I was with a bunch of American lawyers this morning at the American Bar Association's air and space law forum in Montreal before I drove here. They had a panel on competition law, and aviation and concentration, and their market in the U.S.
It is absolutely a given that if anybody asks for immunity from the application of antitrust laws in the U.S., airline joint ventures—as they've done there—at a minimum, the government has to ensure that they have a comprehensive open skies policy to make sure that the joint venture is being disciplined, if you will, through market forces, competition, and thus the consumer is provided another level of protection.
That's not necessarily the case here in Canada. Canada has some great open agreements with many countries, but we also have restricted agreements with many network competitors that can compete with the JV here in Canada; that is, Atlantic plus, plus.
If you get immunity from competition law, and at the same time you get protection from vigorous competition that's supposed to protect the consumer, well, you just had your cake and your chocolate chip cookies and your ice cream, and you got to eat it. We're suggesting that's not what public policy should be about.