Madam Chair, airports in this country, whether they are small and in remote regions or large and in some of our urban centres, are engines of our economy in a very significant way.
Canada is the second-largest country on earth. In order for Canadians to travel across the country and go to foreign destinations, because we are a trading nation, which requires us to visit other countries, our airports play an absolutely essential role.
The statistics indicate that flying is continuing to increase in our country, so we have to have airports that are safe, secure, efficient and well served by the different airlines. That can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. Canadians would like to be able to go to their local airport and sometimes go to destinations that are not possible to go to directly. Those are obviously some of the things we have to deal with.
Some people have said that when they go to airports it takes too long to go through security. That is another area we are trying to address: the challenge of making it a smoother experience. There are still things we need to do to improve that situation.
Sometimes we would like our airports to be transportation hubs so when people come out of the airport, particularly in large cities, they can access other modes of transportation to get downtown and the like.
There are a lot of things we can do. However, the fact is more Canadians are flying and it is important to have safe, modern airports in this country that cater to those requirements.