Thank you for your question, Mr. El-Khoury.
As you know, the pandemic has hit the airline industry hard, including small airlines serving the north and remote areas of our country. Without passengers, they have no revenue and hence cannot continue their operations.
We recognized that it was essential for these small companies to be able to continue to operate, so that they could provide remote areas with goods such as medicines and food, as well as bring doctors to these areas. We are talking about 140 locations in northern Canada. The government needed to provide funding to help keep the small companies serving remote areas going.
We worked with the provinces and territories. Costs are shared between the federal, provincial and territorial governments to ensure that these companies have enough revenue to continue to provide these essential services. It's absolutely necessary.