Thank you for giving me an opportunity to finish the “what we recommend” part of my submission.
Certainly tax incentives are helpful, as are fuel rebates. Private operators do not get fuel rebates, or HST or GST. These are levers that are available to the federal government to make happen now.
Then, of course, we recommend programs that would support the development of cross-province routes, just to ensure that there are no shortcomings while the route is being developed. I know that is a form of a subsidy, but it's really what we're calling “gap funding” for subsidy development. This is where our publicly funded partners are just not able to provide those services or where there are no services other than a privately funded organization.