Madam Speaker, I have asked a question of the Minister of Transport, in fact the entire side, a number of times. I have asked the minister, I have asked the parliamentary secretary, I have even asked the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport. My question has been regarding the Pearson airport contract. If they think this is a bad deal we wanted to know what they thought was a good deal.
In spite of asking all these different people, I have never received an answer. What I want to do for a moment is take a look at what is good and what is bad about this deal; first what is good, from my perspective, of course.
It would have involved $740 million of private enterprise money going into the rebuilding of terminals 1 and 2 without any cost to the taxpayer. It would have created world class terminals at competitive and comparable rents for airlines. It would have had blended use of terminal 3 during the construction period, minimizing public disruption. There would have been a tremendous advantage to Air Canada and perhaps even Canadian Airlines.
It would have created a new world class air terminal and would have provided enhanced economic and tourism benefits for central Canada without cost to the air industry in other parts of the country or the Canadian taxpayer.
Then there is the matter of jobs, jobs, jobs-the Liberal Party election cry. The Pearson development contract would have created 14,000 person years of construction employment and another 1,200 permanent new jobs in the new facilities.
What is bad about this contract? According to the Liberals, this contract had no cancellation clause. What is interesting is that there was no cancellation clause for Terminal 3, for Vista
cargo terminals or for the Vancouver local airport authority. They claimed that it had limited bidding. The reality is that hundreds of contracts or requests for proposals were printed, dozens were picked up, and the fact that only a few were qualified to bid on it can hardly be deemed the responsibility or problem of the Pearson consortium.
They claimed that the rate of return on investment was too high; the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce did not think so. It was one of the original investors but they dropped out because the rate of return dropped to less than 14 per cent, which they thought was too low for the degree of risk involved.
They complained that the contract was signed during the election campaign. Most legal opinions agree that the actual binding date of the deal was August of 1993, before the election was called.
A very selective censored review of terminals 1 and 2 provided to Robert Nixon by the associate deputy minister and classified as secret, indicates the following: rate of return too high? The Pearson Development Corporation return on investment was endorsed as reasonable by both the Department of Finance and a government hired independent consultant. They claimed the crown was not getting a good return but the reality is this report said the crown's rate of return was considerably better than a crown construction option.
I have to provide at this provide an apology because in my letter to the minister which I sent a week ago I claimed that his action was unprecedented. In actual fact, the War Measures Act in 1942 which saw the Japanese stripped of all their property, legislated payment and denied the right of appeal, sounds rather familiar.
They claim that $445 million is the compensation sought. Court documents show no amount has been claimed, only the right to an arbitration tribunal.
So far this is all my side. Is there a Liberal side? We do not know. We keep asking the question and they keep refusing to answer it. The question is, and I will ask it again for the fourth time, if this is a bad deal, what is a good deal, what are your alternatives?