It's a great question. I'd say there are a couple of parts to answering it.
The first is that, of the 117 airports that were in the scope of the Auditor General's study, the vast majority—I'm guessing 80% or more—were owned by the provincial or territorial government that had jurisdiction where the dot is on the map. A lot of them were owned by the Government of Nunavut, the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Province of Ontario, or the Province of Quebec.
Interestingly enough, in Quebec, probably a dozen are owned by the Kativik Regional Government, which is a self-government created through the James Bay accords back in the 1970s. There are a couple in B.C. and Alberta that are owned and operated by a local indigenous government.
Transport Canada does own and operate a number of remote airports, for example, in Churchill. There are some on the east coast of Hudson Bay and James Bay. They, however, were not in the sample of 117 that the Auditor General examined.
With that perspective, I would say that Transport Canada absolutely has an overarching responsibility for civil aviation. We are the agency responsible. In the mid-1990s, there was a significant policy change. Before then, Transport Canada was the owner and operator of a vast number of airports. There was a view that we weren't doing a particularly good job as an owner and operator and as the agency overseeing them. There was almost a conflict of interest. There was a devolution, and that resulted in the situation you see today. Consistent with roles and responsibilities, we believe we have a role in overseeing both airports and the entire civil aviation system to ensure, first and foremost, that they are safe. We have a role in working with partners to ensure that this system is efficient.
I think the core of the recommendations to the Auditor General is that more needs to be done here. We agree, but I think we do not want to second-guess the owners of the airports in terms of what they need, and we need them to identify what they need, and then we want to work with them as partners to help them put in place what they need to ensure they're safe.