so that trade can flourish, so that we can move people and products to market easily.

Governments should not be interfering in issues that will give one private sector company a competitive advantage over another. Simply put, I think the government should stick to its knitting. If it wants to have real change, maybe it should take a look at the industry as a whole and not a singular part of that industry or a singular competitor in that industry, and if it really wants to do some good, let us take a look at the whole industry and have some real impact.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to now give a speech on this debate, having participated throughout the day in questions and comments.

I want to share that the reason I have been involved in the debate, the reason I am giving this speech, is that this was actually an issue that a constituent brought to me in my office a number of months ago. This gentleman had been an Aveos employee and had lost his job as a result of, in my view, Air Canada's ongoing efforts to shirk its clear obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

It was a pleasure for me to chat with this gentleman. I always appreciate it when constituents come to my office to educate me about issues I may not know about, and, when I have the opportunity, I can then reflect their concerns in the House. In this case, these are certainly concerns that I share. This is the context I bring to this debate.

It is certainly telling that my constituent wanted us to be talking about this issue, yet it is very clear from the way this debate has progressed back and forth that it is not an issue that the government wants to talk about. The Liberals wanted to bring this legislation forward, and to be sure, they want it to pass. However, while other parties are participating actively in this debate, it is clearly not something that the government is keen to talk about, and it is not surprising why.

Here is the deal.

The government came up with an arrangement that I think it feels satisfies everyone of importance. However, the legislation ignores the one too often overlooked stakeholder group: the people, the ordinary working women and men in this country, taxpayers, people who cannot afford to hire lobbyists, people who cannot afford to go to $500-a-plate fundraisers with ministers, people who go about their ordinary business and just hope and expect, perhaps against the odds, that the government will treat them fairly and honestly.

The government has come up with a solution in this context. The Liberals believe, it seems—which reminds of the title of a recent book I read—that the bill satisfies everyone but the people. As obscure as the Air Canada Public Participation Act may be to some Canadians who have not interacted with it directly, I think the legislation before us is something that everyone should pay some degree of attention to, because it tells us a great deal about the way the government does business. To paraphrase Michael Corleone, if you want to do business with this government, then it will do business with you.

I would like to start the substance of my remarks by reviewing the story of how we got to this sordid piece of legislation, and of who has already paid the price for the policy of the government and will continue to pay the price as we go forward.

In 1988-1989, through two separate offerings, Air Canada was privatized under, notably, a previous Conservative government, which I think had the wisdom and foresight to see the value of proceeding in that direction. I think most of us will accept now, in principle, the value of government stepping out of being directly involved in that kind of business activity, but certainly in the lead-up to that privatization, the people of Canada had already been very involved in terms of putting money into the development and ongoing maintenance of what had then been a crown corporation.

The mechanism of privatization is important here. The privatization of Air Canada was achieved through a share issue privatization, or SIP for short, and this is exactly what it sounds like. The government issued and sold shares in what had previously been a publicly owned company. Particularly in this case, and in some other cases in those years when the government initiated SIPs, certain provisos or restrictions were placed on the company being privatized. In this case, Air Canada was subject to four conditions: it would be subject to the Official Languages Act; it would maintain its corporate headquarters in Montreal; 75% of its voting shares had to be held by Canadians; and it had to maintain operational and overhaul centres in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Mississauga. This was the law, and they were also the conditions of the privatization.

The latter point of maintaining operational and overhaul centres in those three Canadian cities is what the legislation before us seeks to remove. It would no longer require that these jobs be kept in Canada.

Therefore, we can be very clear that the proposed legislation is not about creating jobs in Canada but about sending jobs out of Canada. There is no denying that. Certainly the government may point to other jobs being created in the aerospace sector, but it is very clear that the effect of the legislation before us is to allow, to facilitate, this company in sending jobs out of Canada.

As everyone knows, when conditions are put on a sale of anything, whatever that thing is, that is likely to have some impact on the price. A 2012 University of Calgary paper from the School of Public Policy stated this on privatization: “Whether [these] provisions were in the interests of Canadians or not, they probably reduced the initial share offering prices and governments’ sale proceeds.”

Because of these conditions, shareholders got the shares for less than they would have otherwise, and taxpayers got less money. To summarize, the Government of Canada sold Air Canada shares subject to certain conditions, which reduced the value of those shares but which the government felt at the time were worth the cost.

Recognizing that was how the privatization happened in 1988-89, it would seem obvious that as a matter of basic fairness to the Canadian taxpayers, we would expect that any subsequent removal of those conditions should not come for free, the removal in particular of the conditions around the requirement that Air Canada keep certain jobs in Canada. The removal of these conditions has, on the one hand, an economic cost for workers and taxpayers but, on the other hand, has an economic benefit for Air Canada. Effectively, the government will legislate windfall gains for Air Canada at the expense of workers and taxpayers, at the expense of ordinary people.

Why is the government doing this? Why would it pass a law that would absolve Air Canada of clearly stated commercial obligations that are long standing and allowed shareholders to acquire Air Canada at lower prices? Why would it do such a thing? It does not make sense, until we realize the other interests that are in place, in fact other interests that have been alluded to directly by government members. Again, these are not the interests of workers and taxpayers but the interests of another private company.

Air Canada has been sued by the governments of Quebec and Manitoba for its failure to live up to its obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act, which is the act that lays out the requirements that operational and overhaul centres be maintained in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Mississauga, as we have discussed. However, these governments have now both suspended their litigation because of some notionally unrelated but in fact very much related events. This appears to be an elaborate scheme aimed at bailing out a different group of shareholders, that is, Bombardier shareholders.

Bombardier is a company that all of us want to see survive and do well. However, certainly on this side of the House, we are more interested in protecting workers and taxpayers and not providing further windfall gains to company owners. The connection between windfall gains for Air Canada and windfall gains for Bombardier has already been well laid out by my colleague from Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek. It has been alluded to, but not clarified, by members of the government. In any event, it is worth going over one more time.

On February 17 of this year, Air Canada announced that it had started negotiations with Bombardier to purchase C Series aircraft, which are aircraft that Air Canada had not previously expressed an interest in. Then, on March 8, the minister put this bill on notice. The governments of Quebec and Manitoba suspended their litigation. It is hard to imagine them successfully resuming it if this legislation passes, the law under which they were suing having at that point been significantly altered.

Air Canada would receive the free removal of conditions of its privatization at the same time as it is exploring previously unplanned purchases from Bombardier. The government knows that a direct bailout of Bombardier is unlikely to be acceptable to the public at a time when Bombardier, like Air Canada, is out-sourcing jobs. Therefore, there may exist what we might call some form of an indirect bailout. The benefit of the removal of conditions flows from the government to Air Canada, and the benefit of a previously unplanned large purchase flows from Air Canada to Bombardier.

This seems to be the crux of the matter. We are not clear as to why or how, but we know that the benefit of the removal of conditions flows from the government to Air Canada, and the benefit of a previously unplanned large purchase flows from Air Canada to Bombardier.

Something in this connection was made explicit by the Quebec government when it discontinued its litigation against Air Canada. Here is what it said in a press release:

Subject to concluding final arrangements, the Government of Quebec has agreed to discontinue the litigation related to Air Canada's obligations regarding the maintenance of an overhaul and operational centre following Air Canada's agreement to collaborate with the Province to establish a Centre of Excellence for C Series....

Note the careful language here: “collaborate...to establish a Centre of Excellence for C Series”.

The government, again, will not acknowledge this connection. I asked one of the members, explicitly, what the connection is and why it is talking about these new investments in C Series in a debate about the Air Canada Public Participation Act. There was a bit of wink-wink, nudge-nudge as they talked about these things together, but they will not acknowledge the connection.

Well, what is going on seems fairly clear, given the timeline, given the benefits that are flowing to Air Canada from the government and then on from Air Canada to Bombardier.

It seems, therefore, that Bombardier is getting help from the government after all. Now, all of a sudden, it is claiming it does not need the help anymore. Here is a Financial Post story from March 23. It quoted a representative of Bombardier. This story came out, by the way, the day before this act was proposed, but certainly after it had been put on notice. Here is what a representative of Bombardier said:

Really, the federal funding would just be an extra endorsement for the program.… That’s really just an extra bonus that would be helpful but is very clearly not required.

Now, we are talking about a $1 billion bailout. That is an extra bonus that I am sure many of us could use, as well. However, this is quite a different tone from what we heard from the same company a few months ago.

I wonder if it is really that Bombardier did not need the money all along, or is it simply that by March 23 it was clear that the same benefit would be received, just perhaps by a different means, notably without the pesky conditions that might require real and substantial reform, without those trappings that might be associated with a more direct package of financial support?

I actually worked for the Department of Industry during the tenure of the last government. At the time, we were involved in bailing out a number of major auto companies. I got to know some of the members who are still in this place during those years. I know that, for those of us who are Conservative-minded, who believe in free markets, it was a very difficult decision for the government to be involved in bailing out car companies. Many Conservative-minded people may still not agree with that decision, but it is clear that there were some very particular conditions and circumstances operating at the time.

At the time, in 2009, the government undertook a very carefully constructed bailout approach. It did a few important things, though. It required reforms that ensured viability. It involved the best possible effort of the government to ensure that there would be some kind of meaningful return on the investments that were made. Part of the deal was a loan; part of the deal involved the acquisition of shares.

For those who believed that the bailout was necessary at that time, it was at least transparent. It was done in the least bad way, because it involved reform and it was set up in a way to try to ensure that there would not be a need for bailout in the future, that these companies would go on to be successful and continue to create jobs in Canada. Not to undermine the challenge of the decision at the time, but it is clear that to some extent it worked and those companies have continued to exist.

However, the novel approach we see here is what appears to be some form of an indirect bailout, benefits flowing to Bombardier via Air Canada, in a way that is not transparent, not accountable, and involves no reform, to a company that I should underline has received something approaching $4 billion, by some estimates, in various forms of government assistance since 1961.

I would just say that, if the government wants to be involved in supporting a private company, it should, at minimum, try to ensure that it is the last time it has to do it, and that there are reforms in place that ensure it is not going to be providing bailouts on and on.

The problem here is that there is this murkiness, this allusion to things that may be happening, but we do not know how they happen or why they happen.

I want to comment directly on some of the comments made by other members and offer some refutation.

We have heard a lot of interesting language by the other members who spoke, although not many members of the government have spoken to this issue.

They talk about modernizing the act. I believe one member told us that it is 2016, as if stating the current date is an argument for so many different things, not just the policy of gender parity in cabinet but also for this, and that all we have to do is state the current year to say that we are modernizing and moving forward. I do not think that selling out Canadian workers and taxpayers is modernization at all; rather, it takes us backward.

They have said that they are updating the act. Updating is not what this is. This is a substantive policy choice the government has made that betrays taxpayers and betrays workers.

In certain speeches, the government has made the point that there are costs associated with these conditions that Air Canada has to bear but that other private companies do not. The reality is that those conditions were associated with those shares being sold at a lower price, as I have already mentioned, but let us not forget that Air Canada has benefits as well that other companies do not have. Canada regulates its airline industry significantly, in a way that I think has very clearly been designed to protect the economic interests of Canadian carriers. We can debate the value of those various individual policies back and forth, but there is no doubt that those policies exist and that Air Canada has received certain advantages from government regulation as well. That is something we need to recognize and take into consideration.

In any event, this is simply a matter of fairness. Those were conditions that were imposed on Air Canada as a condition of its sale, and those who bought those shares knew exactly what was happening.

We have heard this argument of the importance of Air Canada's viability. There is no disputing that all of us want to see Air Canada, as well as Bombardier, be strong, create jobs in Canada, provide good service to Canadians, and provide choice in the marketplace as well, but there are many different things that could be done to improve Air Canada's viability. Some of my colleagues have mentioned examples of these already. Increasing the foreign ownership limit of Canadian-based airlines to 49% would be one option. Allowing more money to come into Canada instead of jobs going out of Canada would be a better way to improve competitiveness. Continuing to streamline immigration and customs processes and establishing a set of principles to guide airports when determining fees are another. Those are the kinds of reforms that would help Air Canada's competitiveness, and they would help the competitiveness of Canadian airlines in general.

I did not want to say just this on the point about these being costs that other airlines do not have. That is true of the Official Languages Act as well, yet we do not see any movement by the current government to remove the application of that act, so there will still be conditions on Air Canada that do not exist on other airlines, and I think they would understand why.

To summarize, conditions are being lifted, at a cost to and with no benefit to the taxpayer. Bombardier is getting business from Air Canada, and because there are no conditions, both companies are able to continue sending jobs out of this country. Air Canada gets something for nothing, Bombardier gets something for nothing, and the government thinks it is filing away a potential political headache.

However, the real question is this: who gets left behind?

It is the workers and the taxpayers. It is the ordinary folks. Those are the people who are getting left behind because the Liberals are sacrificing the principles of real economics and real free market economics for their own particular brand of crony capitalism.

Those of us on this side of the House believe deeply in the market mechanism, but the necessary condition is fairness, and this bill is not fair. It is not fair to workers who will lose their jobs. It is not fair to the taxpayers who could have received more for Air Canada's privatization. It is good for the elite, but it is not fair for the people, and that is why we are opposed to it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, while my friend down the way and I have some common ground in disliking this bill, we come at it from different angles. I am not sure that increasing foreign ownership and control of the airline industry in Canada is actually the silver bullet that maybe some Conservatives hoped for, because if what we are hoping for is to have a strong aviation sector in this country, perhaps we need an actual strategy to build up the jobs and the workforce in this country, as radical as that notion sounds.

One of the concerns I have with these centres of excellence that are being dangled out by the government is that one wonders what we are training these workers for if, at the same time, the same government is moving those same jobs overseas. I do not know if they are teaching Spanish at these schools, but it might be a thought for the government.

The sequence of events is this, and this is my question for my friend. New Democrats had many criticisms, and were joined by Liberals in the criticisms at the time, of the Conservative government not enforcing the act, not enforcing the law under which Air Canada must operate. I can remember the member for Papineau standing in front of the House of Commons and in Montreal and in Mississauga and in Winnipeg, saying that if people voted Liberal, Liberals would uphold the law. There was a little asterisk on that. He did not mention that, in the meantime, when forming government, they would change the law so there would be nothing to uphold.

In fact, he was not technically lying. He was not technically lying when he said there would be sunny ways; he just did not mention the storm clouds that were on the horizon. The sun was out for a moment, but when push came to shove and Air Canada wanted something that Air Canada has long wanted, and Bombardier wanted something else, the quid pro quo came up and now it is the so-called seriousness of governing, where the 2,600 families and the jobs that they rely on in Mississauga, in Winnipeg, and in Quebec around Montreal are now to be sacrificed for this grand deal.

My question is this. If the Conservatives were unwilling to enforce the law and the Liberals were willing to simply kill the act, is it not now at least time for this country to face up to reality and, to be truly competitive, actually create a national aviation strategy that workers and Canadians have been so long calling for, rather than these cynical shell games that we see across the way?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member made many points, some of which I agree with, some of which I do not.

He is quite correct to point out that, in this and many other areas, we see the government not following through with commitments it made to various groups. We have spoken about the increase in the budget deficit and the increase in taxes for small business. I could go on and on.

There is a bit of a disagreement about the issue of foreign ownership, but I will just say this. If we have to choose between sending jobs out of the country and bringing dollars into the country, I say we are better off bringing dollars into the country than sending jobs out of the country. If we have to choose between one of those two alternatives to try to make Air Canada more competitive, I would rather be bringing business and opportunity and jobs and investment to Canada. That would be our approach on this side of the House.

One of the other differences between the Conservatives and the member's party is that we believe in the value of the market mechanism. We believe in the value of free markets, generally speaking. However, for that to work, there have to be basic conditions of fairness, and this bill does not meet that basic test of fairness, because it would arbitrarily change the rules midstream to legislate windfall gains for Air Canada at the expense of workers and taxpayers. That is the kind of approach we need.

The member talked about an aviation strategy. What is important is the action here. One can package it up and call it whatever one likes, but the policies that Conservatives advocate, which are competitive tax rates for the aerospace sector and all businesses that allow people to invest and create jobs in Canada, are the kinds of approaches that are good for the aerospace sector, but also for all business in Canada.

That is what Conservatives emphasized, and it is unfortunate to see the government moving away from that suite of policies.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, a certain question I have, which underlies the debate and is yet to be made clear by the Liberals themselves, is that they seem to have established this quid pro quo with Bombardier and Air Canada, and we are wondering who actually benefits from this.

For the cost of these 45 planes, which everybody familiar with the file agrees are excellent jets that fit the needs of Air Canada, one has to wonder why the Liberals would so strongly backtrack on a commitment to all those workers, all those maintenance jobs, which as he rightly says and many speakers have pointed out, will be moved overseas. All the bill deals with is just that aspect, getting Air Canada off the hook for the commitments it made in law. The law is being changed to make it fit the reality that the Liberals now want because Air Canada asked for it.

However, the quid pro quo with Bombardier, when perhaps the Quebec government was unsure, is to say that these 45 planes would somehow compensate for this and that there are now these centres of excellence that, if they were thought to be important, would also be enshrined in law. If the Liberals were absolutely committed to these and could name the number of jobs, how long they would last, and what they were for, it would certainly merit a pen being put to paper. Then somewhere in Bill C-10, of which there are many pages, they would find the heart and the gumption to actually commit to Canadians that aspect as well; but instead, those are just promises.

The Liberal member for Winnipeg North long railed against this; and we all know he can talk. He chose many of those moments, when he rose in this place when in opposition, to lay down petitions from his constituents, because he said he was doing the work of an MP, the good work of a member of Parliament; and he was right, because his constituents were worried that well-paying jobs were about to be shipped overseas because the government was not enforcing the law, a Conservative government at the time.

What was the member for Winnipeg North's solution to this now that he is in government? It was to change the law so that government would not have to abide by that nasty little thing called the rule of law, and Air Canada could do as it will.

The question is this. Is this somehow a quid pro quo that works out for anyone, either the taxpayer or the 2,600 workers who are losing their jobs? It is not just those workers. As we well know, in all of our constituencies, well-paying jobs like this do not just affect the people when they lose that job, but also their entire family and the spinoff industries that surround that job.

Is this somehow a good cost benefit for Canada? Is this somehow not just the most cynical form of politics, to which we have become too accustomed from this party?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, at the beginning the member asked who benefits from this legislation, and I suppose an important connected question is, given who benefits, who the government is listening to, discussions with whom are informing its policy choices.

It is very clear who benefits from this legislation. This legislation would provide windfall gains for Air Canada owners and perhaps, depending on the quid pro quo involved, to Bombardier owners at the expense of workers and at the expense of taxpayers.

I will say I do appreciate questions from the hon. members, but I think I have been pretty tough on the government, so I would appreciate hearing its response to this. What do the Liberals have to say for themselves? Do they have questions about the things we said? I would like to hear from the government on this. Who do the Liberals think benefits, and why are they bringing forward this legislation? Let us hear what they have to say.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want to reiterate that Air Canada would continue to be expected to carry out maintenance activities in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

The amendments of this act recognize that some of Air Canada's aircraft maintenance may take place outside of the limits of those cities, in the surrounding provinces and in other provinces.

Notably, and we have mentioned this before, the Montreal Urban Community only covered part of greater Montreal and no longer exists as a jurisdiction.

Also, Air Canada's maintenance activities expand beyond the strict confines of those cities. For example, the carrier has extensive activity throughout the greater Toronto area beyond Mississauga, so it is obvious that this act would change only the part that is necessary and that we would continue to expect that it carry out maintenance activities in the three provinces.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, really it is unfortunate bordering on shameful that the member would present this legislation in this way, because frankly the legislation provides no assurance whatsoever that a serious number of jobs would remain in Canada. It uses effective weasel language that gives Air Canada all the flexibility it needs to do exactly what it wants to do.

May I say that, if the government actually respected the principle of fairness, it would not be amending this legislation at all? These were clear obligations at the time of privatization. These were things that Air Canada agreed to, which inform the share price, and that is why the only fair thing to do is to honour workers and taxpayers, not their crony capitalist friends, and defeat this legislation.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House today to start debating Bill C-10, or at least have my turn at it.

I come from the riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, all the way out on the west coast on beautiful Vancouver Island, so I do not really have much of a relationship with aircraft maintenance jobs. I guess it was from my time spent as a constituency assistant for seven years that I really developed a keen passion for the plight of working men and working women. For seven years, I did the casework in the office of the former member of Parliament for Nanaimo--Cowichan, Jean Crowder. During the course of that seven years, I had the honour of meeting with many working men and women who were going through tough times, and I guess, coming to this honourable House as a member of Parliament, I have always identified with them. I thought my job was to come here to try to pass good laws, to implement good policy, and to make sure that the government was actually on the side of the people who give value to companies. When we talk about corporations, we often talk about the president, the board of directors, or the CEO, but the people who truly give value to a company are the men and women who go out every single day and do their job. That is what the bill is about. This is what , in a sense, we are talking about.

I want to give thanks to my colleagues, particularly the member for Elmwood—Transcona and the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I listened to both their speeches today and I think they both gave very passionate speeches on what is really at stake with the bill.

I have also had the time, both during Friday's debate and during this particularly long Monday session, to listen to a few comments from Liberal members of Parliament. We have heard, notably, from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, who has stated that in today's world, it is common for global air carriers to outsource aircraft maintenance. Those comments tell me that there is not even a pretence anymore from the Liberals for saving jobs. They just admitted, “Sorry, folks. It's a tough world out there. If Air Canada decides it's going to have a cheaper job elsewhere, well, sorry. There it goes.”

I also heard an interesting comment from the member for Parliament for Laurentides—Labelle. He said that the bill is about supporting Canadian jobs, Canadian ownership, Canadian principles, and Canadian competitiveness, that it is a Canadian bill for a Canadian company. Well, we know he is very patriotic in those comments. I do not know if he is actually reading the same bill, because the fine print is not really doing well for Canadian workers, and I would say that is not a very strong Canadian value when we are actually legalizing outsourcing, because that is precisely what the bill would do.

Of course, there is the favourite member of Parliament for members on this side of the House, the hon. member for Winnipeg North. We like to quote him a lot because he has been an amazing standard-bearer for his riding in years past, but not now. Principles seem to change when members occupy that side of the House, and I think his comments really do bring that to light.

When talking about this bill, he said that this would continue to reinforce the government's expectation that Air Canada would undertake aircraft maintenance in Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario. A government's expectation is different from an actual piece of law that stipulates it has to be done. I could expect Air Canada to give me free tickets for the rest of my life, but it is not going to do it.

It is the same with this particular situation that we have with aircraft maintenance. We would be giving away the legal framework that stipulates aircraft maintenance jobs must be done in Canada. If Air Canada decides at some future point to ship those jobs overseas, we simply would not have any recourse.

I mentioned previously that I had spent seven years working as a constituency assistant. I have always had a great appreciation for law, particularly federal law. The way it is worded, sometimes it can be very direct; sometimes it can leave nothing to the imagination, and other times it is very much open for interpretation. We have a job as legislators to create the law, and the courts interpret it.

I have heard Liberal members of Parliament say that jobs, in a sense, will be protected because we have this deal with Bombardier. By the very fact of extending jobs with the deal with Bombardier, the subtext is that these maintenance jobs do not matter. It is sort of comparing apples with oranges. We are taking away with one hand, but we are giving with another.

For the benefit of all hon. members in the House, it is important to read the main clause. It states:

...the Corporation may, while not eliminating those activities in any of those provinces, change the type or volume of any or all of those activities in each of those provinces, as well as the level of employment in any or all of those activities.

Yes, Air Canada is not allowed to eliminate jobs in those three provinces, but it could maintain one job there and still satisfy the bill. That is basically the wording. That is how I read the bill. I hope the Liberal members of Parliament are reading the same bill. When Air Canada is given the freedom to change the type, volume, or level of employment, it means a person can go from those well-paying aircraft maintenance jobs to someone who is earning only $15 an hour. It would be nice if the government would institute a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour. Unfortunately, we probably are going to be looking at something in the neighbourhood of $12. Those good-paying jobs that pay $60,000 a year are going to be shipped overseas. It is only a matter of time. We have seen this story play out many a time.

There are many examples of the Liberals saying one thing and then doing another. That is an unfortunate statistic that we have had to deal with. The current Prime Minister, when he was just the member of Parliament for the riding Papineau, stood with Avios employees. He said that the law was very clear, that Air Canada had to maintain the maintenance in those cities. The fact the government is not enforcing that law is something to which we have drawn attention.

Now that he is the Prime Minister, the member is singing from a different songbook. He has forgotten the fact that he used to stand in solidarity with workers and proclaimed that the Liberal Party was there for their jobs and it would always stand by them. Now we see he has taken the side of Air Canada. He has forgotten his solemn promise to those workers. I certainly hope people will remember that as we continue on through the years. When we reach the year 2019, I know we in the NDP will certainly be reminding people of that. The progressive paint job the Liberals have applied to themselves is just that. They have become something other than what they promised.

The NDP opposes Bill C-10 because we want Air Canada to maintain jobs here. We oppose it because Air Canada is going to outsource maintenance jobs. The bill legalizes layoffs. Air Canada has been seeking carte blanche from the government. If Bill C-10 receives royal assent, it certainly will have that carte blanche.

We want to keep those good-paying jobs. I mentioned earlier that aviation maintenance engineer jobs start at a salary of around $60,000 salary and can go up to $90,000. That in my books is a very good-paying job. I used to earn less than that as a constituency assistant, and I have helped many people who have raised good families on that. They manage to keep their payments at bay. However, if we get rid of those jobs, there will be thousands of people who will be unable to pay their bills. Conversely, the government is going to lose an important tax base. Once we start losing those jobs, the spinoff effects start compounding. People will require more social assistance and so on.

The other thing I have been most interested in during the course of the debate is the deal we have seen with Bombardier, Air Canada, the federal government, and the Quebec government. We know the deal was announced in February. The subsequent tabling of this legislation and the timing of that is a little strange.

Earlier today the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill used an interesting phrase. She said that the bill basically would do everything. She complimented the Liberals because the bill would do everything about Bombardier without even mentioning its name. That was a great phrase to use. She said that the bill should be called the “quid pro quo bill”, and it is easy to see why.

I wish the House and all hon. members could have been privy to the conversations that went on among the Minister of Transport, the CEO of Air Canada, the upper echelons of the Quebec government, and Bombardier. We would find an interesting link. On the one hand Air Canada has promised that we will get these Bombardier aircraft and that it will do a 20-year maintenance contract in Canada. On the other hand, the deal that Air Canada gets out of the Liberal government is that it changes the act so Air Canada is free to ship maintenance jobs overseas. It is pretty easy to connect the dots. It is there right in front of us, and that has been identified by many MPs in the House.

I have flown with Air Canada a lot. It is our national air carrier. I have heard a lot of talk from Liberal members of Parliament who have said that in a competitive world, Air Canada needs to be able to compete, that it needs to have all the tools at its disposal that other air carriers have.

One Liberal MP even referred to the act as a set of handcuffs. I really have to shake my head at some of the terminology being used by the government side of the House. That member might have some explaining to do to his constituents when they hear him referring to guaranteeing good paying jobs in Canada as a set of handcuffs. Guaranteeing good jobs in Canada is something we were sent here to do. It is probably one of the most noble and honourable things we can do as members of Parliament.

As I mentioned, Air Canada is a unique company because of the privatization it went through in 1988 and 1989. I am not really going on memory as I was about nine or ten years old at the time. The fact is that Air Canada inherited a sizable chunk of assets from the federal government. Those assets were paid by taxpayers. I do acknowledge that times have changed, but the fact is that Air Canada received its start as a private company with a large number of assets that any other aviation company would have to had built up from scratch. It received a good head start in the game.

The government of the day decided to put this particular clause in the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Time and time again we have seen governments negotiate deals with companies. If a company can promise the government that it will keep jobs in a region of Canada, the government will do something for that company. It will give the company a slight tax break, an incentive to offset capital costs, and so on. However, none of those agreements were enforced by law. They were basically done on a handshake. The government took the company's word that it would honour its commitment.

The government of the day felt it was necessary to put this agreement in law because so many of those agreements had been broken. There is a huge culture of bad faith. Companies would promise one thing only to do the exact opposite a year later.

The fact that this was enshrined in law gave those workers and the government of the day the peace of mind that there would be well-paying jobs in three major centres. People could raise their families on that income. These people would be a good source of revenue for the government. Ultimately a government's finances depend on a healthy tax base. It can be no other way. We need those good paying jobs to keep our economy going, and that is one way a government keeps on going.

I realize that times have changed and that the aviation world is quite different. It is a very competitive world out there and there are a lot of unknown factors, but I think it is quite disingenuous to pin all of the troubles that Air Canada is facing these days on maintenance workers in three centres in Canada. I think that should be a source of strength for the company, not something that we identify as a weakness.

In a sense, all of the Liberal arguments I have heard on the bill amount to a vote of non-confidence in our workers. The Liberals are saying that Air Canada is shackled, that it is handcuffed to these workers, and we have to give it the freedom to take its jobs overseas or the company is going to fold. That is just nonsensical.

Air Canada is not going anywhere. It is our national air carrier. Pretty much everyone I know in the House flies Air Canada. It has many guaranteed landing spots in so many airports, a virtual monopoly on prime landing spots in all the major airports in Canada. It is not going anywhere, so to pin all of its woes on maintenance workers in these three centres does not make sense. I challenge the government to bring forth some arguments that do, but I do not think it will.

The other thing I want to cover is the concept of due process. We know that the union that represents the workers from Aveos is going through a court battle right now under the terms of the act. We know that the Supreme Court is probably going to hear those arguments later this year, probably in June. However, the major trouble the union is going to face is that if the government changes this law and the bill gets royal assent before that court case, then the legal case for the union is going to be gone. The law will have been changed.

Due process is about making sure the state respects all legal rights that are owed to a person. Yes, it is well within this legislature's body to change the law, and I am not disputing that, but it is ultimately an act of incredibly bad faith to reverse the law after the union has been basically fighting a court battle since 2012.

The union has gone through the local courts and the superior court, and now the end is in sight with the Supreme Court. It is like getting a sprained ankle right when the finish line is in sight, except the person who gave the sprained ankle is the government, which is supposed to be on the runner's side. That is what is happening here. I think it is incredibly bad form not to respect the due process of the court system and to change the law before we have a chance to get a ruling.

By the way, all the courts have upheld the union's point of view: the law was broken.

As I wrap up, I would like to take a few examples from my home turf. I am so pleased to be sitting in the House today with my incredible Vancouver Island crew, the hon. members for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Courtenay—Alberni, and North Island—Powell River. Collectively, as Vancouver Island MPs, we have seen what happens when good jobs leave our communities. Right now we have a lot of fish processing plants that are closed down, and those activities are now taking place overseas in China, in Asia, and so on.

The other big one is the export of raw logs. Every single one of us here from coastal British Columbia is very familiar with the loss of good, well-paying manufacturing jobs. Do members know why those good-paying manufacturing jobs have gone? It is because we have not had a provincial or federal government that was willing to stand up for good manufacturing jobs. Instead, we are allowing raw logs to be shipped out of this country. It is just another pattern that we see time and time again.

I just wish we would see a government come to light that would stand on the side of the workers this time—not just use them as a backdrop for their election, but actually stand and do something concrete in this noble House for them.

I believe I have made my points very clear. We in the NDP absolutely and fundamentally oppose the legislation before us, and I hope that some Liberal members of Parliament will develop a conscience and vote with us against it.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member is quite correct that the law was clear, the law was broken, that workers were suing Air Canada in court and had won at a number of levels, and that now the law is being changed.

Of course, as Conservatives, we have some significant philosophical disagreements with the NDP, but as people who believe in the importance of the market mechanism, of the value of free market to generate wealth, growth, and opportunity, we understand that has to be underlined by a basic system of fairness. The New Democrats do not always agree with us about the value of that market mechanism, but the government clearly has no commitment to the principles of fairness that are supposed to underline that system.

I wonder if the member can comment on that. Hopefully we will get some questions from the government again, because the Liberals have been very silent throughout this afternoon of important debate. There is no doubt that they do not want to be talking about this important issue. I wonder if the member can reflect on the total lack of fairness that we are seeing in this bill.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague across the way that the process has not been honoured, and I do not think that some of the major players who have been fighting for those good jobs are being honoured. For the 2,600 people from Aveos, their union is still fighting that battle from 2012. That was four years ago. What the Liberals are saying is that those four years of challenging and trying to get those jobs back is going to mean nothing with this bill.

Where I would disagree with my hon. friend is on the notion of the free market. Markets are not free. They operate under heavily regulated laws put in place. They have an illusion of being free, but there are many different government laws and regulations that a market actually operates by, and the worst thing is that it rewards some people more than others.

In the same manner, in order to counterbalance what goes on with the market, governments do sometimes have to step in and level the playing field. Sometimes governments have to be a champion for well-paying jobs, and that is why we on this corner of the House are standing so proudly for that point.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for that most amazing speech. I also want to recognize that this amendment would legalize lay-offs, which was previously illegal. What it would do is to increase the uncertainty for people who rely on those jobs to take care of their families.

Right now in my riding, the people of the community of Port Alice are waiting to see what is going to happen with their well-paying jobs from the local mill that has been shut down. I am getting a lot of emails and calls from people who are frantic. I am in solidarity with these amazing people who have worked so hard. They are going to be losing their jobs. How does that relate to the people who will be talking to their MPs who are not standing up for them today?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member is referring to the actual wording. We have heard from members of Parliament from the Liberal benches that they are expanding it to ensure greater parts of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba will have these jobs. However, the clause that is very important is section 4. When they are talking about giving Air Canada the freedom to change the type, volume, and level of employment, it is very clear that they will give the corporation carte blanche to ship those jobs overseas so it makes sense for the corporate bottom line.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member will have approximately six minutes remaining the next time that this issue is debated.

Bill C-10--Time Allocation Motion

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the bill; and that, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1), there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

The hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on March 22, 2012, the then member of Parliament for Papineau stated, “The law is very clear. Air Canada has to maintain the maintenance in Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.” We need to continue this debate so that every member understands that the maintenance provision of the act states that overall maintenance must be undertaken in and around Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga, and not in Vancouver.

Will the government allow this debate to continue in order to provide the opportunity for the member to clarify his comments?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that because Air Canada, the Government of Quebec, and the Government of Manitoba have stopped their litigation, this offers us the opportunity to clarify the bill known as the Air Canada Public Participation Act. This is an important bill that we have been wanting to clarify. This is our opportunity to do so.

However, I would remind the member and everyone across the aisle that the amendment that we are proposing would still require Air Canada to undertake maintenance in the three provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, and Quebec. That is the gist of the bill, and we feel confident that there will be good job opportunities with Air Canada in the aerospace world in the years to come.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, using the word “clarify” is Orwellian Newspeak.

What the Liberals are doing is let a rich and powerful corporation off the hook for breaking the law, and they are doing it in a retroactive manner that has never before been seen here in the House of Commons. It is properly scandalous for them to claim that this is a clarification.

Thousands of workers lost their jobs because the government is refusing to enforce the Air Canada legislation. When the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount was on the opposition side, he said that Canadians were starting to realize that the government was not honouring what it said about transparency six and a half years earlier. That is quite something.

You heard that right, Mr. Speaker. When that same person stood in the House to criticize the Conservatives, he said that Canadians were starting to realize that what the Conservatives promised six and a half years earlier—to be open, transparent, and accountable—was false. The Conservatives would always shut us down after four or five days of debate, but the Liberals are doing it in one, and they are doing this after only six and a half months in power.

This is identical to the KPMG case. The signal being sent by the government is that there is one law for the rich and powerful and one law for everything else. The basic rule in our society is the rule of law, law that applies equally to everyone. That is being broken by the Liberal government.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague raised in his comments the fact that there had not been enough debate, but I would like to remind him that it is the member for Beloeil—Chambly, seconded by the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, who moved the following amendment last Friday:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting...the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10....

In other words, the New Democrats proposed last Friday that we not continue with this bill, yet now they want to debate it some more. Where is it that the NDP stands on this issue? I am in favour of taking this bill to committee, where witnesses will have a chance to speak, and then bringing it back here and going to third reading.

There is plenty of opportunity for debate, yet the NDP wanted to kill this bill last Friday.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, is the government moving this time allocation motion because it is worried about the increasing and mounting opposition in places like Winnipeg from Air Canada's maintenance workers, who are worried about their jobs and livelihoods? Is that why the government wants to limit on the bill?

Is it because the Liberals see that Air Canada workers in Winnipeg at the maintenance facilities are truly worried that the bill would eliminate their jobs and livelihoods? Is that why the government is moving in this direction to shut down debate?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would remind my colleague that Air Canada and the Government of Manitoba concluded an agreement that said that at least 150 jobs would be created in Manitoba. That agreement satisfied the Government of Manitoba to the point that it said it would no longer be taking Air Canada to court.

Of course, in Quebec, we know the situation there. The Quebec government decided to stop its litigation with Air Canada in view of the fact that Air Canada has undertaken not only to buy up to 75 of the C Series aircraft but to do the maintenance for the next 20 years.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, what the Liberals are imposing on us and on 2,600 families is outrageous. I am proud of my colleagues, proud that we are here fighting this bill.

When the Conservatives got a majority in 2011, the first thing they did was crush the postal workers' union. Now we have a Liberal government, and the first thing the Liberals are doing is crushing the Air Canada workers who lost their jobs. They are such hypocrites. In opposition they called on the Conservatives to comply with the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Now, they are changing the legislation to legalize job losses that were illegal yesterday. That is—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order.

The hon. Minister of Transport.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, the situation has changed a lot since 2012. We know today that the governments of Quebec and Manitoba are satisfied with the position Air Canada has taken on job creation in Quebec and Manitoba.

The amendment we are proposing in this bill requires Air Canada to keep jobs in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. There will truly be job creation, which allows us to clarify the Air Canada Public Participation Act and avoid more litigation in future.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the last time we saw the Liberals make a snap decision, it had to do with inserting themselves in a question that had been asked about extending the runway at Billy Bishop airport. The beneficiary in that snap decision was Air Canada.

Now we have another snap decision brought to the fore very quickly, as we are stopping debate on the topic. Who is the beneficiary of this knee-jerk reaction? It is Air Canada.

I wonder what other sweetheart deals the Liberals have in store for Air Canada. Quite frankly, they do not need to make any legislative amendments to allow a private company to enter into agreements that would bring litigation to a close. They do not need to do this, so why are they doing it and what are they getting out of it?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would encourage my hon. colleague not to indulge in conspiracy theories. These are two completely separate matters.

I made it very clear that our decision with respect to Billy Bishop had to do with achieving the proper balance between economic development and community priorities, particularly with respect to the development of the waterfront.

In the case of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, we have taken a measure to avoid further litigation and to recognize that Air Canada must compete on a level playing field to the same extent as its competitors. That is one of the reasons we have given it more latitude.

I would remind everyone that Air Canada must still provide jobs in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, the duplicity of the Liberals on this issue has been appalling, frankly.

They were duplicitous on the substance when the Prime Minister, the member for Winnipeg North, and other members got up and pretended to be the champions of aerospace workers in Winnipeg and across the country. Then, at nearly the first opportunity after forming government, the Liberals introduced legislation that would completely betray those workers and contradicted what the Liberals had been saying in opposition. That duplicity was shameful.

Now the Liberals are showing the same appalling duplicity on the process. The member for Winnipeg North, for instance, had some great things to say about time allocation in the last Parliament. I would like to share them with the hon. Minister of Transport. He said:

The government, by once again relying on a time allocation motion to get its agenda passed, speaks of incompetence. It speaks of a genuine lack of respect for parliamentary procedure and ultimately for Canadians. It continues to try to prevent members of Parliament from being engaged and representing their constituents on the floor of the House of Commons.

Does the Minister of Transport agree with the then member of Winnipeg North, who apparently is not the same member—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. The hon. Minister of Transport.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, may I remind the member for Elmwood—Transcona that during the debate on Monday, he suggested that it may be worthwhile to hear from Air Canada on this file, and not just the government. I could not agree more. That opportunity is going to occur when this bill goes to committee.

However, last Friday the NDP wanted to kill this bill, depriving Air Canada of the opportunity to speak. I do not understand how this NDP thinks.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Housing; the hon. member for Hochelaga, Housing; the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, International Trade.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Montcalm.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is another sad day for our parliamentary democracy. For months, the minister rose in the House and in response to our questions told us that he was happy to support a lawbreaker, a company that does not obey the law. How can we expect the thousands of families of Aveos workers to now trust our institutions? Prior to and during the election campaign, the Prime Minister said that he was fed up with politicians who said one thing before being elected and then did the opposite after being elected. We are appalled that this government is ignoring families that believed in the Prime Minister's promises. Now, it is over. The minister should stand up and apologize because he is one of the 40 Quebec caucus MPs and he is ignoring Aveos's Quebec workers.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would remind my colleague that it was the Province of Quebec that decided, after discussions with Air Canada, to drop the lawsuit. Why? Because Air Canada decided to make a serious commitment to Quebec by purchasing Bombardier aircraft and also to open a centre of excellence for the maintenance of Air Canada's new aircraft for at least the next 20 years. That is good news. That will create good jobs. I do not understand why my colleague is not pleased that good jobs will be created in Quebec.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, if only I could have leave to articulate all of the issues, there are many things that I could comment on with respect to this matter. That said, my question is in regard to the fact that the Province of Manitoba and the Province of Quebec have been very candid over the last number of years in trying to challenge Air Canada to provide the jobs that were in the legislation framework for the Air Canada act.

In working with the provinces and the different stakeholders, it has come to the surface that indeed there is an obligation for the federal government to work with the different stakeholders, including the provinces, to try to resolve this issue going forward.

My question is for the minister. Would he not agree that there is an onus of responsibility on the Government of Canada to work with the Province of Manitoba and the Province of Quebec, along with other stakeholders, to protect Canada's aerospace industry in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, certainly the Government of Canada wants to promote one of the technical areas where Canada really plays in the big leagues. I am talking about the aerospace industry. I know Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg and the other companies there. In fact, when I was president of the Canadian Space Agency, we went to Bristol Aerospace to have one of our spacecraft built. I am very cognizant of the fact that Manitoba has a critical mass of expertise. I am also aware of the fact that my own province also has some impressive capabilities, as does Ontario. These are provinces that are excellent in the aerospace industry. We want to help these provinces so that Canada continues to be the fifth largest in the world in the aerospace—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly nice to hear the member for Winnipeg North speaking during this time allocation motion.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport noted that the government is in a rush to get this legislation to committee because the government to date has not held a single consultation on this legislation.

The question I have is this. If the government proposing closure on this debate, will it at least admit that this legislation is being proposed and rushed to benefit Bombardier?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, the answer is no. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that the Government of Quebec and the Government of Manitoba have decided they will not pursue Air Canada. This allows us the opportunity not only to clarify this bill but also to allow Air Canada to be more competitive. Not only has Air Canada been restricted to specific cities for its maintenance, but it has had other restrictions imposed upon it, such as official languages, where it has its headquarters, and foreign ownership. These are things that were imposed upon Air Canada 28 years ago. We have decided that, at this time, it deserves more latitude with respect to the maintenance of its aircraft.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, what we have here is a situation of regulatory capture. We have been holding hearings on rail safety, and it is becoming absolutely evident that we have a situation of regulatory capture with the rail industry. We now have a situation where Air Canada is required by law to provide these jobs in these three Canadian communities. It has cut a deal with the government saying it does not want that law anymore because it has some contracts it can enter into and it might cause problems in its business dealings. This is of deep concern. If we cannot have a full debate here, will the minister ensure that every one of his members of the committee will allow that every single witness who wants to be heard on this issue is heard at committee?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, needless to say, I do not agree with my hon. colleague on her analysis with respect to regulatory capture.

Let me ask this. If the NDP really wanted more debate on this bill, why did it disrupt the debate last Friday with its obstructive amendment at second reading?

I understand the government made many offers to the NDP to allow its MPs to speak, but apparently it just could not take yes for an answer.

As an officially recognized party, the NDP has a seat on the transport committee. I look forward to that member's positive contribution at committee on this important bill.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I found an interesting quote from a couple of years ago by the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood. This is a Liberal fundraising email. He stated:

By keeping Air Canada’s maintenance in Canada, we ensured a superior level of safety with tight regulations and a highly skilled aerospace workforce. By shuttering Canadian overhaul centres, Canada is losing its ability to ensure that our aircraft meet safety regulations.

Therefore, I have a couple of questions.

The first one is this. Will the government allow debate to continue so that the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood can address his safety concerns to his own government?

Also, I noticed that the Minister of Justice seconded this closure motion today. I am wondering if there were any staff members from Air Canada at a recent fundraiser in Toronto.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the quality of the maintenance that is done in this country—and I have a responsibility from a safety point of view at transport—I have no concerns at this point that we are not providing the highest levels of maintenance quality in places like Winnipeg, Montreal and Mirabel, and places in Ontario, in Toronto. These are world-class capabilities that we will continue to use, and the modifications that we are bringing to the Air Canada Public Participation Act would in no way have any effect on that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, mark this date. Wednesday, April 20, 2016, is when sunny ways became dark days in the House of Commons.

What we see now is a mimic of the same actions we saw over a decade of Conservative rule, where debate was simply shut down, and every time there was an opportunity to bring up important issues, like 2,600 jobs that are being killed, the Conservatives would bring in closure, as the Liberals are doing now, and then they would blame the opposition parties, just as the Liberals are doing now.

The Minister of Transport did not used to feel that way. In fact, if we quote him from 2013, he actually called closure undemocratic. He actually said back in 2012 that Canadians do not like closure and that they were waking up to the way that government was doing things. He was referring to the Conservatives then; he is obviously referring to the Liberals now.

Why is he using closure to kill the jobs of 2,600 Canadian families?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague went on at quite a bit of length about cutting off debate, so I have to ask him this again. Why did his party, and I am talking about the member for Beloeil—Chambly, seconded by the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, move last Friday, “That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-10...”.

That is one way to kill the debate as well, and I would like to understand why the NDP is proceeding this way when we have the opportunity to do debate, to go to second reading, to go to third reading, to take it to the Senate. There is plenty of opportunity for debate.

Could the hon. member please explain to me why the NDP wants to kill the bill?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, our government is still flying VFR in these sunny ways, I am happy to note.

Can the minister confirm that the changes proposed in the bill would indeed increase Air Canada's ability to compete in the international aviation industry on a more even playing field, would modernize the act to remove obsolete references to things like the defunct Montreal Urban Community, and would benefit the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and my home province of Quebec by loosening the restrictions on where within those provinces maintenance work must take place?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would just echo what my hon. colleague said. What we have continued to say in the amendment to this act says it very clearly, that Air Canada still has an obligation to provide maintenance in the provinces of Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario. It would give Air Canada a little more latitude with respect to where it does its maintenance. I think that is a good thing.

As he mentioned, the Montreal Urban Community does not exist anymore. We have expanded it to give more latitude to Air Canada in Quebec with respect to where it wants to do its maintenance.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, on March 27, 2012, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, the current minister, stated:

Respecting the law means protecting the Montreal, Mississauga and Winnipeg centres. That is clear.

Will the government let this debate continue long enough to give our minister time to tell the Montreal workers why he has flip-flopped on this issue? While he is at it, maybe he could ask the member for Winnipeg North to explain why he has flip-flopped on process.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

May I repeat, Madam Speaker, that the reason we have proceeded with the bill is very simple? It is because the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba have come to an agreement with Air Canada, and they are dropping their litigation. They are obviously satisfied that there will be the creation and the maintenance of jobs in their respective provinces.

It is no more complicated than that, and we want to make sure that this law is clarified to prevent further litigation in the future and also to allow Air Canada to perform better in a very competitive field, both domestically and internationally.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very troubled by the coincidence. We know that when the announcement was made, the government was under pressure to help Bombardier because it was having difficulty with the C Series. In the end, the announcement was made the same day that the governments of Quebec and Manitoba announced that they were dropping their lawsuit. At the same time, Air Canada announced that it planned to purchase some planes and open a hypothetical maintenance centre.

I would be curious to know how that coincidence occurred. Can the minister confirm that he and his department had nothing to do with any of these decisions and that they were made independently, or was the government involved in these decisions? Did the government attempt to use its power of persuasion on the two provincial governments and Air Canada in order to get itself out of a difficult political situation, sacrificing the jobs of 2,600 workers in the process?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, the hypothesis that was presented is false. The only reason we decided to introduce Bill C-10 to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act is that the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba indicated that they were going to drop their lawsuit. The amendment allows us to clarify the act and ensure that there will not be any litigation in the future.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just would like to say that it did not take long for the new government to swallow itself whole on the issue of closure, did it? Not only that, on the issue of this bill, we had the Minister of Transport himself saying that these jobs must be protected, these centres must be protected.

When he was in opposition, sitting on this side of the House, we had the member for Winnipeg North, every single time the previous government was trying to get its legislative agenda passed through the House, saying that it was the end of Canadian democracy, that we just could not believe how this was padlocking Parliament, shutting down debate, denying the people of Canada their rightful place in this House; and today, he is the one asking the questions of the same Minister of Transport.

It is funny that, when they change sides of the House, their principles go out the window.

I would like to ask the Minister of Transport how it feels to have exposed himself to allegations of hypocrisy so soon into this mandate.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have to admit it feels pretty good being on this side of the House.

We have been very clear.

I have to ask the question. If everybody was so interested in the debate, why did the NDP, last Friday, propose that we amend everything. Its amendment proposed that we actually kill the bill. That, to me, is not encouraging a proper debate through the normal processes that occur in Parliament.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I must admit that this is a dark day for our parliamentary democracy. Today, the minister is introducing a time allocation motion to limit debate to one day. Meanwhile, when he was a member of the opposition, he was ready to tear his hair out every time the Conservative government introduced a time allocation motion.

What changed overnight between October 19 and 20? Why is the minister now prepared to introduce a time allocation motion, shut down debate in the House, and turn his back on parliamentary democracy?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Speaker, in fact, there have been two days of debate: Friday and Monday. There will still be a little more debate after the next vote. Then this bill will go to committee. Witnesses will have the opportunity to appear. After that, the bill will be read a third time and it will go to the Senate.

The process is intact. We are going to follow it. Democracy will be respected.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The question is as follows. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

[Chair read text of motion to House]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #41

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded division and the proceedings from the time allocation motion, government orders will be extended by 40 minutes.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order on an answer given by the Minister of Immigration yesterday in the House to my question regarding the cost of $6.4 million to renovate Canadian forces bases to accommodate refugees who were never housed. The minister stated, “My colleague beside me, the Minister of National Defence, confirms there is nothing truthful in the member's comments about defence.”

The question was based on an Order Paper question, signed and tabled by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader. Question No. 18 has already been tabled in the House. The substance of my question and the figures that were used were based on information derived from this very document.

One of two things possibly happened. Either the Minister of Immigration misunderstood the Minister of National Defence's confirmation of the information given to him, or he misled the House and Canadians.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

This sounds more like debate. I guess the member has made his point and now we will go on.

The hon. government House leader is rising on a point of order.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, there have been some discussions among the parties and I hope if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent that the government's response to Question No. 70 be made an order for return and that the response be tabled immediately.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

There is no consent.

The hon. government House leader.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am tabling, in both official languages, the government's response to Question No. 70.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Second reading

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to feel the support of my dear friends, but that is certainly not what Aveos workers are feeling today.

Normally, I am pleased to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Longueuil and Saint-Hubert to talk about bills that matter to them. Since I was elected in 2011, I have been saying that I am my constituents' ears at home in Longueuil and Saint-Hubert and their voice here in Ottawa.

Today, however, I am rising to express their dissatisfaction, disgust, and concern with regard to Bill C-10. God knows that I share those feelings. I cannot believe that things have gotten to this point. When I think of all the things that this Liberal government and previous Liberal governments have done, this takes the cake. The government is signalling left and turning right.

The Liberal government recently boasted about its love and support for the aerospace sector, a leading-edge sector that we can all be proud of, particularly in Quebec. However, when it came time to take real action to support this sector, the government got off track and made a shocking 180-degree turn. It does not make any sense. It is shameful.

Not only will Bill C-10 dilute the guarantees for the City of Mississauga, the City of Winnipeg and the Montreal Urban Community that are in the law, but it will also allow Air Canada to determine the acceptable number of jobs that will remain in Canada instead of complying with the previous provisions of the law.

This will open the door to international outsourcing that Air Canada will consider necessary in order to remain competitive. In short, the government could not care less about the hundreds of good jobs across the country.

It would seem that with the knowledge that Air Canada is committed to buying Bombardier's C Series aircraft, which is an excellent business decision in itself, the Liberal government is passing the buck by easing the legal rules around aircraft maintenance. It is as though production and maintenance are being pitted against one another and the government is not thinking of the Canadian aerospace sector as an industrial ecosystem. I will come back to this later in my speech.

In short, Bill C-10 sends a very ominous message to aerospace workers. It is very worrisome, and I am expressing these concerns on behalf of thousands of people in Longueuil—Saint-Hubert who work in the aerospace sector.

Not all MPs may know this, but the aerospace sector is of particular importance to the people in my riding. Longueuil—Saint-Hubert is home to the Canadian Space Agency, which is located very close to the École nationale d'aérotechnique, a specialized school affiliated with the CEGEP Édouard-Monpetit that trains new workers for high value-added jobs in this sector.

I have had the honour of representing this riding since 2011, and the vitality of the industrial sectors is especially important to me. The industrial cluster employs thousands of people in our region's SMEs.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I would ask those who are not here for the debate to take their conversations elsewhere.

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, thank you for bringing the House to order. After all, jobs are at stake.

In Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, the aerospace sector is made up of companies like MCS-Servo, which makes electrohydraulic control systems, and Héroux-Devtek, which specializes in landing gear. The first leg of the LEM, or lunar module, that landed on the moon was created back home. MAX Technologies is in software and simulators. Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention one of the biggest employers in my riding, Pratt & Whitney, a leader in the field of aircraft engine manufacturing, whose achievements include the famous quiet C Series engine. Beal Technology specializes in variable speed drives and load controllers. TechNOW Automation specializes in ultrasound inspection devices. We also have MSB Design and Usinage Netur for components, and Automation Machine Design RC, which specializes in automated equipment. I would not want to forget Amrikart, which is a master in the field of 3D digitization. The list is long, and I could name many more.

¼The point I want to make here is that the aerospace industry cannot be described in monolithic terms. As I said earlier in my presentation, it is an industrial ecosystem, and the vitality of the industry stems from more than just the large corporations, like Bombardier.

I really like using the example of Aéro Montréal and its MACH initiative. Here is how the organization itself describes the initiative:

...the MACH initiative aims to strengthen the supply chain structure and companies involved in it by creating special collaboration links among customers and suppliers....By doing so, it aspires to help develop a world-class supply chain...[and] optimize its performance...in an effort to increase its global competitiveness....The initiative will progressively make available to participating companies services, tools and methodologies to evaluate and improve their performance and market position and further develop business opportunities.

Aéro Montréal should be really proud of this initiative, which will help the supply chain become more competitive. However, the ecosystem comparison does not stop there, and two crucial aspects need to be explained.

There is the contribution of the education system, especially the École nationale d'aérotechnique, which I mentioned earlier, but there is also considerable support from the university sector, especially the École de technologie supérieure, which helps promote new blood, new ideas, and the next generation of workers in this important economic sector. The same can be said for a program like the master's in aerospace engineering, offered jointly by the École polytechnique de Montréal, the École de technologie supérieure, Université Laval, McGill University, Concordia University, and the Université de Sherbrooke.

Above all, there is political will. Take, for example, the Government of Quebec, which decided to take the bull by the horns and invest in innovation in the aerospace sector, recognizing the positive economic impact it can have on Quebec.

I want to quote Suzanne Benoît, the president of Aéro Montréal, talking about the Government of Quebec's strategy:

This strategy will contribute actively to the development of the high value-added aerospace sector which is generating increasing revenues every year. In 2015, they totalled $15.5 billion, an increase of more than 12% compared to 2014.

These impressive figures illustrate the Government of Quebec's political will. For its part, the federal government seems to be headed in the completely opposite direction. Bill C-10 sends some particularly worrisome signals.

The Liberal government is completely destabilizing the ecosystem of the aerospace sector, as I said earlier. We have to think of the aircraft maintenance services as a supply chain of integrated firms. If Air Canada is released from its legal obligations to have its maintenance work done in Canada, not just the company that provides those services will suffer, but also all the companies that supply the parts, the machinery, and the technology. The supply ecosystem is being attacked, and that is serious.

What message are we sending to the current workers and those who want a career in the aerospace sector in the future? We are saying it is no big deal to send jobs overseas, as long as Air Canada remains competitive. The other reason it is no big deal is that we are keeping jobs at Bombardier to build the C Series. That is not how it works.

I think what the government is trying to say is that aerospace production is good, but maintenance is less important. That does not work. We have the legislative means to outsource even more of the manufacturing base. If I were the Liberal government, there would be nothing stopping me from making the big players and Air Canada happy. The employees are being shortchanged.

Shipping jobs abroad, where they likely will not pay as well and come with unknown working conditions, will create uncertainty for many families here at home. This is increasing social inequality. Everyone sees where this is going. We are starting to get quite far away from the sunny ways that the leader of the Liberal Party promised us during the election campaign. Is this his plan for jobs in Canada?

We have two Liberal governments, one in Quebec and the other in Ottawa. They are making decisions that are inconsistent, go every which way, and threaten to undermine an industrial ecosystem that is the envy of the entire world. They are creating utter uncertainty for hundreds if not thousands of workers.

Indeed, Bombardier is important. However, Bombardier is not the only company in Canada that works in the aerospace sector.

Today, I am standing up for the small players, the small businesses, and, of course, students, such as those at the ÉNA. These companies and these people play by the rules. They dedicate themselves to development programs, such as Aéro Montréal's MACH Initiative. To them, this bill sanctions Liberal hypocrisy.

Aerospace workers in Longueuil, Saint-Hubert, and the rest of Quebec will always be able to count on my NDP colleagues and me to condemn this bill, which poses a real threat to good-quality, high value-added jobs in Longueuil and Saint-Hubert. That is unacceptable, so I will be voting against Bill C-10 at second reading.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I listened closely to the member's remarks. We must recognize that the Government of Canada has an obligation to the aerospace industry and it is meeting that obligation. One only needs to look at the most recent budget.

In a sense of co-operation between Ottawa, and in particular on this issue, the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba, both provincial jurisdictions have determined with the stakeholders that it is in the best interests to drop the lawsuit believing that the aerospace industry will be healthier in both my home province of Manitoba and the province of Quebec, not to mention the province of Ontario as well.

Would the member not acknowledge that as a national government, we have a responsibility to listen to what provincial governments are saying? In this case, the province of Quebec has agreed to drop the lawsuit.

Why would the NDP argue that the Liberal government should not listen to the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find that strange because if there is one person who spends a lot of time talking here, it is that member. However, he seems to have mixed up some very simple terms. Dropping the lawsuit, as he puts it, is one thing, but changing laws is quite another. It is completely different.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I note that we still have not heard responses from Liberal members on the following key issues: the cost savings for Air Canada, the minimum number of maintenance jobs that would remain in Canada, and whether the government would have introduced this legislation if Air Canada had not purchased the C Series aircraft. What other options were considered to support Air Canada's competitiveness? Why is the government in such a rush to introduce this legislation?

Would the member like to comment on any of these points I have raised and whether or not he agrees that some of these other issues should have been addressed?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question.

For the people who live in my part of the world, in Longueuil and Saint-Hubert, the aerospace industry is something that has really shaped the landscape. Earlier, I briefly mentioned Pratt & Whitney and Héroux-Devtek. A federal budget that barely mentions the aerospace industry is insulting for people in my riding. It is a slap in the face.

The Liberals made all sorts of nice promises during the election campaign. Some of my neighbours are engineers, men who are now about 75 years old. They worked on the PT6 engine, which is known as man's best friend, after dogs and horses. These people have aeronautics in their blood, and they think that a budget like this one that does not do anything for this industrial sector is pathetic. I would like to remind members that Héroux-Devtek, in my riding, is the company that made the landing gear for the Apollo lunar module.

As far as we are concerned, there are some measures that could have been included, particularly for SMEs, which once again got the short end of the stick. They made their budget forecasts taking into account a tax cut that was supposedly promised to them but that they will never see.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Does he think that this major coincidence, where the provinces decided to drop their lawsuit, is really plausible? Is it not more likely that when there was a change in government and the new government indicated that it was prepared to change the law, the provinces decided that the time was right to negotiate in order to get something? They knew that the federal government was no longer on the side of Air Canada workers.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert has 35 seconds.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, 35 seconds is only long enough to speak out against what is happening.

My colleague is quite right to describe that scenario. It is absolutely pathetic, and it is important to remember how bad everyone felt for the Aveos workers. Those people and those faces were there when it was convenient for the Liberals to look at them, to say how scary it was. We saw the Prime Minister demonstrating with a sign that read “So-so-so-solidarity”.

What are the Liberals doing now? They are abandoning those workers, so they can move on to the next thing. That is just great, thanks. What a fine commitment to the people of my region.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Windsor West. I want to remind the hon. member that we will be breaking after about seven minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this debate that is taking place in the House is an important one for all Canadians. This industry is shaped and moulded across this country and it has been contributed to by a lot of incentives from taxpayers. It is also one that is part of the value-added chain of manufacturing which many of the things we do in this chamber, in committees, and so forth try to esteem to. We try to work toward value-added jobs.

I remember being on a committee where the Conservatives refused to allow a motion to go forward because of the term “value-added”. Now they have been replaced by a government that not only does not like the term “value-added”, but is working against that proactively. That is the truth of the matter. This is not just about Winnipeg, Toronto, and the region just outside of Montreal, Quebec, in particular.

There are many colleges and universities right now that have worked at transitioning. Look at the auto industry. Diversification has included the mould-making and tool-and-dye organizations in recovery, apart from our aerospace industry. They are value-added jobs where people can go to school, get an education, and at least have a hope of paying for their education. That is a simple Canadian dream that is slipping through our fingers every single day, and the Liberals are complicit in the effort to ensure that the working class diminishes in this country.

Why is it so vivid and so offensive with regard to this? This legislation that we are dealing with just had closure put on it. I remember when the Liberals sat on this side and they complained and grumbled about closure, but then they got over there to that side and it did not take long. It was really swift. This is about an issue that is so important for workers and their families and for young people who want to live the Canadian dream. That dream is to be able to go to school, get an education, and find a place of employment so they can—

[Adam Vaughan]

Bet on sports.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker. I just got a critical comment from across the way from the Liberals about betting on sports.

Let us talk about betting on sports, as we did last night, a bill which the Liberals are against. They put up a member who supported that bill, but spoke against it. By the way, the previous Liberal comment from the member for indignation, I think, complained to this House about the provinces not being listened to, and that we have a role. By the way, my bill that would actually take away money from organized crime and put it into health care, education, infrastructure, and training is supported by the provinces. Surprise, surprise.

With no heckling and no catcalls, I would like to have that debate at any point in time. I am willing to do it in this chamber or outside this chamber. I am happy to do that because the jobs that I was talking about before I was interrupted actually count for something that is so important. Again, people can pay off their debt. They can have a family. I was one of those Canadians who felt insecure about their income. I worked for a not-for-profit agency for persons with disabilities. My wife and I held off having children until we paid off our student debt. We delayed having a family for that. These jobs also have pensions. I would like somebody to google the debates of the House of Commons to see how many times pensions have come up. These are private pensions that other taxpayers in Canada do not have to pay for because that is the value-added agreement that those workers achieved with their unions in the collective bargaining process. That gives them pensions in the future so they can continue to contribute to the Canadian economy and open more doors for Canadians.

We also have the mere fact, as I touched on briefly before, that this is actually retroactive legislation. That is so offensive. This would go back in time to cover conditions that were allowed in the previous guarantees of the bargaining agreement.

I guess the next will be if a Liberal gets a speeding ticket, a law will be passed that states that as of last week, it is no longer a speeding ticket. That is the type of thing the Liberals are doing right now. They are undermining a collective bargaining process. That also sends a message to the world. It tells investors about instability. Investors coming into Canada want that stability. It is not about a corporate tax cut. It is about knowing the rules and investing capital in our country. They expect those rules and they follow through with them. Now their competitors will notice a retroactive sweetheart deal because the Liberals happen to be buddying up to their old friends, pals and fundraisers to make something happen that should not happen.

It would be great if we all could make decisions retroactively, for example, if I found out my car was being sold for $2,000 cheaper somewhere else, I could tear up that contract and buy the other car, or if I signed a mortgage deal and at a later date I found a lower rate so I tore up my original mortgage to get the lower rate. We are talking about allowing people to go back and get the lower rate. It does not work that way for hard-working men and women.

We used to have a donkey, a carrot and a stick approach. We have decided to feed the stick to the donkey and keep the carrot. Then when it goes through its system, it leaves something behind that is not good for anybody.

“That the amendment be amended by adding the following:

“(e) is being rushed through Parliament under time allocation after little debate and insufficient scrutiny.””

This has been seconded by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby who has also worked on this file and others related to aerospace, which are very clear and true to our part.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The subamendment is in order.

It being 5:55 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is as follows. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

[Chair read text of motion, amendment, and amendment to the amendment to House]

The question is on the subamendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the subamendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the subamendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment to the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #42

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.

The next question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion, the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #43

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment lost.

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #44

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I wish to inform the House that, because of the delay, there will be no private member's business hour today. Accordingly, the order will be rescheduled for another sitting.

I encourage members to take their discussions outside so we can continue with the late show.