Bill C-27 (Historical)

Canada Airports Act

An Act respecting airport authorities and other airport operators and amending other Acts

Canada Airports Act

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I had another question but the member will now escape from our questioning and we will not get an answer.

However, with respect to the appointment of the airport authorities, I will simply say that I sincerely hope the Liberals will support the amendment. The member says over and over that they may be there, and that is true. I am not questioning or arguing that. That is in fact what the bill says and that is what we find particularly problematic. I do not see them applying that same criteria to the appointment from the government.

The bill mandates that the airport authority directors will include two representatives from the federal government. There it is. It is mandated. Why do the Liberals not just say that they may be from the federal government if they are happy with that? They think it is so important that there be two members from the federal government that they put it in the bill. One director must be from the provincial government in the province in which the airport is located. It is mandated that between three and five of the directors must be from the municipality.

I am very disappointed in the lack of a positive response from the Liberal member who just spoke. If those are important, and I agree they are, it says in the legislation that the board will contain members from these different groups, then why suddenly make it optional for the airline industry itself? Can anyone imagine the airport authorities not having this input? It is a distinct possibility because the word is that they may be there. They do not have to be.

I and probably most of my colleagues would argue very strongly that it is absolutely mandatory. In fact, I would go so far as to say that to have the airline industry represented on these authority boards is actually more important than to have a federal representative. It is more important than to have a provincial representative. It is just a very bad error in the bill.

Of course, I expect my colleague, the member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam, will be bringing forward in committee some amendments to that effect, but we are here today debating in principle this bill. That is what second reading is all about. In principle we cannot even accept the bill if it has these very serious flaws. It is flawed in principle if it does not include mandatory representation from the airline industry or general aviation, as is required on the board of NAV Canada.

We have the precedent. There is no reason why these mighty, numerous Liberals cannot support such an amendment. I guess I am putting forward here the initial argument that it would be worth their while. It would be a good thing for them to support such an amendment.

Now we all know the way the parliamentary dysfunctional system works here, and that is that even if we were able to persuade the members of the committee to support such an amendment, lo and behold, we would find ourselves in the House at report stage and, undoubtedly, the government would put in amendments at report stage that would undo the amendments accepted at committee. We have seen that over and over again. It is one of the great frustrations.

I will digress and speak generally for a few moments about this whole process. I think this is fundamentally where we need to change this place. Our job is to produce good legislation. In fact, unbeknownst to the public, before the doors are opened and before the cameras are switched on every day we have a prayer in the House of Commons. We pray for divine guidance and ask for help to make good laws and wise decisions.

We want to make good laws but we cannot do that if there is no practical mechanism for implementing amendments derived from the collective wisdom of members of Parliament in the House and in the committee dealing with the legislation.

I am presuming that the second reading of Bill C-27 will pass. There will be no dissenting vote to speak of from the Liberal side. If there is any dissent it means that one or two members have chosen to absent themselves from the vote because they did not want to incur the wrath of the Liberal Party whip. They will all vote for it in sufficient numbers that it will pass.

How then have we fulfilled our mandate, having been sent here by the people of Canada to produce a good law, if we cannot improve and revise such an obvious huge flaw?

A bunch of Liberals over there are supporting the member for LaSalle--Émard who has been going around the country telling people that he will reform Parliament. Big deal. He is saying that now in order to get elected. That is what the Liberals did when they were seeking election in 1993. At that time they said they would have an independent ethics counsellor. Ten years later we have a totally dependent ethics counsellor. The former finance minister is now saying that he will make Parliament more accountable and individual MPs more responsible. We have heard that story before and, frankly, I do not believe it.

When we propose amendments to the bill we may be able to, because of the current internal party conflict, persuade members of the committee to vote in favour of those amendments. That has happened before. However they will come back here and all the work will be undone. The bill will be passed in its flawed form rather than its improved form. I cannot understand that.

It is a mark of pride and arrogance to say that my first try at anything is right and good and I will not change it. Every other week I write letters to people in my riding and those letters are published in my local newspapers. I hardly ever send my first draft. I should not say never because occasionally I do. I get on a roll and I usually get it pretty good the first time. However usually it is edited and revised before I send it. We need to be able to do that here. We need to be able to tell Canadians that the first draft came out this way but we, being the diligent politicians that we are, detected some flaws and corrected the flaws before the bill was passed into law. That is our duty. I hope Liberal members will carry out that duty. I hope they will do their duty and support the required amendments.

It is also interesting to note that in this particular instance the committee presented a report to the House of Commons. However, when all is said and done, there will be substantial changes made to the report in terms of the government's response to it.

I want to say a few other things about the bill we are dealing with today, Bill C-27. It seems to me that taxpayers are being royally ripped off. In general I agree that it is a good plan to privatize the airports. Airports generally are being administered as well or better by the local authorities than they were by the federal government. That is a generalization. There would be some exceptions to that statement.

The poor taxpayers are caught in this because, first, we built all these airports through our taxes. Now that we have built them they have been given over to the local authorities. I would hasten to add that in every instance that I know of they were given over at well below market value. I do not think any local authority paid anywhere near the market value of the land and the improvements of the airports which they took over. Now in every instance we as taxpayers get to pay rent on the land that we originally bought and improved.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think you or I would do that. I cannot imagine building an apartment block and then selling it to some entrepreneur for about one-tenth of the price, and then turning around and going back there to live and paying one and a half times as much rent as I would pay normally anywhere else.

Yet we know that many of these local authorities are paying rent to the federal government far in excess of what the federal government is doing. Basically they own the airport property and they are paying this rent but the fact of the matter is that it is the taxpayer who paid for the property and the improvements in the first place. Now it is the taxpayers, through their local governments, and the people flying and paying the airport taxes who end up paying again.

This is how it always is with the Liberal government. We pay once and then we pay again and again. The government almost has a fetish for collecting taxes over and over. We still have the GST which it promised to kill and to scrap. The GST is actually charged on fees and taxes. We pay a fee, we pay a tax and then on top of that, when the bill is all added up, another 7% is added and it is called the GST.

Therefore much of the tax that we pay is actually a tax on the tax. This happens over and over in our country. The government says that it is such a wise fiscal manager that it no longer has increasing debt. I commend the government for that. It could hardly help it with the way the economy has been rolling due to free trade, which has had the greatest impact.

Free trade was another thing the government said it would scrap. It was against free trade. Now it is the beneficiary of it and telling the Canadian people that it is no longer borrowing and no longer in deficit because it is such a great financial manager.

I guess I would concede to the degree that the government is a good enough manager to not undo the good that was done before it got here. I commend the government for that. I thank the government for keeping the free trade growing instead of scrapping it, for not keeping that particular election promise, otherwise we would be in real deep trouble economically in this country.

I would also like to mention the government's fetish to get into micro-managing. There are two areas in the bill. I have mentioned them before in debate and in questions and comments with previous speakers. However I am truly one upset guy about this. The government cannot put into the bill that it is mandatory that there be airline representatives on the board but it can put into the bill that it is mandatory to fly a Canadian flag.

I have a particular soft spot in my heart for this issue. As you know, Mr. Speaker, as do many other members and maybe some others watching on television, I became part of the so-called flag debate here about seven or eight years ago with members of the Bloc, God love them. There are wonderful members of the Bloc. I like them as individuals. They are fine, respectable people but I disagree with their political philosophy. They want to separate from Canada and I strongly disagree with that. We need to stay together and be a large, strong and happy family. A Bloc member at that time objected to the fact that I had a little flag on my desk. I got into trouble and I apologized for it at the time because it was considered a prop.

A Canadian flag in our own House of Commons is considered a prop, an offensive symbol. It is quite inconsistent, Mr. Speaker, since you have one right beside you and it is most appropriate that it should be there. However for me to have a little one here was considered offensive.

When a Bloc member, a separatist member, demanded from the Speaker that I remove it, I had a short regression to the rebellion of my youth, that type of response. I said “Ain't no Bloc member gonna tell me not to fly my flag” and so I flew it. I did not remove it. Like I said, I subsequently apologized for defying the authority of the Speaker in the House when I was asked to remove it. That part was wrong. However it was much more wrong for a member of the separatist party to tell me that I could not have it there.

What a reversal. Now we have the government putting into this legislation that airport authorities must display the Canadian flag at airports. It is mandatory. There is something fundamentally wrong here. If the government has to mandate the flying of the flag, it loses a lot of its value in my view. I think people should display our Canadian flag proudly. It can only have meaning if it is done voluntarily. When Canadians fly the flag voluntarily, I believe it represents the feelings in their hearts. Why should we reduce it to merely an act of obedience to a law of the land? It diminishes the act.

I noticed with some interest a couple of years ago when this was going on that there was a farmer in my riding driving up and down his field harvesting his crop. Lo and behold he had a flagpole on his combine with the Canadian flag flying as he went around his field. I felt very good about that. Here was a farmer who said he loved his country and he was not ashamed to fly the flag at the place where he worked. As I drove by and observed this I remember thinking “I want to be a farmer. He has the freedom to fly his flag at his place of work but I do not have the freedom to fly my flag at the place where I work, notwithstanding that it is the Parliament of Canada”.

In the bill there is the mandated requirement that local authorities which operate airports display the Canadian flag. I think they will anyway. That requirement should be out of there for two reasons. One, I do not think the federal government in this kind of legislation has any business whatsoever getting into the micromanagement, the day to day operations of the individual boards and their airports to that degree. My second reason for saying that this should not be there is, as I have indicated before, it diminishes the worth, the value of the act when the government says one must do it as opposed to making it truly voluntary.

Another thing that is rather interesting is the mandating of signs. It is silly to force the local authority that is running the airport to put up a sign that says “Hear ye, hear ye, all ye who pass by: We want you to know that this airport is owned by the Government of Canada”. I think it should make people feel good because they can say to themselves “We are the taxpayers who send trainloads of money to Ottawa and it is our money that has bought this airport”. There is nothing wrong with a sign like that, but again, to put that into a bill and to make it mandatory is micromanaging. It is a misplaced priority. As I have said, the other things which should be compulsory in the bill have been passed over. There the government did not see the reason to have a mandated statement.

I regret that my time has elapsed. Perhaps some members will see fit to ask me some questions and I will be very glad to defend the positions I have taken.

[Claude Duplain, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to begin discussions on implementation of the Canada Airports Act, that is Bill C-27.

We now have more than ten years experience under our belts with the operation of port authorities in Canada. The airport divestiture initiative has been an extremely successful one, and now has unanimous support. No one wants to see a return to a centralized airport administration structure.

Airport authorities have proven that they are capable of linking their management and development strategies with the needs of the communities served by the airports.

There are a number of stakeholders with a direct interest in the safe and efficient operation of these airports. These include the travelling public, the carriers, the communities the airports serve, and the federal government, in its capacity as owner of the airport land and facilities.

These stakeholders are entitled to know whether these valuable assets are being administered efficiently and safely, and are respectful of the environment. This bill attains that objective by stressing the need for an ongoing dialogue between airport administrators and stakeholders.

The bill calls for public access to the strategic planning documents established by each airport authority. These serve as an action plan for the future orientation of the airport. The bill also stresses the necessity to periodically seek public input and pass it on to airport administrators.

Current leases between airport authorities and the federal government already contain provisions encouraging accountability and transparency. With their ten years of experience, however, the stakeholders have indicated that there may be ways of improving one or the other of these.

With the Canada Airports Act, this government is responding positively to those opinions. In some cases, what is different is the nature of the details required in airport authority reports. For example, the proposed legislation now sets out the requirements for the content of a land use plan, a master plan and an environmental management plan for an airport authority. These plans are a lease requirement.

To enhance uniformity and rigour, improvements have been made to the content requirements for the strategic planning documents. There is also a statutory requirement for these plans to be updated. This will guarantee that the documents in question, and the business plans for an airport will be up to date at all times.

Airports must be developed and managed carefully, with consideration for prevailing economic conditions, the health of the airline industry, and the regional community.

Other national strategic issues that are better included in this legislation are incorporated through leases or existing legislation, such as federal identity provisions, the fact that airport authorities must be familiar with Canada's international obligations, the Minister of Transport's right to information on the performance of national airports and the delivery of services in both official languages.

In other sectors, the legislation seeks much greater accountability. This is particularly true with regard to the transparency of fares and pricing methods.

It has been said that some of these measures will result in increased costs for airport operators. Currently the entire airline industry is facing enormous financial challenges.

The leading airport authorities have already realized the advantages of being responsible and transparent non-profit organizations. These authorities are already holding ongoing and open dialogue with their main stakeholders. Consequently, many airport authorities are already meeting the legislative requirements or are taking steps to do so.

For other airport authorities, this legislation will encourage a positive response to the business sector's growing interest in accountability and increased transparency. The statutory requirements merely codify the good business and ethical practices adopted by the business sector.

The Canada Airports Act aims to provide some measure of certainty for Canadians, airport clientele and travellers. This goal can be reached through the provision of important information on airports to all stakeholders. In short, the airport authorities must manage these key public facilities responsibly and transparently.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to enter the debate. What I have to say very much pertains to my personal experience and to my province.

Many people may get the idea that when we are talking in the House about this particular bill that the government has put forward that we are attacking the people who work for the institutions of the airlines. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I want to share a very interesting story that I experienced the first week of this month. I was trying to get out of the Maritimes, out of St. John's and my ticket indicated that I would go from St. John's to Toronto and on to Regina. I was informed that because Air Canada had not purchased sufficient supplies of de-icing equipment I was to stay where I was at.

Can anyone imagine that Canada's largest airport, and it is still April, forgetting about the fact that it would still need to de-ice, it did not have any de-icing fluid. Like a national tragedy in its attempt to save money, Canada's flag carrier stranded people all over Canada.

With the cooperation of the staff at St. John's airport I was fortunate to get on stand-by to Montreal. From Montreal I got on stand-by to Ottawa. Eventually I got back to where I stay here.

That night I got a ticket to go to Toronto and then on to Regina and guess what. Air Canada had de-icing on the Friday night. I got the ticket and went to Toronto. The first message I heard was that all passengers would have to go downstairs on flight so and so to belt 26 because there are no flights out of Toronto. Air Canada had purchased some de-icing fluid but it had used it all up.

With tremendous cooperation from the staff I had to take a taxi, go down to VIA Rail, had a chance to ride on the rail and another taxi home. That is all because of mismanagement of our flag carrier. It made a lot of people angry.

I want to say this to the staff of our airlines. I know when I get on the plane in Regina, when one has a face that only a mother could love, people remember. They always speak very kindly. It is not the airline staff that is at fault. It is the operation of the airline. It is the operation of Canada's flag carrier.

I mentioned earlier in a question that I asked one of my colleagues that within days after 9/11 the Government of Canada injected a huge amount of cash into our flag carrier. What did it do? It brought in low cost airlines to compete with WestJet which was already giving western Canada good service. They are still staggering about that over there.

As I have said before, my constituency represents the largest number of ports of entry into the U.S. of any constituency in Canada. We have had in the past only one airport of entry status, just one for the whole province of Saskatchewan. The government has chosen to close it down.

I can understand that in the early days after the towers coming down. However with the chamber of commerce in Estevan and with the local people we have tried and tried to get that recognized again because people use it. Companies use it. Companies that are now mining diamonds east of Prince Albert will land there as a point of entry and will go on directly to the plant.

The reason we have been given is a wishy-washy cost factor idea that makes no sense, none. A private plane or mining plane with geologists, map makers or whatever coming into Prince Albert from the United States has to go all the way to Winnipeg and then fly all the way back. Can anyone believe that?

In comparison, most MPs, a high percentage, are home within two hours of flying time. There should be no complaints. It takes much longer for those who live in the remote areas and we understand that. If the demographics put an MP in a remote area of Canada, hospital and health services and plane fares are not going to be as good as in the larger population centres. That is understood, but the government seems not to understand it. It forgets it.

As my colleague mentioned, we had a port of entry at Lethbridge which was closed. We sweep all across the 49th parallel and keep on going until we hit Highway 75, I think it is, and there is not one service entry for private aircraft to come in which would be a legal entry. It is a national disgrace that for virtually three big provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba we have but one airport of entry status.

This is hurting. It is hurting me, not personally, but it is hurting my area. People who for a generation have used it because of its airport of entry status can no longer do it. The lodges that fly in the hunters, fishers and so on with their own planes are out.

Is the government so determined to only serve the populated areas that it will stand in the House and tell the three prairie provinces we can have one airport of entry status despite the cries from across Canada? I hope something can be done about that.

I want to thank the people of Estevan in particular, the chamber of commerce and the work that they have done to try to get this business back, not just for the community but indeed for the sake of the province which I am proud to call home.

We are not complaining about having only the two major airports at Saskatoon and Regina. Most people outside those two cities will probably have an average flying time of two to three hours to get to those airports. We never hear complaints about that.

What we are asking for is recognition that in fact we do exist and we need these entry points. Once we get to Regina or Saskatoon we are not complaining about the service. We are complaining about the lousy taxes that have been put on that nobody can justify.

I will go back to Bill C-27. It is high on material and everything, but it is low on accountability. When we read it, we have to use a magnifying glass to see the amount of accountability. My area was left out and I am disappointed.

[Rick Casson, Canadian Alliance, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be able to rise today to put some comments toward the debate on Bill C-27. The problem with the bill is that it does not address the issues that face many airports in Canada. It addresses a select few airports across the country. There are many more airports that have serious issues. I want to get into some of those issues that affect the airport in my riding in Lethbridge and ask why those issues were not addressed in the legislation.

One of the things that we have constantly brought up about the airline industry in this country is the fact that if the airport fees were reduced, the security tax on flights eliminated and the fuel excise tax forgiven it would help all airlines. This would help the operation of all our airports. Consequently, we would see more people flying.

Essentially what we must do is encourage more involvement in air travel. If the government taxes everything that moves, everything that uses fuel and every passenger, it does not create that atmosphere that we need to encourage more air traffic.

I would like to say that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

One of the issues that is not addressed and needs to be addressed regarding the airports across the country is CARs 308. That is going to create a problem for many smaller airports. I know that when the airport authority in Lethbridge took over the airport from the federal government the issue of having emergency responders on site was forgiven and the ability to service that emergency situation from existing fire departments was fine at that time. If that burden is now put back on the local airport, it will be a burden that I think will almost take the airport down. We cannot have that. That is not addressed in the bill and it needs to be.

Recently a group from Lethbridge came to Ottawa to deal with an issue facing our airport and almost two dozen airports across the country, I believe, which after September 11 lost their airport of entry status. This allows international flights to come in from across the line, mostly, and land at these sites and be greeted by a customs officer and have people to go through customs. Taking that away has been an absolutely devastating issue for the airport in my riding. I have talked with other airports affected across Canada and it is an issue for them also.

I have been told by other airport authorities across Canada that they are having trouble getting this issue resolved. So I have to hand it to the committee from my riding, the chamber of commerce, the airport authority, the business community, the mayor and council of Lethbridge and all the surrounding communities and municipalities that got together and supported this group that came to Ottawa to lobby the ministers across the way to get this airport of entry status reinstated. To date it has not happened. I believe the committee requested that some time be given to the ministers for them to come up with something. As of today I am not aware that anything has happened.

There are many issues that need to be and should be addressed and affect many airports across the country. These issues affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people and have been completely left out of the legislation. We need legislation that would do this and it has not been forthcoming.

In order to round out what this means to southern Alberta, I would like to read excerpts from the executive summary of the document that was brought to Ottawa by the committee from my riding of Lethbridge. Some of the issues that were stated are as follows:

Southern Alberta is a vibrant, productive, economic region with a trading population of over 275,000 people. At the core of this region is the City of Lethbridge, the third largest city in Alberta with a population of 73,000 residents. It is the closest metropolitan area to the United States border, located 120 kilometres away.

The bottom 100 miles of the southern boundary of my riding is the 49th parallel. The summary continues:

This region is most famous for agriculture and livestock production using leading edge technology in crop and animal science as well as irrigation. Lethbridge is home to two federally operated Agriculture Research Centres which employ nearly 800 employees (85 PhD-level scientists) and is just completing a 26 million dollar retrofit and expansion to ensure that Canada remains on the mandate of promoting innovation, maintaining the security of the food system, and protecting the health of the environment.

The region is also growing quickly in agri-food processing and manufacturing with companies such as Pratt & Whitney, McCain's and Lamb Weston investing heavily in the region. The City of Lethbridge is home to two publicly funded post-secondary institutions. The University of Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Community College, with a combined student population of 13,000.

Lethbridge is also blessed with a full-service airport owned and operated by the County of Lethbridge and located in the centre of the region and five minutes from downtown Lethbridge. Thanks to the leadership of the Federal Government--

--it is giving some bouquets here that I might not have done--

--the Lethbridge County Airport has recently completed a 3.3 million dollars infrastructure upgrade to ensure the efficiency and safety of flight operations. This investment by the federal government demonstrates a vital interest in the region and its economically viability.

With that investment and that agreement in place, the federal government then came in and took away the airport of entry status.

The coalition of individuals, organizations, institutions, businesses and local governments of Southern Alberta are distressed by the recent decision by the federal government to remove the Airport of Entry (AOE) status. The loss of AOE status in 2001 was the second reduction in customs service over a five-year period. The original customs office based in Lethbridge was removed in 1996, at which time the region was assured that customs service would continue at the Lethbridge Country Airport.

The decision to remove AOE and customs service has had a detrimental effect on the region. Many regional, national and international corporations have felt an immediate, negative financial impact as a consequence of this decision. These businesses have depended on customs service for the timely and efficient transportation of goods and key personnel. Now these businesses are losing sales, losing opportunities, experiencing increased costs and are seeing a decrease in their ability to compete.

That pretty much sums up that particular issue that is of grave concern to the entire community of southern Alberta. With 275,000 people that are served by that airport and international businesses that have located in the area, it is absolutely critical to the economic growth of that region that that status be reinstated. I have raised the issue in the House a couple of times with the minister to no avail. A strong delegation that came here was promised something and as of yet we have not heard anything.

Hopefully, somewhere in the near future this will be addressed and the airport of entry status will be reinstated. This will allow the businesses and the economy of southern Alberta to continue to grow and prosper because of the ability of international flights to land there.

The entire issue of tax, tax, tax; the fuel tax that airlines have to pay, the security tax that travellers have to pay, and the airport fees that airport authorities have to pay, when all of these are added up they become quite a detriment to the operation and viability of a region.

There is one more point I would like to make. To me it is absolutely ridiculous that the airport operators face increased rents when they improve the airports. A case in point is the Winnipeg airport authority. When it took over the operation of the Winnipeg international airport, its first year's rent was $900,000. After the Winnipeg airport authority improved the airport, the government decided it should pay $7 million in rent by the year 2007.

The local people are improving their airport. They are putting money into it, creating business and creating an atmosphere where business can thrive. Then the federal government increases the rent on that facility from $900,000 to $7 million when it had nothing to do with improving it. That does not make a lot of sense. It is absolutely detrimental to development. It puts a strain on travellers. As was mentioned earlier by my colleague, whether the airport user fees are $5, $10 or $15, we bump into them as we travel across the country. The airport authorities are having to charge those fees to help pay a bill like the $7 million assessment from the federal government.

There is a lot that is wrong with the bill. There is a lot that it does not address. Hopefully after this debate and after more questions in the House, the government will get the idea and put into this legislation the things that Canadians need.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for a well delivered speech. He expressed the same frustration that we all hear over and over from Canadians in all walks of life.

Really, the Liberal government is an oxymoron. Liberal means freedom. It comes from the same root word as liberate. Yet we have a Liberal government that has its tentacles of control on every aspect of our lives. Here it is, micromanaging airports in Bill C-27, right down to the little nitty-gritty of flying flags and putting up signs. It is ridiculous to have that kind of thing in legislation.

This government is really a control freak and a tax collection freak. That is all it wants to do. All the Liberal members in the House should be howling in protest at my statement if they do not agree with what I have said. They are really the worst kind of control freak tax grabbers and we need to stop them.

My hon. colleague has expressed very well some of the objections to Bill C-27. I would like him to perhaps enlarge briefly on the subject of the Liberal government's ingratiating control of everybody's lives and every little detail of our lives.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-27, the Canada airports act.

We have an airport in my riding, in the City of Abbotsford, which serves all the folks in Langley, Aldergrove and throughout Abbotsford. In fact the whole Fraser Valley and parts of Vancouver are well served by the Abbotsford airport.

The main airline out of there, which is very near and dear to our hearts, is WestJet, an airline that we in our community are extremely proud of and which is fully supported by the folks back home. Another very large airline in Canada tried to weasel its way into WestJet's clientele but it did not do so well. Therefore, I am glad to say that the people in our community very much support WestJet and its activities.

Along with WestJet's efficient operations come these things called airport fee, taxes, security taxes and so on, levied in large part by the federal government.

I will go through what the bill reflects as to the kind of autonomy airports would have but also what kind of effect the federal government has on those kind of taxes.

To fly between Calgary and Edmonton with WestJet costs $100. Added on to WestJet's fees is a GST bill of $11.23 and a security fee of $22.43, which was imposed by the government just recently. Then we have an insurance fee of $6, an airport improvement fee in Edmonton of $15, an airport improvement fee in Calgary of $12, and a Nav Canada charge of $5. Therefore the round trip fare the consumer pays is $171.66 for a $100 flight.

One of the problems with flights today is that the government cannot get out of the pockets of the consumer. If there is a problem with security, the first thing the government does is ding consumers to pay the bills, when in fact, if it looked around hard enough, it would find all kinds of dollars in its own coffers to fund such programs as security, improvement fees and so on. The mentality of the governments, be they federal, provincial or municipal, is to ding the taxpayer. I think most people are darn sick of it.

If we are talking about airports, by and large people, if they want to go from one point to another, must use an airport and an airline. The problem is the governments are sensing that and they are dinging everybody that has any association with an airport or an airline today.

Notwithstanding that, WestJet happens to be one of the most profitable North American airlines and will continue to be so because of a good common sense approach to things. We could all take an example from WestJet, in my community at least, and look at how to operate an airline and then, coincidentally, how to operate an airport that could help the airlines.

I will be opposing this bill for a number of reasons. One of them is this government interference in a pretty good idea. In fact we fought for the privatization of airports and airport authorities for a long time in the House of Commons. That idea finally went through the thick heads across the way. Now we find ourselves facing Bill C-27, which is essentially an interference bill on what the government created.

Essentially, clause 12 of the bill gives the minister the power to make directions that are final and not subject to appeal or review. That in this place and country is a dangerous approach. If we give ministers final approval on anything, it more or less gives final approval to help their friends, relatives or whomever, anybody but the consumer.

The airport in our community of Abbotsford is a municipally run airport. It is a fine airport. We do not even have parking fees, so we keep the costs down as much as we can. The real problem is the interference in increased fees from federal government hurt us.

Let me give an example. The first year's rent for the Winnipeg International Airport, after it was handed over to the Winnipeg Airports Authority in 1997, was $900,000. After the Winnipeg Airports Authority improved the airport, Ottawa wanted it to pay $7 million in rent in the year 2007. There we go again. The government turns it over and gets its fee. The local airport authority operates it right, then Ottawa says “Gimme, gimme, gimme”. It is so typical. Then the consumer fees have to be increased sevenfold to pay for that.

Let us just go through a couple of other issues in this bill. If a passenger fee is imposed to finance a major capital program, infrastructure covered by an agreement referred to in paragraph 8 of clause 124, for instance, gives the following criteria:

--the annual financial statements must disclose, on an annual and cumulative basis from the year in which the fee is established, all expenditures made in respect of the program or infrastructure and all revenues from the passenger fee and any other fee orsource of revenue or funding received by the airport authority for the program or infrastructure.

What this essentially says is that if an airport has a capital program and it gets revenues from fees to fund that capital program, it has to go through a whole litany of reporting procedures for the federal government. I find it ironic that when a private authority raises money through revenues and undertakes a capital project, it has to go through so much reporting, yet the government blows away billions of dollars a year with virtually no reporting. When private industry or any private organization gets revenues, runs decent projects, makes efficiencies, it reports all to the government and that way it gets its fees. However, when the government takes fees and spends it on projects, it blows it away with no accountability. Does that tell us something about the government? Does it tell us something about a philosophy that is absolutely wrong?

The bottom line is that when private industry and private organizations work and when they raise their own funds for efficiencies, the government ought to stay as far away from it as possible. Our experience with government, at least since the Liberal government has been in, is that it can blow money one heck of a lot faster and irresponsibly with no accountability than an airport authority can.

I must say this about any government intervention in these organizations. One reason why we wanted airport authorities in the first place was to get out of government-run airports because it did not run them right. Now that we have implemented that process, government wants to get back in because it sees what is going on. It sees that these airports are running right.

There is one other thing that I must say I have observed going across the country. This whole issue of airport improvement fees, I believe, started in Vancouver where they charged $10.

Ironically enough, when coming through the Vancouver airport the other day, I was in a lineup with 300 people to pay a $10 improvement fee. I would like to advise Vancouver airport that if it is raising $10 per person from people going through it, the least it could do is have enough people available to collect the money so we are not standing in line. Does that not make sense?

Not only in one airport do I have to stand in a line of 200 or 300 people to pay the fee, but a few months back I went to another airport in this country and it also was collecting a $10 fee. This airport has maybe two or three planes a day going through it, but it has the same $10 airport fee that Vancouver has, and it has no improvements. In fact, I doubt whether it needs any improvements or has even had any improvements in the last 10 or 15 years.

This is not an improvement fee. This is a tax.

Whilst I say that government should have got out of all of this, I would like to tell these airports that if they need improvements they should try to fund them out of the dollars that they currently get. If they cannot and must charge a fee, they should raise the money they want and then do away with the fee. The fee should not be charged if the airport has not been or is not going to be improved. Otherwise these guys will be back in there wanting a cut of the fees and wanting to increase the fees. Eventually, if they cannot get their cut and the airport is profitable, these guys will take away the airports.

The bottom line is this. One airline in this country, WestJet, has proven to be efficient and has proven to be a good means of transportation. It is community friendly. Clientele are dedicated to it because of its attitude. WestJet does not need government fees, taxes, licences and on and on to ruin it for the travelling public.

Those are my comments on Bill C-27. I wish we could get one bill in any one instance where the government does not stick its damn feet in where they do not belong, but that is not to be. I have been around here for 10 years and every time I get up to speak to a bill I am always asking why the government has interfered or once it has interfered why it cannot do it right. That goes right from justice to health care and so on.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I watched the divestiture process unfold, I was amazed at how little order and consistency there was to the process. One airport would make a deal that was satisfactory to it, then the next airport would make a completely different deal, a different deal on the rent or a different deal on the transitional fund that was given at the time the airport was transferred. There was no order to this. The government decided to get rid of the airports. It had a target and a date and it went through the system and did whatever it took to get rid of them.

To answer the hon. member's question more directly, I have some quotes. I talked to an official at an airport just a few minutes ago to get a little background on how the airport authorities actually felt about Bill C-27. These are the quotes. “It is an attempt to interfere with a system that is now working”. “Airports are responding to regional needs and no one is better able to do that than us, the authority”. “Now the government is trying to reclaim the power and control, but they will not participate in the cost to do that”.

It pretty much answers the question of the government's position. This is not a compromise, it is not a give and take deal, it is all take. The government wants to take back the power and control. It wants to be able to make specific orders to these airport authorities but it does not want to give any more assistance. It does not want to bring down the security tax to the actual cost. It does not want to bring down the rental to an appropriate fee. It does not want to acknowledge that the Department of Transport is now a huge profit centre for the government. Before it provided airports all the costs through the Department of Transport. It does not do any of that now. Quite incredibly, instead of providing money, now it takes money in rents but it is not prepared to share that with authorities and it is very difficult for most small airports to make ends meet.

I predict that we will see some problems with our medium to small airports. We will see some other inconsistent and, if I can call it that, screwball approaches to helping some airports survive. Rather than have an appropriate plan for them and make the changes that have to be made across the board, we will see inconsistent capital grants, funds here or injections there.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to talk about this airport issue. As a former transport critic I was involved with the divestiture process at one time. Now it seems to be snapping back to haunt us a little and it is a pleasure for me to talk about it.

I want to give an Atlantic perspective to this if I can. I was reading in Hansard the remarks made last night by the hon. member for Saint John. She was complaining about the service from Saint John, New Brunswick. The minister apparently said that she should go to Moncton and then fly from Moncton because there are better connections there. I used to fly to Moncton, but now I drive to Halifax because Moncton does not have direct flights to Ottawa either. The service has definitely declined after the divestiture and after all the changes that the government has made to transportation in the aircraft industry. Certainly, that was not very effective advice for the member for Saint John by the minister.

Let us look at the Maritimes. In St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, we had airport workers on strike for seven weeks. It created chaos there. We have added to the burden of the strike with all the other security issues and security fees, and the SARS issue which has created more difficulty for this airport. It costs more money. It costs delays in time because of the strikes and the chaos.

The member for New Brunswick Southwest was standing a few minutes ago talking about his discussion with the CEO of the Saint John airport, John Buchanan, who said that the airport was only one crisis away from a disaster. Since the hon. member had that discussion with the CEO of the Saint John airport, we have experienced the gulf war and SARS.

Right now many airports are having a difficult time making ends meet because they do not have the revenue that they need to have to pay their bills and allow for capital expenditures in the future. Meanwhile, the government is bleeding them dry with high rentals. They all say that if the government wants to help, Bill C-27 should just say it will reduce the rental fees on the airport facilities to the communities that use them.

We must understand that the airport authorities get their money from two basic sources. They get it from the airplanes that come in and pay landing and tarmac fees, but they also get it from rentals for rent-a-cars, restaurants, Tim Hortons coffee shops and things like that. Therefore, there are two sources of revenue: one is directly airplane related and the other is non-airplane related, parking lots and so forth. However, as the traffic declines these airports cannot sustain these small businesses within their airports so they lose that rent. It just exacerbates and gets worse, especially for the small airports with a limited amount revenue.

Bill C-27, in their view, would impose tremendous restrictions on them in their ability to generate revenue. The government is denying them the revenue by changes in its policies which have reduced the numbers of flights and the types of airplanes and the fees that can be charged there. It is making it more difficult for airports to generate the alternative income.

In a recent discussion with some other airport officials in airports like Halifax, which is the biggest airport in Atlantic Canada, the members of these airport authorities all said that these changes were unnecessary. As one of them said, it is an attempt to interfere with the system. It is an attempt to regain power that the government used to have over the airport system while at the same time not wanting to share the burden. The government wants to recapture its power but does not want to share the burden and the cost. The bill is a way for the government to regain power, revenue and control but not share the responsibility.

Every airport administrator I talk to tells me that the outrageous rental fees are the biggest problem right now. This is the problem that is keeping the airports from surviving, prospering, and being able to provide a service at a level that used to be there before divestiture. The other thing is the security tax. As one of them said, “No one minds paying the security tax as long as the money goes for security”.

However, as far as the airport authorities can tell, the actual cost of security tax is triple what is needed to provide the security that is being provided now. What the government is trying to do is gouge the public and it is using the excuse of September 11 to impose a tax on security which is triple the amount required so that it can just raise more revenue.

It is somewhat the same or at least there is a parallel with employment insurance, where the premiums are so high. The government is raising hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of the employees who pay employment insurance when in fact the money is never going to go to employment insurance benefits. This security tax is never ever going to go to provide security at the present level. The people who I talk to in the business say that the tax is three times what is necessary.

We would like the government to go back and review this whole issue again, have the committee discuss it and listen to the airport authorities because they are the ones on the front lines. They know the difficulties in providing the service that they used to provide.

The Government of Canada used to pay to provide airports to the communities. Now it charges exorbitant rents so that the Government of Canada is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in rent every year when it used to pay out to provide these airports. It is now time for the Government of Canada to come back and participate in the cost of running the airports, but not try to interfere and micro-manage what the airport authorities are doing.

They are doing a good job. They are providing the services that are appropriate for the communities in which they serve. Nobody is better able to do that. No one is more qualified to provide those services and know what services are needed than the airport authorities because they represent the communities they are in. Let us let them do their job. Let us get off their back.

Let us reduce the security tax to what it should be and to what the actual cost is. Let us reduce the rents to a point where the airports can survive. Those airports that do not have very much traffic cannot support the alternative sources of revenue, the parking lots, the stores, the tax free stores an so on. They do not have access to that revenue so they should be given a special category and given a special deal on rents.

Those are our thoughts as we follow this and as we see it move forward. We will be watching it closely, but essentially the government should not try to interfere with these authorities. It should give them the freedom to operate, get off their backs, and stop overtaxing on rent and overtaxing on security.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to first congratulate my hon. colleague from Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys for her excellent speech on Bill C-27.

I want to quote from another letter. I quoted from two letters during my brief remarks. I want to read a brief analysis of Bill C-27 that was sent to me by Mr. Alvin Maier, managing director, North Peace Airport Services, in his representation for the Regional Community Airports Coalition of Canada. It encompasses a number of small and medium size airports. In his conclusion he stated:

Most of the language contained in C-27 already exists in most of the leases that NAS airports have with Transport Canada. If Transport Canada has issue with any of these airports in particular, then perhaps they should review the leases with these airports, and not attempt to introduce legislation that attempts to regulate all airports universally, and will negatively affect the viability of the regional community airports and the economic development of the communities they serve system of Canada.

I want to refer my colleague from Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys to this particular conclusion drawn by Mr. Alvin Maier from Fort St. John in my riding because she remarked quite eloquently about how this legislation, if indeed it were to pass in its present form, would negatively impact on Kamloops in her riding. I know she represents a riding very similar to mine where the airports have the same concerns. I think it gets to the thrust of her presentation where she referred to this one size fits all approach that the government is taking and the negative impact it will have, especially on the smaller airports.

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the debate on Bill C-27, the Canada airports act, brought forward by the Minister of Transport and the Liberal government.

At the outset of my remarks I want to congratulate, as some of my other colleagues have done, the great work of my colleague the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam as our transport critic. He has done an admiral job in dissecting the inadequacies of Bill C-27, as he has done with many pieces of legislation the government has brought forward in the transport sector specifically. He is certainly a great asset to our party, the Canadian Alliance, and is a great representative of his riding in Vancouver.

I will begin my remarks by reading into the record a letter I recently received from the Prince George Airport Authority. It is one of the airport authorities that will be impacted directly by Bill C-27, the new Canada airports act.

I was encouraged to note that members such as the Liberal member for Hamilton West during his remarks of about an hour ago raised considerable concerns with Bill C-27. I hope that is indicative of the open-mindedness of a lot of Liberal members of Parliament and hopefully the members who sit on the Standing Committee for Transport.

When the bill actually goes before the transport committee, I hope we will see some substantive amendments to address the concerns that we hear in this chamber echoed not just in western Canada by Canadian Alliance MPs but indeed by Liberal MPs representing many of the ridings in Ontario and also by the Conservative members. Indeed the Progressive Conservative member from New Brunswick who just spoke during questions and comments raised concerns about airports there as well.

Clearly we can see that concern about the legislation is not something confined just to western Canada. It is something that goes coast to coast to coast in Canada.

As well as congratulating my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, I want to indicate that I will be splitting my time in the debate with my hon. colleague the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys.

I want to read into the record a letter that I received from the Prince George Airport Authority which directly concerns Bill C-27. It was written on April 10, so it is obviously hot off the presses as it were:

The impact of air transportation on Canada's economy and our quality of life is significant. When the viability of the air transportation system is threatened--as it is today--the consequences for Canada are enormous.

Air Canada's filing under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) demonstrates the depth of the crisis facing the air transport industry and those that depend on it. Much more is at stake, however, than the future of a single company.

Air Canada's restructuring combined with the impact of SARS and the war in Iraq has created an environment where many airports--both small and large--are at risk. These difficulties have combined to generate a 20% reduction in traffic. If reduced traffic numbers continue, most airport authorities will reluctantly have little option but to increase fees charged to tenants, including airlines. The impact on smaller airport communities where Air Canada is the primary or sole carrier will be the most severe.

Airport managements have consistently reduced controllable costs and eliminated non-value added tasks. There is little residual fat. Even so reduced passenger volumes combined with an imminent and significant reduction in Air Canada frequencies mean that airports must seek to further lower costs to minimize consequential increases in fees and charges to airlines and airport users. Without federal government action to remove the significant costs it creates for this mode of transportation--costs many times higher than any other mode--there will be unfortunate consequences.

In the current environment it is also essential that the federal government does not increase the burden on the industry by introducing legislative or regulatory burdens that will compound the problems for little or no return. Before the Canada Airports Act or further regulation is introduced, a comprehensive regulatory impact and cost-benefit analysis must be completed. Any proposed legislative or regulatory changes have to be viewed in the broader context of the viability of the aviation industry.

We call on the federal government to stop treating air transportation as significant contributors to general revenues and take immediate and effective action to stabilize the industry by:

a) Implementing an immediate moratorium on federal airport rents--which constitute the largest uncontrollable cost for most major airports--while the current rent review is finalized;

b) Recognize that unlike other travellers, air travellers are required to pay for security. To reduce intermodal discrepancies the federal government must:

i. Suspend the air travellers security tax;

ii. Fully fund the cost of additional policing and security imposed by federal regulation;

c) Fully fund the ACAP program and make these capital funds available to airports with one million passengers or less [in other words, smaller airports];

d) Create a stabilization fund for smaller airports to mitigate the short term impacts of service dislocation; and

e) Reduce regulatory burden.

The purpose of these actions when combined should be to provide security and reassurance to our passengers, tenants, lenders and communities that the long term future of air transportation in Canada is assured.

We stand ready to work with the federal government and parliamentarians to find solutions for these unprecedented difficulties.

That letter was addressed to me from the Prince George Airport Authority Inc. and was signed by Jim Blake, the chair of the airport operating board for that airport.

I also have a letter from TradePort International Corporation. That is the organization that is in partnership to operate the Hamilton airport. I will read a couple of segments from that letter which was sent to me by Tony F. Battaglia, president and CEO of TradePort International Corporation. Mr. Battaglia wrote:

The airline industry is in crisis. The impacts of 9/11 and the war on terrorism; the current war in Iraq; and a developing epidemic known as SARS have led to a 20% reduction in air traffic. Air Canada's restructuring will have a dramatic impact on smaller airport communities across the country where Air Canada is the dominant or sole air carrier. Airports must adjust to the new realities of air travel. Reduced frequencies and withdrawals of service mean that airports will have to reduce costs in order to minimize impacts on airlines and air travellers.

Mr. Battaglia went on to state:

Blindly advancing this gratuitous legislation may bring irreparable harm to Canada's smaller airports [such as Hamilton]; there are other alternatives. We suggest the following:

Phased implementation of the act with Canada's schedule II airports exempt from its provisions until three years after its proclamation.

Schedule II airports would have three years to file with the Minister of Transportation an operating model that satisfies the act's governing principles of transparency and accountability.

As operators of the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, we stand willing to work with the federal government and parliamentarians to find solutions that meet the needs of the government, the aviation industry, and air travellers.

Unfortunately, I have just had time in my short remarks today to cite two examples. One is the Prince George airport authority in my riding of Prince George--Peace River where that airport has some serious concerns with Bill C-27. The other is across the country some 3,000 miles away in Hamilton. Some of the same concerns are being echoed by the airport operating authority in Hamilton.

I would have liked to have had more time to go on at some length. As my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam said in his remarks, one of the biggest things of concern to me as a member of Parliament for a large rural riding that has a number of airports, and specifically, Fort St. John and Dawson Creek that are impacted by things like CARs 308, is that this civil air regulation that is being brought forward by the Minister of Transport is going to do irreparable damage to the small and medium size airports in western Canada in particular.

We are raising that issue because that is not contained in Bill C-27, as my colleague has said. As our transport critic he has raised the issue repeatedly. I have raised it. Other colleagues have raised the issue of CARs 308. The imposition of firefighting and crash rescue will do irreparable damage if and when those airports have to pick up all the costs.

Since it is the federal government that will be re-imposing those regulations on the small airports, we are in favour of the the federal government paying the costs.

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from New Brunswick. Being from New Brunswick these are trying times.

An interesting thing happened at Miramichi airport in New Brunswick. When the former Liberal finance minister imposed the $24 air tax, the Liberals had a list of approximately 80 airports to which it would apply. Being members of the Canadian Alliance, we believe in smaller taxes, less government and more freedom. We enumerated all 80 airports and offered 80 amendments taking each and every single airport off the list. This forced Liberal members on the committee to vote in favour of taxing each individual airport.

We suggested to the Liberals that Miramichi airport be taken off the list of airports required to impose the $24 air tax. The Liberals said they thought it should be left on the list. We mentioned that it was actually a dead airport, that there was no jet service into it. Hearing this they agreed to take it off the list. However they amended our amendment and put in a caveat stating that if Miramichi airport did resume daily jet service they reserved the right to reimpose the $24 air tax.

The policy of the Liberals is only if an airport is actually dead will they remove the air tax. Only if the government actually kills an airport in terms of its ability to provide competitive service will it take its foot off its throat in terms of its tax increases.

CARs 308 is another tax, the five minute response time. It is an unfunded mandate by the Liberal government on air carriers.

There are examples are all over the place. The Liberals are absolutely blind in terms of the cost to airports. They have shown through Bill C-27 that they have learned nothing from their constantly failing record on the air industry.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of months ago I met with Mr. John Buchanan, the chief executive officer of the Saint John airport. He suggested that we should take a careful look at Bill C-27. He has some pretty strong concerns about the bill and its impact on small airports to comply with the legislation. He suggested that the Saint John airport is only one crisis away from a critical stage. It is not only at the Saint John airport but at Moncton and Fredericton, New Brunswick as well.

I am quite familiar with the Saint John airport and the Fredericton airport, which are of equal distance from my home. I have a choice as to which one I use when I travel. Bill C-27 will place a huge imposition on those airports and their ability to meet the bottom line.

I would like the member's response to that. He has taken the minister to task on some of the provisions and fees that have been imposed arbitrarily on the airports by the Government of Canada. Could the member reference some of that and the future of some of the airports?

[James Moore, Canadian Alliance, Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly on the previous speech. Unregulated monopolies that are imposing airport improvement fees without the consultation of air carriers or the communities are not a good idea, or an idea that needs to be exported anywhere. In fact, unregulated monopolies are generally not a good idea.

I rise to participate in the debate on Bill C-27, an act respecting airport authorities and other airport operators and amending other acts, otherwise known as the Canada airports act. In just the past couple of weeks I can think of various transport related priorities and priority actions that this Parliament has called on the Liberal government to implement. In fact, one only need go back to the last day of the House sitting just before the Easter break, on April 11, when the Standing Committee on Transport tabled our unanimous report, “An Industry in Crisis: Safeguarding the Viability of the Canadian Airline Industry”.

Our standing committee heard witnesses, read reports and then made four specific recommendations to the House and to the Liberal government. Three of them could be implemented immediately without any need to impose new legislation. It could be done in regulations with the stroke of a pen by the Liberal cabinet. Recommendation 2 was that, and I quote:

The federal government eliminate the Air Travellers Security Charge.

Recommendation 3 stated:

The federal government suspend rental payments by airports for a two-year period and the airports shall pass the rental savings on to air carriers.

Recommendation 4 stated:

The federal government, for a two-year period, reduce by 50% the federal aviation fuel excise tax rate.

There are three things that need to be said about these recommendations. First, they were unanimous. They were supported by all five political parties in the House. Second, they are clear and they are unambiguous. There is no doubt whatsoever as to their meaning, their intent and their consequence. Third, they can be implemented today without passing any new legislation.

These changes are what virtually every industry stakeholder, from Air Canada to its competitors and from the travel industry to various unions have been demanding from the government for well over a year. The government's complete unwillingness to take concrete action to solve the problems affecting the airline industry is both baffling and astounding. It is also, given the number of jobs involved in both the airline and tourism sectors, somewhat tragic.

We have all heard the expression, “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic ”. It is meant to apply to a situation where those in control do nothing substantial to remedy the situation but then take some superficial action so that it cannot be charged against them that they did not take any kind of action at all.

The airline industry is in trouble and the House Standing Committee on Transport sought and received the industry's advice as to what constructive steps this Liberal government might take. The committee then unanimously adopted recommendations and forwarded them to the government. However, the Liberal Minister of Transport does not want to do anything substantial to help the airline industry and he does not want to be seen to be doing nothing, so he has introduced the bill that we are debating today, Bill C-27, the Canada airports act. Truly, he is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic .

Even if we were to consider only the government's policy with respect to airports, the Canada airports act fails to address some of the more important issues facing airports. As a member of Parliament, the single most common airport related concern that I receive is related to an issue known as CARs 308, a recently imposed five minute emergency response time at smaller airports that has dramatically increased the operating costs for smaller airports. The federal government has not offered a dime in operating assistance. This unfunded federal government mandate is a requirement and it is the biggest single issue facing many small airports. It is completely absent in this bill we are debating today. It is the number one concern. It is what we hear most about and it is not in this bill.

The second biggest issue that many of us face is trying to meet new and heightened security standards while understanding that small airports are often the weakest link in the security system. Other countries such as Germany, England and France, with more experience in dealing with terrorists at airports, require arriving passengers from certain destinations to go through security screening upon arrival before proceeding to connecting flights. Essentially, these passengers arrive in a non-secure part of the larger airport and must proceed through security screening in order to get into the secure portions of the airport.

Such a system in Canada would allow for passengers departing smaller centres on small aircraft to go through security only if they were connecting to a major centre. The Europeans use this system because it costs less and offers the type of security they have needed in the past to fight organizations like the IRA, the ETA and the Baader-Meinhof group. Nowhere is this idea found in Bill C-27, the Canada airports act.

I know that the Canada airports act deals only with larger airports. Nonetheless, if the average member of Parliament is getting mail on small airports and the Liberal government introduces a bill dealing with big airports, there are some who would say that the government is really not listening to Canadians. We certainly have a transport minister who does not listen to the transportation sector.

We have a Liberal administration that has ignored the Standing Committee on Transport's unanimous recommendations on how to help the airline industry. We have a Minister of Transport who has chosen to ignore Canada's single biggest airport related issue when telling his department what issues he wants them to address. He has ignored CARs 308.

Then, and this is the best part, we have a Minister of Transport who has introduced a Canada airports act that is at best totally unnecessary and at worst a huge step backward.

When we talk to the airline industry, the airport operators and the flying public, we find a general acceptance of the way that airports are being run. Of course there are a few problems, but no one has yet contacted my office and said that there is something wrong with the airports which must be addressed rapidly and we need a new law to deal with them and we have to get this done. We just do not hear that from Canadians, yet that is precisely what we have here in this legislation.

Every law that a government tables presumably is aimed at solving a particular problem. Thus, every act has a summary of the ways in which it would improve the status quo or remedy a particular wrong. In analyzing the Canada airports act, it is instructive to look for the motivation. The national airports policy laid out in section 7 of the Canada airports act calls for a “national network of airports in Canada” that are operated in a consistent manner. Essentially, Bill C-27 believes that all airports in our “national network” should be run in a similar way.

The logical problem with this approach becomes readily apparent when one realizes that the scheme would apply equally to both Gander airport, which handled 86,000 passengers in 2000, and Toronto's Pearson airport, which served 28 million passengers. For every person who goes through Gander, 325 will go through Toronto. In fact, with 17,000 people working at Toronto international airport, Toronto has about one-fifth as many staff as Gander has annual passengers. Yet under Bill C-27, both would face similar obligations and regulations.

To the extent that Bill C-27 is aimed at providing a one size fits all solution for a huge range of airports, this is not only a bad idea but also a solution for a problem that simply does not exist. In fact, the bill provides for two very different regimes. One regime, described in parts 2, 3 and 4 of Bill C-27, applies only to the following 18 former Transport Canada operated airports: Charlottetown, Fredericton, Gander, Halifax, London, Moncton, Montreal, Ottawa, Prince George, Quebec, Regina, Saskatoon, St. John's, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Victoria. Another regime applies to all Canadian airports that have had an average of 200,000 emplaned and deplaned passengers over the last three years. Right away we realize that Gander does not reach the 200,000 threshold, so we might think that the Canada airports act would not apply to Gander. But because Gander was a major international airport a few years ago, it is not only covered by the act but by the same standards that are currently applied and would be applied under Bill C-27 to Toronto's Pearson airport and Vancouver.

We see similar problems when we compare Thunder Bay and Hamilton, both of which served roughly 550,000 passengers in the year 2001. Bill C-27 would hold Thunder Bay, a former Transport Canada facility, to a higher standard than Hamilton, WestJet's eastern hub. Thus, 84 of Bill C-27's 215 sections do not apply to Abbotsford, Kelowna or Hamilton, all of which have non-stop service to cities at other ends of the country, but they do apply to smaller airports simply because these airports were formerly owned by Transport Canada.

Prior to the introduction of Bill C-27, Canadians were not overly concerned about the poor management of our nation's airports. So Bill C-27, by imposing a one size fits all regime, fixes problems that did not exist and creates a whole new bunch of problems by treating different airports similarly and similar airports differently.

All this leaves one asking what grave problem Bill C-27 was meant to solve. Given that parts 2, 3 and 4 dealing with airport authorities' legal status, corporate governance and obligations do not apply to places like Abbotsford, Kelowna and Hamilton or, for the moment, Edmonton or Calgary, it does not seem likely that issues such as corporate governance motivated the minister to table this bill.

Part 1 is one of four parts of Bill C-27 and would apply to all airports. In it we find clause 18. Subclause 18(1) reads as follows:

(1) Airport operators of airports serving international traffic must

(a) display the national flag of Canada, and erect signs welcoming passengers to Canada, in prominent places for arriving international passengers; and

(b) display the national flag of Canada at other prominent places on the airport.

We have the federal government mandating that there be flags in the airports. A pre-eminent concern for the state.

In my reading of Bill C-27 and the 1992 Airport Transfer (Miscellaneous Matters) Act, which is the act that started the process of handing over airports to airport authorities, this flag portion is one of the few clauses that is really new. It would almost seem to go without saying that the Canadian flag should be at Canadian airports, but surely this does not require legislation.

The Aéroports de Montréal website does not have either the Canadian or Quebec flags on it and neither does much of its printed material. However, there is a big Canadian flag on display greeting arriving passengers in English and in French together with a similar Quebec flag displaying a greeting for arriving passengers in French. Both of these were operational on Thursday, April 24, 2003.

If an airport is not more enthusiastic in its use of flags, that is not a problem. I do not believe that we can legislate patriotism, but apparently that is a pre-eminent preoccupation of the government. We have 35,000 Air Canada employees who could be completely out of work. We have airport authorities taxing Canadians. We have an air traveller security charge. We have a depression in the number of people flying. We have SARS and the government says that we need to mandate flags in airports.

The same kind of thinking can be found in part 4, clause 116 in the requirement of an airport authority to prominently display the Canadian flag. Subclause 116(1) reads:

(1) Every airport authority must

(a) display the national flag of Canada prominently at every air terminal building and at other places on the airport to which the public has access; and

(b) erect signs in prominent places at the entrance to the airport and to every air terminal building, proclaiming that the airport is owned by the Government of Canada.

(2) The Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing the locations of, dimensions of, and manner of displaying and erecting signs and displaying flags at their airport, and prescribing the contents of the signs.

However, clause 116 goes further than clause 18 in requiring the airport authorities to erect signs saying that the airport is owned by the Government of Canada. If the government believes that the ownership of buildings occupied by tenants have a higher profile, I would suggest it would begin by posting large “This building is owned by (blank)” signs on all Ottawa buildings that the federal government rents.

Curiously, clause 191 and 192 prescribe fines, a fine of up to $100,000 for every day an offence is committed. Therefore, if Bill C-27 passes, the airports better call the flag and sign folks rather quickly.

Clauses 16 and 118 are essentially silly, but at least one industry source has told my office that he believes this is the primary motivation for Bill C-27 as there were no calls by either the airlines or airports or the public to codify the status quo with a flawed one size fits all regime.

To the extent that one might tend to support Bill C-27, because of a desire to wave the flag, it is important to understand that any potential benefit to flag visibility would be more than outweighed by the flawed one size fits all regime of Bill C-27. This not only forces different airports to a common standard, but it also treats similarly sized former Transport Canada facilities and municipal airports differently. This is not just a flaw in Bill C-27. It has a serious commercial impact on airport authorities.

For example, clause 57 would limit an airport authority's ability to invest in another corporation to just 2% of gross revenues per year. The Vancouver airport authority, YVR, which owns the profitable YVR airport services, YVRAS, is concerned that this clause would limit its ability to finance YVRAS's projects in Chile, Jamaica or Hamilton. YVR writes:

...investment opportunities do not come in neat bundles, nor do they arise every year. (This) is also a demonstration of an “Ottawa knows better” (idea) than the community based board about what is good for the community (and the airport).

YVRAS operates 12 airports in five countries and competes against management subsidiaries run by Amsterdam Schiphol and London Heathrow. This is partially in response to page 49 of Transport Canada's national airports policy of July 1994 which talked of contributing “to the future competitiveness of Canada worldwide”. More recently federal cabinet ministers have promoted YVRAS's bids in other countries. Section 57 is a major reversal in Canadian airport policy.

However, the dual regime proposed by Bill C-27 makes section 57 doubly unfair because it would apply to airports like Vancouver but not nearby competitors such as Kelowna and Abbotsford.

Another case of uneven treatment of Bill C-27 is the way it deals with corporate governance. Airlines have been contacting my office to ensure that they will play a greater role in influencing terminal design in order to reduce costs and possibly opulence.

Section 64 requires that the board must collectively have experience in “law, engineering, accounting, management in the air carrier industry”, but there is no specific requirement for the board to have a single representative from the airline industry or general aviation at all.

This is in stark contrast to Nav Canada, the private company that handles air traffic control in Canada. Given the ability of airport authorities to impose greater fees and passenger fees as well as seize certain aircraft, the lack of mandatory aviation industry representation is a fatal flaw of Bill C-27. Although section 97 requires the airport authority to meet with carriers once a year, this is a poor substitute for specific tangible power in terms of board representation.

I am not necessarily arguing for the Nav Canada model, but there should be room on the board of 15 people who run a major airport for at least one of those people to be named specifically by the airline industry. Like section 57, section 64 only applies to former Transport Canada facilities, so the board of directors at Thunder Bay must follow the requirements of Bill C-27. But Hamilton, which is growing more quickly, can follow its own independent bylaws.

Another clause that only applies to former Transport Canada facilities and that clearly shows the shaky ethical grasp of the Liberal government is section 96. It reads:

96(1) An airport authority must disclose any contracts involving expenditures in excess of $100,000 that were not awarded under a public bid solicitation process, the name of the contracting party, the purpose and value of the contract and the reasons why a public bid solicitation process was not followed.

Section 96 does not require a tender process for any project under $100,000. Worse, it also exempts larger projects from the tender process as long as the airport authority discloses that no bids were solicited for that project. Potentially, everything from truck purchases to consulting contracts could involve favoured, non-arm's length suppliers.

When we realize that just last October Transport Canada was looking into millions of dollars of untendered, non-arm's length contracts and questionable dealings connected with the Port of Digby, we would think that the government would apply higher standards to airport authorities. When we realize that the government wants to oblige 100% of airports to display the Canadian flag, but it is willing to let an airport authority hand $99,000 in contracts to its friends with no problem, we see an Alfonso Gagliano-type politics at work in the bill. Surely Canadians deserve better.

In closing, Bill C-27 is a dramatic failure on the part of the government. There are smaller airports that are struggling. We have a SARS problem, depressed consumer confidence, shaky fuel prices, an airport security tax that is unanimously opposed by every single stakeholder in the transport community, and constant problems in the airline industry, some 35,000 people whose jobs may be potentially lost at Air Canada.

The airline industry in Canada is in precarious times right now and the government puts forward Bill C-27 which does nothing to address any of the substantively crumbling pillars of Canada's airline industry. It is a bad bill. It is poorly written with non-priorities. It is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by a Liberal transport minister who has shown zero leadership. Eight air carriers died in the six years that he has been transport minister. He has been a complete failure with regard to the air industry. With Bill C-27, we see that he has learned nothing from his mistakes.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at first blush it worries my considerably that the Canadian Alliance Party thanks and congratulates me on the work I am doing. That troubles me somewhat.

The member spoke about the management at Hamilton airport and said that it was really the business of WestJet. If it were not for TradePort and the management at the airport, they would not be out in the marketplace luring companies like WestJet to use Hamilton as its eastern hub. They went out and made their case for Hamilton demonstrating to WestJet that Hamilton was the place for it to locate.

Quite frankly, it is not just that passenger loads have gone from some 23,000 in 1999 to last year in 2002, 385,000 passengers at Hamilton. Hamilton is an extremely important and busy centre for cargo. Hamilton airport between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. becomes a city onto itself, with the activity going on at Purolator, UPS and all the other carriers that transport cargo.

The hon. member's direct question was whether I would stand and vote against the bill if nothing was done to it. I am going to see the glass half full. When the bill goes to the Standing Committee on Transport and we hear from witnesses and the cases they make on Bill C-27, I have every confidence that the amendments will be put to the bill that will drastically improve the bill and continue down the path that we began many years ago; that is to allow businesses to continue to do business and not let government interfere with that business.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I started to say in my remarks late yesterday before the House adjourned its regular business, there is extreme concern in the airport community that Bill C-27, if not amended, would cripple an airport's ability to continue to work in what is clearly a very competitive international market.

Yesterday I spoke about how the air transportation industry has had an enormous impact on the Canadian economy. I pointed out that the viability of Canada's air transportation system is threatened and the consequences for Canada are enormous. I also gave reasons why the industry is in crisis today. I said that airports must adjust to the new realities of air travel, reduced frequency and the withdrawal of service. This means airports will have to reduce costs in order to minimize impacts on airlines and air travellers.

I stressed that the federal government too must act to cut costs to airports so these may be passed along to airlines in the form of lower fees and charges, and to air travellers in the form of lower air fares.

Ironically, at a time when the federal government should be reducing the operating costs of airports, the proposed Canada airports act, Bill C-27, does just the opposite. The proposed act, which would effectively re-regulate an economic sector that the government effectively and successfully deregulated eight years ago, piles one administrative redundancy upon another and introduces over 40 areas in which the minister may pass regulations, adding to the administrative burden of Canada's small airports.

The government is introducing these drastic measures without a single, overarching public demand for change and without having conducted a single regulatory impact or cost benefit analysis. In fact, a number of independent and government commissioned studies recommended a course of action substantially different from the government's proposed legislation.

I declared my bias and it is called John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. I quoted from a letter to me from Mr. Tony Battaglia, president and CEO of TradePort International Corporation, operator of Hamilton airport. I read from his letter which said:

The act will have a profound impact on the growth of John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. The act's one size fits all approach to airport government conflicts with Hamilton's unique and award winning public private partnership between the city of Hamilton and TradePort International, a private company operating the airport under terms of a 40 year lease. The act impedes the ability of the private operator to innovate and adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs in order to improve service and reduce costs. The act significantly erodes local control by the community—a founding principle of the Canada Airports Policy (1995).

Those are the concerns of a smaller airport like Hamilton, but what about larger airports like the Vancouver International Airport authority?

YVR is concerned that Bill C-27 would diminish Canada's reputation as a well respected source for excellent foreign international airport operators such as the Vancouver International Airport authority and its subsidiary YVR Airport Services Limited. It says that the bill would cripple or kill the ability of progressive airport managers, such as YVRAS, to compete in the international arena and provide much needed management and operator expertise to small and medium sized domestic airports. It also would negatively impact on small airports that need the type of management and operational expertise that larger airports can provide through consultant or management services in the manner that YVRAA provides through its subsidiary, YVRAS airports, to places like Kamloops, Cranbrook, Fort St. John and to more medium sized airports such as Moncton and my home town of Hamilton.

YVR says that the bill would reduce or eliminate opportunities and employment for Canadian architects, engineers, lawyers, professional advisors, designers and project managers in the field of overseas management and development of foreign airports.

Foreign governments are particularly attracted to the management skills of well run airports such as Vancouver. The fact that YVRAS has developed to the point that it should be able to stand on its own reputation is clouded by the views of foreign governments. They want the reputation, expertise and backup like an airport like Vancouver International can provide.

Realistically the development of these types of businesses and positive effects that it has on the Canadian economy is based on well run large Canadian airport authorities exporting reputation, expertise, technology and technical services through subsidiary airport operator management corporations and/or joint ventures.

The market for foreign airport privatization is huge. Today, while less than 5% of the world's airports are privatized, the World Bank forecasts that the operation of 150 airports will be transferred from government to the private sector within just the next few years. Several leading companies have identified airport privatization as a new strategic industry for the 21st century. This creates huge opportunities for Canadians that should not be stifled. That is the view of an airport such as Vancouver.

Devolution of airports to local control has been instrumental in the evolution of Canadian airports from money losing government run entities into full cost recovery operations under the principle of user pay. The government's vision document “Straight Ahead” says:

Transportation policy must provide market frameworks that allow carriers and infrastructure providers to adapt, innovate, remain competitive and serve the public.

Yet Bill C-27 creates a static, inflexible governance regime. The devolution of the Hamilton airport, for example, to local ownership and management has been an overwhelming success. By 2002 the local operator, TradePort, had invested over $25 million and attracted another $48 million in private sector investment at our airport.

Hamilton International Airport's economic impact study completed in 2002 found that there were 1,550 direct jobs at the airport, up over 116% since TradePort took over its management.

Hamilton International Airport's direct contribution to GDP is $170 million and that is up 129% since 1996. Its total economic output is $410 million, up 224% over the same period. Taxes paid to three levels of government by the airport community exceed $32 million.

In spite of all these successes, the Canada airports act includes 210 sections to micromanage the country's airports. By way of comparison, the entire Canada Transportation Act, which as we know governs rail, transit, marine and airlines, has only 280 sections.

My fear is that Bill C-27 embeds in legislation that which is normally dealt with through regulation. The bill will go before the Standing Committee on Transport shortly and I for one will be keeping an eye on this legislation.

It is quite obvious that we have a success story since deregulation. According to the airports and the airport authorities that have contacted many of us here in the House, and my particular concern is for Hamilton airport, I think demonstrates that a return from a deregulated industry of the mid-1990s to a re-regulated industry serves no useful purpose.

Again, I look forward to seeing the bill at committee stage when we conclude our second reading debate. I think it will be very important to go clause by clause through the bill and have these witnesses come before us to demonstrate to us why the government should proceed in the way it is proceeding and why we should not do everything we can possible to help the industry, not through re-regulating the industry but through those administrative practices that can encourage them to grow, to continue to grow in the fashion they are growing.