Mr. Speaker, we are debating this bill in a somewhat special context, spanning a number of years, because the federal government has taken initiatives affecting the whole aviation industry. It all started in the 1960s. I am referring for instance to the development of the Mirabel airport, denounced from the start by local residents, who were strongly opposed to this project. Agricultural land was taken away from them. No compensation measures are planned either concerning any decision ADM could make today.
This bill is being discussed in a context of deregulation, because Canada is involved of course in the economic globalization process. All air transportation corporations are also affected.
But Canada's approach is more akin to the approach taken by the United States and Japan, the only two exceptions. I will come back to this later.
Moreover, in a context that I would describe as totally off the cuff and very short-sighted, most countries favour having only one
national carrier, while here, we now have Canadian Airlines, through generous outlays. We are competing among ourselves, with the result that we know: Canadian is practically owned by American interests and, at this rate, Air Canada will not be able to withstand Canadian's competition and will also be taken over by American interests, leaving Canada without a national carrier.
In this whole context of deregulation and privatization, the Bloc Quebecois has nothing against privatization, as we feel that the state is not necessarily the best able to handle certain things, which the private sector is much better equipped to handle. It is not the case in every area, but in this particular area and most trade areas, the private sector is in a better position to act than the state.
In the past, we have taken a stand in favour of privatizing Air Canada, the same way we took a stand in favour of establishing regional organizations to control airports. I am thinking about ADM among other organizations, although in this particular case, we could have a debate about the mechanisms that should be imposed on these organizations to ensure that there is more transparency and public debate around the decisions being made. In a word, we have no problem with privatization.
We do not have any problems either with the regions being able to make their own decisions and to administer their facilities in areas like air transportation. We do not object either to the fact that they will be non profit organizations, or that an organization could oversee all regional interventions following certain standards. At the beginning, it was thought that some standards applied as well to all regional airports and major airports.
Obviously, it will not be so with this project, because the rules are not clear, especially where safety is concerned. When this whole deregulation phenomenon first came up, simultaneously with Open Skies, we agreed that air transport had to be within more people's reach and more competitive, so that customers would eventually benefit, but not at the expense of safety. We have seen what happened recently in the Everglades, in the United States, where deregulation and privatization are the watchword. The company, whose name I cannot recall, had already been the subject of seven or eight complaints. It never acted on them, and the tragedy happened.
Deregulation must be done in a certain way. In this case, it is obvious to me that nothing is being done to ensure safety. We will tackle the problem of safety by evaluating investments which could be made in various regions, which means that the overseeing organization will determine the investments to be avoided in a particular region, or decide that, because of the market, the local organization cannot afford the best equipment. But, if an organization cannot afford the best equipment or has a difficult financial situation, it does not mean that the life of those who would use the equipment in regions or even in major airports is worth less than it would be if the organization could afford such an investment.
I was about to say that the costs are the same for everybody, but it is far from being the case, because, where deregulation is concerned, there are such aberrations where the only factor considered is the number of clients. One often realizes that it is less expensive to fly Montreal-Paris than Montreal-Chicoutimi. This has a little impact on the economic development of these regions. It is a complete aberration. I remember once, at the Quebec City Airport, Air Atlantic, Air Alliance and Inter-Canadian all had flights at the same time, but I was the only passenger boarding the Air Alliance plane. I was given a private course on safety measures.
This made no sense; it was improvised. We cannot play with people's safety. This is unacceptable. I find it hard to understand why the government would introduce a bill that leaves aside the issue of safety, on the ground that those in charge will make good decisions because they are responsible people.
I am not saying those who will be appointed and who will manage the agency will be irresponsible. I am simply saying that it is the state's responsibility to provide safety measures, just like it does in the case of land and marine transportation. We had a debate on Coast Guard services. How can we not intervene in a fair and responsible manner when air safety is concerned?
The language issue is the other reason why we oppose the bill. Again, the bill does not provide anything to ensure the use of both official languages. As I said earlier, this is reminiscent of a battle dating back to the sixties, a battle that resulted in a victory, around 1976, for the Association des Gens de l'Air du Québec.
The association argued that it was no more dangerous to fly an aircraft and to have an air traffic controller speak French-particularly when French is the controller and the pilot's mother tongue-than to have them communicate in English. It seems to me that, in tense situations, one can better communicate in his or her mother tongue than in a foreign language. Of course, this implies that everyone can speak English, the universal language in the aviation sector. But this should not prevent the use of French. I suppose that in Mexico they speak Spanish, in Portugal they speak Portuguese, and in Italy they speak Italian. Just try to convince Italians that it is dangerous to communicate in Italian in their country.
The battle fought in the sixties and seventies is not over, as evidenced by the fact that the Magdalen Islands are still served by Moncton, where communications are in English. The islands are not served by Montreal. To this day, the situation remains unsettled. We are told that no efforts will be made to settle it and, in addition to this, there is no guarantee in the bill. We can only rely on the good faith and the good will of those who will manage the agency.
We have had to rely on good faith for years and we now question the value of this approach. We no longer believe in it. We would rather have firm guarantees. It is clearly unacceptable that this bill contains no provision concerning the French language, yet the Prime Minister keeps talking about the rights of francophones and of minorities, and often uses them like pawns in his political games.
How can they justify reverting to the situation we had in the past? How can they forget about that victory our air controllers won in 1975-76, and not include in the mandate of the agency that will control all air traffic in Canada an indication that francophones should be able to use their language in air transportation, just like all peoples in the world can use their own. This is a step backward. But maybe they are suggesting that using French is not dangerous in France, but would be in Quebec. This is the height of absurdity.
I would now like to turn to the capacity of small airports. Is there any guarantee that, at these two levels, small airports will have access to services in French and will also abide by the usual security standards in order to meet the needs of the public and avoid the disasters experienced in countries which have undergone indiscriminate deregulation?
The fact that small air carriers did not have a say in this bill means that de facto if not de jure the control over this agency will be completely in the hands of those who use it, who are financially stronger and have more influence. In other words, those in control will be the two big companies which are now experiencing difficulty because of deregulation, Canadian and Air Canada. We should not forget that American Airlines is the real owner of Canadian, and that Air Canada could very well meet with the same fate.
This means the whole spirit of indiscriminate deregulation we saw in the United States might be imported here at our expense, through an agency set up by the government, without warning, even though we are warning the government there is danger at both levels.
For small carriers too, regions will be in a position of dependence. Of course, we cannot expect the same air traffic at Chicoutimi as at Dorval, nor at Kapuskasing-if there is an airport there, but I guess there is one-as at Pearson. There are surely fewer scandals at Kapuskasing than at Pearson, so we will not have to debate over three years the issue of who benefited or not from the manoeuvring that went on about Pearson.
Leaving things to unthinking market forces is not what the spirit of deregulation is all about. Government has to withdraw from certain areas, we agree, but government must not disappear; government has a regulatory role to play to see that things proceed in a civilized way and that people's needs are taken into account. People living in remote regions should not have to pay more to travel than people living in large urban areas do. Some adjustments are to be expected, but surely they should not have to pay a higher cost to go from Montreal to Chicoutimi than to go from Montreal to Paris. That does not make any sense.
It must be said also that the safety of passengers has as much value in the Magdalen Islands as at Pearson, and that francophones have as much rights as anglophones, otherwise we are only talking nonsense. We will hear fine speeches about national unity, about modernizing government, but the bottom line is that we will go back to where we were when government was not sufficiently involved. There is too much government interference now, but the solution does not lie in having the pendulum swing from one extreme to the other.
In this case, the pendulum just swung back to the other extreme where we trust the market and people's good faith implicitly and where we do not have any standards, particularly in the areas of safety and language.