Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for your attendance today.
I have to say that when I was going through this, I had mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was quite appalled that an issue of Canadian safety was given so little proper focus. But I have to say, Deputy, I was encouraged by your remarks this morning. I hope, before my time concludes, that we get a chance to determine your comments, especially on the second-to-last page when you talked about what's coming in budget 2017, as to whether or not that's going to be sufficient for the dollar amount. There are two things involved: one is planning and one is funding, and both seem to be inadequate.
There is the map provided on in exhibit 6.1. As have a lot of other members of this committee, I've landed at a lot of those dots, including the one that is second-furthest north, right smack dab in the middle of the Northwest Passage. I distinctly remember looking down as we were circling and getting ready to land. I have to tell you that the one thing that wasn't going through my mind was to wonder how efficient they were. I wanted to know how safe this was going to be.
My concern is that there is a lot of mixing of efficiency and other infrastructure with this, as opposed to that being a stand-alone issue. As a former city councillor, I'd say that nobody has a greater passion for infrastructure, which is the least sexy thing to do with local municipal government, but it's one of the most important things you do. But still my concern is that the airport seems to be sort of jammed into that infrastructure. To me, there is a difference between efficiency and laying the groundwork for economic activity versus safety.
I was very struck by the comments in the report on page 14, paragraph 6.57, where the Auditor General said that, “We further found that the program”—meaning the one that's been in existence so far, the airports capital assistance program, which by the way has had $38 million assigned to it for 17 years straight. Somebody was not making this a priority.
Talking about that program, the Auditor General said, “the program did not recognize the important role that airports play in remote [and] northern communities.” In the same paragraph, he goes on to say:
Furthermore, both certified and registered airports, regardless of passenger volumes, support the delivery of essential services to the communities, such as community resupply of fresh food and medicine, medical emergency evacuations, and charter operations...local...activity.
This is the very essence of life and death for a lot of these folks, for a lot of these communities. Unfortunately, we're hearing that, yes, well, the department is now saying that they are going to step up and do exactly what they didn't do before. What I'd like to hear is perhaps some explanation as to how this could be overlooked for so long, and by that I mean 17 years without increasing by one penny the money that's dedicated to airport safety. How did that happen? I'd like to hear what assurances you're going to give us that we can believe that this time you, the department, are going to do what you promised to do, given that you already promised to do that very same thing.
I'm listening.