From a taxpayer perspective, which I believe is of interest to this committee, the primary concern about the deal is that taxpayers end up funding the refunds for passengers instead of Air the Canada shareholders who reaped the profits.
It was a pleasure to listen to the other witness today about how much even a few tens of thousands of dollars can buy and how much difference it can make in the lives of people who direly need assistance. Instead of the money going to those people, a lot of taxpayers' money has been sent to a for-profit corporation, with private owners, that has misappropriated passengers' money, and now taxpayers are making up for the shortfall. That raises significant concerns of transparency and accountability. Normally, there should have been accountability for the corporation, the shareholders, and the senior executives who were involved in misappropriating passengers' money.