At the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we have spent a lot of time over the past several years talking about the challenges with air travel competitiveness. There's generally been a reluctance from the federal government to look at what ticket cost is composed of, what some of the federally imposed costs on air travel prices are and what that means for travel, tourism and people.
We've also been watching the air passenger protection regulations, which are going to add cost to ticket prices. Generally, we've been asking the federal government to take a step back, work with industry and look at what goes into the cost of air travel in Canada, and where we're most and least competitive. We have major routes in Canada that are cross-subsidizing a lot of our rural and northern routes. Those routes are the highway system, the Trans-Canada Highway of the north, in many cases. There are no highways. It's the equivalent to the highway system.
Certainly, we would be strongly supportive of an overall look at what goes into the cost of air travel. Obviously, we're against any proposals to increase the cost of air travel. We're already a high-cost destination. If I'm a European traveller looking at Denver and the Rocky Mountains, cost more than any other thing may drive me to go down south. We've long called for an examination of federally imposed costs on our travel and would be supportive of ways to try to reduce those.