Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Last Thursday the United States enacted and made it law—well, they not only made it law, they made it a reality—that all airlines have to state, when they advertise their fares, every single dollar they will charge.
Here in Canada, after a long study, Parliament approved an act to amend the Canada Transportation Act. That was approved on June 22, 2007. That's a good four years ago, almost five. It was very clear in the act, which said:
requiring a carrier who advertises a price for an air service to include in the price all costs to the carrier of providing the service and to indicate in the advertisement all fees, charges and taxes collected by the carrier on behalf of another person in respect of the service, so as to enable a purchaser of the service to readily determine the total amount to be paid for the service.
Since then, the Conservative government has not made the regulation changes as required. At Christmastime last year, I saw the parliamentary secretary showing up at the airport, saying we will do so--I thought, “All right!”--and then there was a comma right after: we will do so, next Christmas. We will spend another year talking to airlines—as if four years of talking to airlines is not enough—and next year regulations will be presented so that maybe sometime, not this March break but next March break, the good Canadians who want to buy some airfares will actually get the truth.
I put this in front of the committee to urge the government not to wait another ten months before taking action. Ten months of consultation, after consultation of already four years.... That's enough. This motion basically asks the government to immediately enact the airfare advertising regulations. It's basically asking the government to implement the law.
Some of you may have noticed that Air Canada has already been fined by the U.S. because of the way it advertised; it did not reveal the entire cost. I suspect more will happen, because the U.S. last Thursday enacted their law.
I put this in front of the committee and hope that I can get complete support from my colleagues.
Thank you.