Mr. Speaker, today is the 50th anniversary of the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.
As the only United Nations agency with headquarters in Canada, it covers the bilateral international accords governing landing and access rights and passage through air space, control of aerial piracy, illegal diversion of aircraft. It also covers issues of hostile military action against civil passenger aircraft as with the Korean Airlines incident of 1983 and the Iranian airbus incident of 1987.
As a former director of the McGill University Institute and Centre of Air and Space Law, I salute ICAO and its mandate for the freedom of the air and politically secure and economically viable international air transportation.