Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my colleague from Winnipeg St. James. He has touched on a number of important issues with regard to local airport authorities. He is absolutely right that we want to get it right, that we want to do it right.
The government has learned from mistakes made by others. The Minister of Transport and Transport Canada are looking at ways of fixing those flaws the member talked about with regard to local airport authorities. There are tremendous opportunities.
The minister sees it that way. Transport Canada sees it that way. Local communities can play a positive, constructive and proactive role in running airports to be the economic instruments they can be, but not to the detriment of public interest. We are defining what that public interest is in terms of safety and other matters.
The member is right on. We intend to make sure the local airport authority provisions are enhanced to make them much more accountable, much more transparent. We intend to ensure there is broad representation on those boards, to ensure the bottom line is that the interests of the community are always at the top of the heap so to speak.
I thank the hon. member for his constructive suggestions. We hope to have those revisions in place as soon as possible. As the member has indicated a number of communities are looking at opportunities.
As the Reform Party keeps reminding us, the government wants to be as effective and as efficient as it possibly can to save taxpayers money. If the local airport authorities can do the job well and protect the public interests as well as further their own local objectives, why not? The government is prepared to look at that.