Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Competition Bureau for being here today as part of this very important study.
This study was kicked off because we lost an airline competitor, Lynx Air, in Canada.
We have done some pretty in-depth study on the state of the industry, and I'm glad to hear that you are going to be conducting your own study into this industry. You did mention three airline mergers approved under this government—First Air and Canadian North, Air Canada and Air Transat, and WestJet and Sunwing. In every case, you found there would be a “substantial lessening of competition” with those mergers, and in every case, the government approved the mergers over the objections of the bureau.
If our airline industry is always one merger away from a substantially uncompetitive environment, that should be setting off alarm bells at the Department of Transport. When we questioned the department on Tuesday, they seemed to think everything was fine.
What do we need to do to ensure that we listen more to what the Competition Bureau is doing and to ensure that we have more competition in the airline industry?