Mr. Speaker, we are dealing today with Bill C-22. I have done my homework and read lots of material on the subject of the Pearson airport privatization, but all that still does not answer all my questions.
I must admit that the more I read, the more questions crossed my mind.
With all those unanswered questions, as a taxpayer, I cannot help but roar with indignation when I see the political scheming powerful financiers close to the two old Canadian political formations may have used to achieve their ends, that is the privatization of the airport, a transaction that is so contrary to public interest and to the air transport plan.
Whether one is a politician or a public administrator, common decency requires exemplary integrity and everything to be done out in the open and without cheating. In the case we are dealing with today, it seems that the interest of a few people has come before public interest. The select few with direct access, through their army of lobbyists, to the office of the then Prime Minister or to the office of the then Leader of the Opposition would have got privileged information thanks to that.
I am not the kind of politician who sees scandals everywhere. I like to analyze, search and reflect. The more I search, the more I analyze and the more I reflect, the more I have serious questions about this whole matter.
In this case, everything seems to have gone wrong from the start. If I can draw a quick conclusion from that, one can say that lobbyists, some of whom unfortunately are feeding at the patronage trough, have done their job well, and that the scheming system does not suffer from excessive openness.
Remembering, as a Quebecer, the sad error the Liberals' grand idea led to more than 20 years ago at Mirabel, I hope that this government's liberalism will not plunge us back into expenditures unacceptable for taxpayers. Allow me to relate some disturbing facts in the Pearson airport case.
What is the ordinary citizen, the taxpayer, to think of politicians and public administrators when the federal government, by putting a time limit of 90 days on its call for tenders, was automatically eliminating any company that had not previously been associated with the Pearson airport privatization project? No honest proposal leading to a contract worth several hundred million dollars and good for 57 years could be entertained.
In this request for proposals, no prior financial analysis has been required by the government. It is obscene that for such a major project, the winning proposal was picked without any financial viability check. A couple of months after the company was chosen, it seemed to be in financial trouble and merged with its only competitor. What a lesson in public administration!
Under a clause in the deal, Transport Canada has to refrain from all alternative airport development within a 75 km radius of Pearson that could take traffic away from Pearson. Who can benefit from that clause? Certainly not the taxpayers in the Deputy Prime Minister's riding.
What of the interests of passengers, since obviously it would have been more expensive for airlines to use those terminals? The fees would have gone up 350 per cent, that is from $2 to $7 per passenger. What of public interest, since the firm to whom the contract was awarded did not have to modernize the terminals for 50 years? Do we know what the needs will be in 50 years from now? What a "sweet heart deal". What of public interest, since the government gives control over an airport to a private firm that could face financial trouble or go bankrupt, or let airport services deteriorate at the expense of passengers and regional development? Is it not the policy of the government that airports be operated by local groups of elected representatives and business people the way it was so successfully done in Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton?
Mr. Robert Nixon wrote in his report: "It is my opinion that the process to privatize and redevelop Terminals 1 and 2 at Pearson fell short of maximizing the public interest". That conclusion is in every regard similar to the position of the official opposition.
That whole Pearson deal is not only a matter of figures and companies. There are also key men involved I would describe as professional schemers, including a former political organizer of the present Prime Minister and well-known lobbyist, a Liberal lobbyist who was a deputy minister at Transport Canada at the time the request for proposals was sent out and who apparently has close ties with the right hon. Prime Minister. Not to mention this dear Liberal senator who, it appears, was a director of the lucky company and hosted key political figures at a $1,000-a-plate dinner at his residence, right in the middle of an election campaign. Some of these guests maybe had special interests in the Pearson Airport deal. Allow me not to refer to the many Liberal as well as Conservative lobbyists, who were involved in this deal. I have little use for them.
In his report, Mr. Nixon emphasizes: "This, together with the flawed process I have described, understandably may leave one with the suspicion that patronage had a role in the selection of Paxport Inc.".
The Pearson Airport affair proves once again the need to review the law on the registration of lobbyists in order to stop scheming and patronage by certain lobbyists, including those who have ties to the party in power.
Knowing the Prime Minister, I hope he will order such a review as soon as possible. Besides, he has already committed himself to this in the Liberal Party's red book.
The people of Ontario, Quebec and Canada as a whole have a right to know what happened. You and I, all my colleagues and all taxpayers entitled to know if they will get their money's worth. When he says that "failure to make public the full identity of the participants in this agreement and other salient terms of the contract inevitably raises public suspicion," Mr. Nixon only touches on the problem. We parliamentarians must go one step further and let the people know what really happened.
Given the disturbing facts in this whole affair, we, members of the Bloc Quebecois, ask for a public inquiry to get to the bottom of the whole situation. Refusing this inquiry, Mr. Speaker, will be interpreted as wanting to hide things and prevent taxpayers from knowing the plain truth. It is only by holding a public inquiry that we will be able to determine if compensation should be paid. And it is Parliament's duty to set the amount, if any. The public interest must prevail and guide our action.