James Moore

[Airline Industry, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in year one it is a $90 million surplus that will go into general revenue. In year five it is a $140 million surplus will go into general revenue. It is a huge tax grab.

On September 11 it was the United States that was attacked. The Americans have a much firmer air security regime than we have. They have done much more in reforms. They are doing it for one-third of the cost. Why? Because they do not have a government that is using the September 11 attacks to fill up its coffers with a huge tax grab.

Why is the government not learning a smart lesson from the Americans?

[Airline Industry, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today Air Canada announced a $1.25 billion loss, Canada 3000 is dead and the transport minister still has not figured out that he is partly to blame because of his destructive policies.

In the December budget the government announced that it would collect $430 million with the new airport tax, yet it will spend $340 million on the new security regime. That means in the government's own numbers there is a $90 million surplus in year one going to general revenue. This is a huge tax grab by the government which will provide a huge disincentive to flying.

Why is the transport minister surprised that seven air carriers are dead on his watch?

[Transportation, January 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport and again it is on the $24 security fee.

The transport committee released a report entitled “Building a Transportation Security Culture: Aviation as the Starting Point”, and in it, recommendation 14 states:

All stakeholders including airports, air carriers, airline passengers and/or residents of Canada contribute to the cost of improved aviation security.

This recommendation was supported unanimously at committee, including by the minister's own parliamentary secretary. Why would he ask the transport committee to come up with recommendations if he is going to ignore them, and not only ignore them but knife taxpayers to boot?

[Airline Security, January 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let me tell the transport minister about the $24 fee at a big airport, Pearson airport.

In Ontario, 57% of the price of a pack of cigarettes is taxes. This is a deliberate government policy designed to discourage smoking. With the new $24 air travel security fee, 59% of the ticket on some flights will be taxes, fees and charges.

If a 57% tax stops people from smoking, what will a 59% tax do to people trying to fly?

[The Budget, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, rather than creating a system that is so unbalanced and runs huge surpluses into the future for the government, why did this government not follow the recommendations that were tabled by the transport committee which said that there should be a balanced approach to financing this? Asking air carriers to ante up more money for the protection of their assets is not a radical suggestion. It is common sense.

Will this transport minister reconsider his $24 fee, which is a huge disincentive and is triple the rate the Americans are charging, and implement a common sense policy that gets people flying?

[The Budget, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the transport minister says that the $24 round trip fee to pay for his new airport security fees is not a huge tax grab when in fact it is.

I would ask him to turn to page 92, table 5.1, of his own budget. It authorizes, in year 5, $306 million in new spending and in the same year $445 million in new revenue. That is a profit of $139 million. How can the transport minister say that he is not overtaxing consumers and providing a huge disincentive to travelling?

Will he lower the rate to provide people with a proper incentive and to bring real balance to this plan?

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to the attention of the transport minister this fact. These are not numbers pulled out of the sky; these are actual numbers if one were to buy an airplane ticket today flying from Edmonton to Calgary, or from Dallas to Houston. Edmonton to Calgary is 154 miles and Dallas to Houston is 225 miles. These are one way tickets.

The base fare for the Edmonton-Calgary flight is $70. The base fare for the Dallas-Houston flight is $95 adjusted to Canadian dollars. After all the fees, taxes, GST, security charges and airport improvement fees in both jurisdictions, adjusted to Canadian dollars, the Canadian ticket costs $108.30 and the American ticket costs $95 even and that is after all the taxes. That works out to taxes and fees on the Canadian ticket of 35.3% of the cost and on the American ticket, 14.9%.

Canadians are paying more than double the fees, taxes and surcharges that Americans are. It is a huge disincentive obviously to Air Canada which is trying to increase its capacity to fly transborder. Relative to what is happening in the United States this puts Canadian carriers at a huge--

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let me quote from the paper from the transport committee that I said I support:

All stakeholders, including airports, air carriers, airline passengers and/or residents of Canada contribute to the cost of improved aviation security.

That is what I support. That is not what was in the budget yesterday. What was in the budget yesterday was a totally disproportionate financing and a huge tax grab for the transport minister and the finance minister that will go into general revenue over time and will provide a huge disincentive to flying.

Why did the minister commission a report by the transport committee that supported a balanced approach to financing that he did not support? Why did he commission it if he will not follow it?

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, about the only thing that is good in yesterday's budget is that finally Canadian Alliance policy on air marshals will be law, but as with most things Liberal there is a problem here.

The transport minister should know that the $24 fee he is asking Canadian passengers to pay is a huge tax grab, totally disproportionate to what they have in the United States. At a time when we want to have more Canadians flying, more people in Canadian skies, why is the transport minister putting a huge disincentive in the way for people to fly?

[Minister for International Cooperation, December 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in order to vote in a municipal election in the province of Ontario, a person must either own property or live in the district in which he or she is voting. The minister for CIDA neither lives nor owns property there. She has a stake in defending the values of this institution and the honour that members of parliament are supposed to have.

Will the CIDA minister for once today please get on her feet and answer the question: Did you or did you not break the law? Will she restore dignity to the House by answering the question?