Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased this morning to have the opportunity to take part in debate at second reading stage of Bill C-20, an important piece of legislation to privatize Canadian airports.
As my colleague from Laval Centre mentioned earlier, the Bloc Quebecois is not against any privatization initiative that could improve the efficiency of airport management throughout the country. However, there is privatization and privatization. When privatization leads to security problems, as we saw recently in the United States when a ValuJet airplane crashed, then the Bloc Quebecois cannot give its assent. Also, when basic principles such as fairness and transparency are set aside, then again the Bloc cannot give its assent.
In the bill before us, two basic principles are violated. First, the local communities are not treated fairly. As for respect for the local communities, nothing in this bill leads us to believe that regional and local communities will have their say in the privatization process and the management of the airports in Canada, or will receive the information they need and be treated fairly and respectfully for what they are.
It is not surprising that this bill shows no concern for local communities. The former Minister of Transportation, now Minister of Human Resources Development, reacted the same way when the issue of unemployment insurance reform was addressed recently. He showed that he did not care about some local communities who depend on seasonal work, by overlooking the many concerns expressed by people from his own riding, people who live in these communities, who know them well, who are able to assess the bad decisions made by the government and the real negative impact they have on the local economies.
It does not surprise me that Bill C-20 reflects a lack of concern for local communities and that the government has turned a deaf ear to our numerous requests in this regard.
Such a bill should not only aim to ensure, directly in the mandate of this new organization created by the federal government-Nav Canada-air transportation in remote areas, for example, but also to advise local communities, which are the first concerned and the main clients of the air carriers, of any change in services-rates, frequency, schedules, etc.-and in air transportation equipment or infrastructure.
The bill is rather deficient as far as information to be provided to local people is concerned, since, according to the government, one notice only in a national newspaper like the Globe and Mail or Le Devoir , for example, should do. Thus, this group of motions, that is, motions Nos 4 to 12, aims essentially at ensuring one thing: information.
It is not normal that people living close to the airport in Mont-Joli, for example, should be informed in the Globe and Mail of changes that concern them. The normal and respectable thing to do would be to publish these notices of changes in the Mont-Joli local newspapers. Le Devoir would not be the normal vehicle for such a notice on the North Shore, since this newspaper is not that easy to find in that area.
Local communities should have a guarantee that they will receive notice directly, through their local media, of changes in the frequency of service, in the schedules, etc., or of more substantive chaanges such as the reduction of some services or even the closure of some airports. The same holds true for Native bands. It is not always easy to reach them, even through the local media. The band councils must be informed of the changes regarding local airports.
Today, information is not only a privilege, it is also a basic right, all the more so since the communities that will be the first affected by the changes made by Nav Canada are the local ones. It will not be the communities in major centres, where there is a larger density and frequency of services. This then becomes a necessity.
In this respect, let me praise the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup for being sensitive to these issues, that is to say for insisting on service, respect and fairness for local communities. As you may know, our colleague, the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, is also the official Bloc Quebecois spokesman for a major organization in Quebec called Solidarité rurale, and I think it is much to his credit to have succeeded in making our party, our
caucus and our members more aware of the needs of local communities and of the respect we owe them.
It is more and more obvious that this government wants to carry out all its reforms by betraying the very principles it says it wants to protect. In the red book or the speech from the throne, much is made of respect for people, for rural communities and the people's decisions. But this government's actions give a completely different picture.
I was listening to the Minister of National Revenue who displayed such compassion for Canada's richest families. She said that there should more of them. In other words, she supported her department's decision, which allowed the transfer of $2 billion worth of assets in the United States absolutely tax free, without one cent of tax being paid on capital gains. She displayed a lot compassion for those families.
If her government displayed the same compassion for local communities and the needy, we would be one hundred per cent behind the government, but the fact is that there is an almost insurmountable chasm between what the government says and what it does.
Out of respect for local communities, for the human beings who live in these regions and who are the victims of the government's carelessness or of the cruel and inhuman decisions of the Minister of Human Resources Development concerning unemployment insurance, maybe we should, for once, be taking measures which favour them; in other words, we should give them an inalienable right to information when it comes to an important project such as the privatization of airports.
So this is the meaning of the motions moved by the Bloc Quebecois, and it can seem strange for people who live in Ottawa, Toronto, Montréal, Québec, Winnipeg, Calgary, etc., to call for these notices to be given in the local media, but for the people concerned, it makes all the difference between the pride of being who they are and the respect due them by government.