We will resume this very important debate on one of the biggest Canadian political scandals in recent years involving the two major parties. This affair is somewhat reminiscent of a political and financial soap opera. What is the plot? Who are the actors? Who is the director? It leaves a lot of unanswered questions. One thing is clear: there is no answer to be found in the bill we are being asked to approve.
Although we are not entirely sure of the actors and the plot, one thing has been clear since the beginning: that the stage is lit with red and blue lights-a very bright, Liberal red and a tasteful dark Tory blue. Transparency is reduced to a bare minimum. In fact, the only thing that is transparent in this sensitive case, in my opinion, is the will of the parties involved to make things as unclear as possible.
The most distressing aspect of this sorry business is that we are here today to debate a bill concerning the cancellation of an airport privatization which was accepted by the government whose official policy on airport management was, and still is as far as I know, to return the management of airports to the local people and not to private interests. As you can see, the plot thickens even before the curtain rises.
In April 1987, as members will recall, the previous government announced with great to do an overall policy for airport management in Canada. That policy advocated in particular that the running of airports be entrusted to local administrations, not to consortiums or friends or the party in power but to truly local administrations.
Transport Canada in pursuance of that policy and recognizing the economic importance of airports for the regions they serve favoured local groups to run them, groups made up of local elected officials and businessmen, in other words, those people who have the best understanding of all the economic factors involved and of the need for a forceful and realistic management approach.
Furthermore, in the case of Pearson International Airport such a group had been formed in April 1993 and was ready to take in hand the operation of the airport.
The Ontario government was strongly in favour of turning over the operation of the airport to a local non-profit organization of that type. The federal government, using as a protest certain disagreements within the group, preferred to satisfy the appetites of the moneylenders and the lobbyists and, disregarding its own policy, proceeded to privatize the airport.
What was the pressure to privatize? There was pressure of two kinds. First it was in 1993.