Mr. Speaker, on June 16, I rose to ask the Minister of Transport about his plans for the transportation system in this country which clearly seemed to indicate in large measure that they were plans to dismantle a national transportation system.
The irony is that while the Liberal government is very proud of telling Canadians how much it has done in its infrastructure program-sewer systems, roads and highways-it is at the same time dismantling through the transportation policy that was announced by the minister earlier this year the most fundamental infrastructure system, the nation's air system.
I was pleased to have received a letter from the Minister of Transport in which he stated in late June that he was interested in all members of Parliament consulting their constituents on transportation policy.
Before I was able to undertake that consultation process, just three weeks after having received that invitation from the minister, the minister made a speech whereby he outlined his whole transportation policy.
It seemed to me that it was not a serious attempt to have members of Parliament consult their constituents at all, because there was certainly not sufficient lead time on that. It led me to believe that the minister's objectives as he outlined in the response to my question were less than what I had seen actually happen in practice.
When this national airports policy-one part of the transportation policy-was announced, it clearly demonstrated where the government was going. It was a transparent attempt to transfer responsibility for airports to municipalities, provinces and territories. It seems to me there is nothing national about that, leaving communities to fend for themselves.
As a northerner, as a Yukoner, this is a particularly important question because it is very difficult for smaller airports in rural and northern areas of Canada to be self-financing. If a government is truly committed to a national air transportation system, that must be taken into account in any policy. Alas, I had not seen that in the minister's comments at the time of my question nor in his subsequent comments.
There are many questions about what the impact will be of the national transportation policy on rural and northern areas, on costs both to consumer and to carrier and of course on safety costs as well.
The government has decided to do a little word play by using the word commercialization instead of privatization but any way you slice it, it is privatization.
I recently attended a regional consultation on the automated air navigation systems being proposed. While it was certainly a useful consultation by Transport Canada-I think it presented it well-having listened to the arguments and to the people who were there from the industry, it is clear there will be two results of this policy. First, the air navigation system will be privatized; second, the cost will go up to consumers and the cost will go up to the owners of carriers.
There was no evidence to indicate this would cost less to the consumer or the owner of the carriers or even remain the same.
There are many, many questions that have been left unanswered about the transport policy of the minister. The question that I am addressing tonight is one of them, but there are many more to be addressed. I must say that I have a lot of concerns that these are not being done in a fundamental way with a full broad based consultation. Privatizing simply to lay off federal employees is not the answer to the national dream of a national transportation system.