Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-20 which, among others, establishes a corporation called Nav Canada.
I want to stress the importance of the Bloc Quebecois' first motion. The motion proposes that the preamble of the bill includes a mention that the safety of passengers, personnel, air carriers and the public has priority over all other considerations in the decisions taken by Nav Canada. This motion seeks to have the government and Nav Canada recognize that public safety and interest take precedence over money considerations.
I have been the Bloc Quebecois critic on this issue since the last election, two and a half years ago. Our party did not oppose the privatization or, rather, the commercialization of civil air navigation services. We did, however, have some reservations and we still do.
For example, we know that, given modern technology and satellites, air traffic control services for all of Canada could be provided from a single location, for example a mall in Mississauga or North Vancouver. One of the Bloc Quebecois' concerns was the preservation of French in this area.
As members of the official opposition, we have a duty to be vigilant. In the years 1975-76, a battle took place in Quebec regarding the use of French by air traffic controllers. This episode turned out to be a determining factor in the Parti Quebecois' victory on November 15, 1976. Thanks to these efforts, a French speaking pilot and a French speaking air traffic controller could now communicate in French. This was not the case before. Until then, two francophones were forced to speak English to each other, seemingly for safety reasons.
We do not want such gains, including those of the Association des gens de l'air du Québec, to have been made in vain and to simply be forgotten. This is why I just mentioned that modern technology makes it possible to set up, in a Mississauga mall, a national air traffic control centre that would include Quebec's airspace. This is particularly true now that a corporation primarily interested in making profits will have responsibility over this sector. We are not talking about a charity or a non profit corporation. Consequently, profits might take precedence over the requirement to provide services in French in Quebec's airspace.
Despite the victory won by the Association des gens de l'air in 1976, still today, on the Lower North Shore, still today, in the Magdalen Islands-and we in the Bloc Quebecois have regularly asked questions about this-pilots tell us that they have trouble being served in French in some sectors, including the one covered by the Moncton area control centre, which is apparently supposed to be bilingual.
I also wanted to speak to Motion No. 2, because we realize that there is a certain common denominator in the composition of Nav Canada's board of directors, and that the large airline companies are very well represented.
Our new colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean has, I believe, his pilot's licence and therefore knows whereof he speaks, and did so most eloquently a moment ago, in my opinion. Where I find fault, as does my colleague, is with the composition of Nav Canada's board of directors. It is unfortunate that this government did not respect the wish of small carriers to be represented, to be listened to.
So this will be just large carriers, and regional carriers will not be heard from. Is it acceptable, for example, that the Association québécoise des transporteurs aériens cannot sit on Nav Canada's board of directors? Is that realistic?
What were we told in the Standing Committee on Transport? That the association was a member of the Canadian council, and will therefore be indirectly represented. I am sorry, but this does not really meet the expectations of the aviation sector, in any event, not those of Quebec carriers.
The bottom line is that if all the seats are held by representatives of large carriers, the priorities set regarding cost per passenger could also give them an advantage over small carriers. Because we know that what matters is who gets in there first. If someone in the family makes a big chocolate cake and the first person to come along helps himself to a great big piece, the others will have nothing but the crumbs that are left to divide up among them.
Human nature being what it is, the big companies will not want to assume the lion's share of the bill, so they will arrange to pay just a bit of it and to pass the rest on to the small regional carriers, who will not be able to afford it. And who will the small carriers pass the buck to, since their profit margins are so slim? To the passengers.
When I was in the Saguenay, I recall being told that flying from Bagotville to Montreal costs more than from Montreal to Miami and, in certain seasons, more than a round trip ticket Montreal-Paris. They used Bagotville-Montreal as an example, but it could as easily have been Val-d'Or-Montreal, Sept-Îles-Montreal, or Gaspé-Montreal. This is aberrant. Once again, the people in the regions are the ones to be penalized by such a decision.
The Bloc Quebecois is concerned about the potential impact of Bill C-120 in this area. We are proposing, and this is the purpose of our motions, that an addition be made to the preamble stipulating that Nav Canada must commit to maintaining equality of opportunity between small and large carriers when imposing all the charges.
I will conclude on this point, because time is running out. The third and final motion I wish to comment on attempts to include in the preamble the fact Nav Canada must recognize that Canada is a country where air service to northern and remote regions is essential. A tour of Dorval airport reveals that it is not only the people of Dorval who fly out of it. People in transit at Dorval come from the regions and are on their way to another destination, such as the south, Europe or other provinces in Canada. They are people from the regions, and we must take this into consideration with respect to air services.
The aim with this provision is to establish a parameter for interpretation purposes, drawing attention to the fact that one of Nav Canada's prime objectives is to serve the regions.
In conclusion, we must remember that it is true Quebec has Montreal and Canada has Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, but we must not forget that Quebec and Canada are made up of regions as well. Sometimes decisions made centrally here in Ottawa by bureaucrats do not take the regions into account.