Thank you very much, Mr. Volpe.
Usually I ask questions but today I will make a comment, because during debate it is probably our party, the Bloc Québécois, which will make the difference and will vote against this bill. I'll explain why.
How can a political party say yes to a bill at first reading and change its mind when the bill is referred to a committee? One of the Bloc Québécois' goals was, as you mentioned earlier, Mr. French, to address the Air Cubana issue as a large number of passengers on the plane were Quebeckers. Several were from my riding. The stated purpose of this bill was to deal with the Air Cubana case. This bill will not deal with the Air Cubana case because it has never been proven that the airline was responsible. The airport authority had its share of responsibility.
My goal is for the various parties responsible for delays to pay for the problem they caused. That is not what this bill does. The problem with private members' bills is that we cannot amend them. I will table amendments. I had them checked by the law clerk of the House of Commons, but they will not be in order because this is a private member's bill.
To deal with the Air Cubana situation, to address a number of the situations you referred to, Mr. French, we would need a government bill and we would have to be sitting around the same table as NAV CANADA, CATSA, the airport authorities and the Canada Border Services Agency, because they all contribute to the problem in several situations.
Obviously, the airline company shares some responsibility, I am prepared to have the airlines pay for the problems they caused, but I would not want to have the airline paying for a problem others have caused.
When a bill provides that any delay is the airline company's responsibility, inevitably airlines would be paying for errors they did not commit in a number of cases. That is the problem with this bill, we cannot do what we want with a private member's bill.
I'd like to hear what you have to say about this, Mr. French, and Mr. Prud'homme afterwards.