Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address this House for the second time on Bill C-22. The privatization of Pearson Airport has one important element that I think has not yet been addressed in this House, namely pilot training.
I have the honour to have in my riding Chicoutimi CEGEP, which trains pilots. The original idea of establishing a French-language public school to train aircraft pilots comes from Canon Jean-Paul Laliberté, then director of Chicoutimi College, Germain Hallé, then director of educational services, and Pierre Rivest, then aviation inspector for the federal Department of Transport. The first 36 student pilots registered in the fall of 1968. The goal was to give francophones a place in the aeronautical community.
Some 400 to 450 airline pilots have graduated from the school since it was founded. Fifty per cent of students choose this career option while the others become bush or helicopter pilots. A quarter century later, Chicoutimi CEGEP still offers this training through the Quebec aeronautical training centre. This centre is the only public school in Quebec that trains pilots. It is the only institution in North America that gives this training in French. Among its exclusive characteristics is the fact that the courses are free.
So, we have developed in Quebec a public education centre which provides adequate training for francophones.
The training of a pilot requires about 260 hours of flying and 900 hours of theory. It costs Quebec taxpayers some $80,000 to train a pilot. The school has an annual budget of $3.5 million. So, this Quebec centre built a solid reputation for itself. It has expertise in a high tech field and it has made a name for itself.
We have shown that we can train pilots in French, away from major centres and still be successful. We have proven that we can do it. We have been able to provide specialized training for these students. We have established our structure and we provide skilled pilots to the industry. It is only normal to have a return on our investment.
Let us not forget that Montreal has played a predominant role in the development of the air carrier industry. Indeed, in the early seventies, Montreal was the hub of air transportation in Canada. Today, it comes in third place, behind Toronto and Vancouver.
The globalization of aeronautics has triggered a streamlining exercise, as well as a transfer of operations from Montreal to Toronto. Between 1976 and 1984, increases in passenger traffic occurred mostly in Toronto, which registered gains of close to 45 per cent, compared to a mere two per cent for Montreal over the last nine years.
In 1981, 7.5 million passengers were processed at Dorval and Mirabel airports, compared to 14.5 million in Toronto. In 1991, passenger traffic at Dorval and Mirabel airports was 8 million, whereas it was 18.5 million in Toronto. This results in a loss of jobs for Quebec, while elsewhere in Canada there was growth until 1989.
A study by the École des hautes études commerciales in Montreal, done in the late 1980s, estimates the contribution of the Montreal airports to the gross domestic product in terms of value added for the year 1992 at $1.3 billion, taking only the direct impact into account, and at $2.2 billion, if indirect effects are taken into account. According to the same study, the contribution of the Montreal airports to the employment sector is also very significant. In 1992, 24,000 jobs are related to the total direct production of the Montreal airports. Adding indirect and induced jobs results in a total of 48,500 jobs. This indicates the economic importance of airport activity.
In Toronto, the addition of a runway would increase the region's income over the next 15 years by $3.5 billion and would enrich the province by over $9 billion. The impact on employment would also be very large. Locally, adding runways would create 3,300 jobs annually, and 3,700 additional jobs elsewhere in Ontario. This would mean, for the entire province, an increase of more than 7,000 jobs. For comparison purposes, in 1969, Air Canada had 461 pilots in Montreal and 451 in Toronto. In 1992, there were 301 pilots in Montreal and 781 in Toronto, a negative balance of 480 pilots for Quebec. This is not a narrow gap, but rather an abyss.
In 1988, Air Canada transferred all its pilot training operations from Montreal to Toronto, which was extremely significant. As of April 1, 1993, the status of the pilot training graduates from the 1992 program was as follows: 62.5 per cent of the graduates had jobs in their field, whereas 18 per cent did not. Their annual salary was only $24,600.
Young pilots who enter the workforce start in small regional companies known as third-level carriers and build up their flying time. We are therefore training in Quebec, and especially in my constituency, workers whom we would like to see advance
here, since they have the opportunity to pursue their careers with all types of carriers. The concentration of operations at Pearson to the detriment of the airports in Montreal results in pilots leaving. After investing in training, our pilots will go elsewhere and pay taxes.
In conclusion, we want Quebec pilots to have a future. The airports in Montreal, as we have seen, are regressing compared to Toronto. We have invested collectively in the training of our pilots, and we have fashioned a development tool. We should also invest in Montreal.
