Debates of June 4th, 1996

Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but I was busy giving a document to someone. I would like to know whether my colleague from Blainville-Deux-Montagnes asked a question or only made a comment.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is not for me to answer. If the member for Blainville-Deux-Montagnes would like to repeat his question?

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

The hon. member tells me it was a comment.

[Ian McClelland, Reform, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following this debate to some degree this morning.

I am a licensed private pilot. I recall very clearly the debate that raged around the use of French in air traffic navigation in Quebec which took place some years ago. Looking at it from an apolitical perspective it seemed to me it would made sense for persons in recreational flying in some aspects to be able to use unilingual French.

However when we talk about safety in the sky, the international language of communication in the air is English. We should not lose sight of the fact that in all parts of the world the international language of communication in the air is English. While it makes sense for persons who are unilingual French speaking, unilingual Russian speaking or unilingual whatever language, Swahili or Chinese, to speak in their language, the international language of aviation for safety purposes is English. It has nothing to with whether English is a better language or any other reason. It just got

started that way. There needs to be one common language in the air and it is English.

We have these natural tensions within our country and many people have sympathy for the fact that people working and living in French in Quebec who are unilingual have the right to live and work unilingually in Quebec. However, there are some circumstances in life which require preconditions. If one wants to be a brain surgeon one has to understand and learn brain surgery. If one is going to be a pilot one has to be able to operate on an international basis in English because that is the language. It has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority of any particular language or group.

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course, I totally disagree with the member of the Reform Party.

First of all, I would like to point out to him that, when passengers fly to India, the language of the country, Hindi, is spoken on the plane, and English is also spoken. I do not see where English has primacy. When you go to Spain, both Spanish and English are spoken on the plane.

Wherever you go in the world and you take a national air carrier, it is always the national language that is used and English.

I do not see why and how English would suddenly become the international language, when in practice, this is totally false in the case of most major countries in the world. It should be the same here in Canada.

[Stéphan Tremblay, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out to my Reform colleague that although we sometimes talk about Reform measures, I have a feeling that we are dealing with Conservative measures from 20 years ago, when we discuss language in air navigation services. Moreover, my colleague is a private pilot and I find it fascinating to hear him say such things.

I think that French has been used as a language in Quebec airspace since 1977 or 1980-I am too young to remember-and it has been demonstrated that safety is not threatened. It was proven a long time ago that, for example, if a pilot landing a 747 in Montreal exchanges traffic or flight information with the air traffic controller in Dorval or Mirabel in French, safety is not compromised. This was the subject of a debate several years ago. Some members of Parliament even said: "If bilingualism ever comes into effect in Quebec, I will no longer want to fly in that province's airspace". Come on. That is just another case of scaremongering. This is incredible. All this to tell him that I am a little disappointed to see us get into this debate, which, in fact, is beside the point.

I would like to put a question to my colleague, whose speech was full of praise. As a pilot, I, of course, see this whole matter from a certain angle while she, as a passenger, sees the potential commercial effect on safety. I would like to know how, as a passenger and user of air transportation services, my colleague feels about this bill, which might threaten the safety of airline passengers.

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean for his question. Of course, whenever I board a plane as a passenger-and I think the same goes for most of us-I always feel a kind of natural fear. At least I do. I have not yet fully overcome my fear of flying, so this is a concern.

Since the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean asked me personally to answer this question, I must say that I might be even more fearful knowing that the priority that should be given to safety is not clearly indicated in the bill, as the Bloc Quebecois had proposed to do by inserting a preamble. That is the answer I would like to give my colleague.

In response to the parliamentary secretary, I think we are not asking the impossible. We asked him to write a few lines in a preamble showing how important it is for the government to make people like myself-I think I am not the only one-feel safer about the priority given to safety by a commercial company providing a public service.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

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.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I have two points I wish to put to the hon. member opposite.

He says there are no protections for the French language, as others in the Bloc have said. He ignores the fact that article 20 of the Nav Canada bylaws requires the corporation to comply with the Department of Transport practices and procedures with respect to bilingualism with regard to the Canadian air navigation service in effect as of the date of incorporation, a year ago last month, and to comply with any provision of the Official Languages Act. There are respect and protections for the French language in Bill C-20. I assure the member of that.

On a more important note, again the Bloc brings into question this issue of the Aéroport de Montréal and its role as the local authority, charged with the responsibility of operating the airports at Dorval and Mirabel.

It is passing strange the raison d'être of Bloc Quebecois is to relegate to provincial authority as much control from the federal institution on matters of social and economic policy. When the federal authority transfers responsibility like the operation and management of the airports to local authorities, the ADM, the Bloc says "no thank you, the local authority does not have the competence to handle the issue on these two airports and the federal government should step into this issue".

Which way does the Bloc want it? It cannot have it both ways.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we want something concrete, besides the application of the Official Languages Act. In fact, we could go on at length about the application of the Official Languages Act. Yes, we do have an act, but do French speaking

Canadians outside Quebec control their schools? Do they have control over their schools? Do they have a budget?

Some of the prairie provinces even received money from the federal government, pursuant to the Official Languages Act-

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

The members opposite could have the courtesy to listen to me, Mr. Speaker, since I listened to them.

Pursuant to the Official Languages Act, the federal government gave money to some of the prairie provinces, which used it for other purposes. Their French speaking residents are not getting any services. Where the Official Languages Act is concerned, if we do not provide for any concrete measure, we will end up with a situation like the one in Kingston, where the residents fought for three years to get a washroom installed in a high school.

If the Official Languages Act is not respected in the education field, can you imagine what will happen when we go up in the air. We need more concrete measures.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

You are avoiding the ADM question.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Now, about ADM. We never questioned ADM's right to make a decision. Never. That is not what we said. The member should listen when we talk, but he never does, he is too busy talking at the same time as we are. If he were to listen, he would realize that the lease between ADM and the federal government specifies the decisions that can and should be made by organizations such as ADM, although for that to happen we need some kind of process for the information and the analyses to be released and a forum to discuss these issues.

As for the role of government, first, the government should withdraw from the areas that do not concern it, but, second, it should not drop everything and then try to hide behind market forces. The government has to set a number of rules.

Of course, as my hon. colleague said, we are asking the federal government to withdraw from a number of areas and we do not deny that. In a sovereign Quebec, I, for one, would not want the state to interfere and try to replace the private sector, but some rules have to be set and as long as we remain part of Canada, unless we are told that we no longer belong-in which case things could be settled pretty fast-we think that an issue as important as air safety, even among two sovereign countries, should be included in agreements signed by more than one country, because, as you well know, borders do not stop planes.

The Prime Minister of Canada was the only one who had a problem with the high speed train. He said that the train would have to stop at the border. I do not know if the Prime Minister has to stop at the borders when he travels by plane, but if he does travel a little bit, he must know that borders and customs issues are settled either on departure or on arrival, but not in the air or in the middle of the tracks.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I note that the member was quite concerned about maintaining air traffic safety in this country. I am glad to hear that because I hope we all are.

My colleague from Edmonton Southwest meant that English is the language of aviation for safety purposes, not that English wants to dominate, but English was the language that was chosen. If we are going to allow any language such as French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or whatever, how are we going to be able to communicate with each other and ensure safety which the member said he was concerned about?

Has the member thought about that, or is he just trying to promote his line of thinking, which is that French has to be up there with English in every situation around the world? Has he thought about that or is he just trying to make some noise to get his point across?

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is only late by some 30 years. We discussed it here and we passed the Official Languages Act. I would like him to go to Italy and explain to Italians that it is dangerous to speak Italian in Italy. Let him try that with the Russians. You know, languages other than English are spoken in these countries, not better nor worse, only different.

There are countries where English is not spoken and aircraft still fly there. However, ICAO decided on a common language. When pilots who do not speak Italian arrive in Italy, they do not get a crash course in Italian while waiting to land. They use English as well as the Italian controller. This is part of the operating standards.

Of course, we agree that English may serve as the common language in air transportation when the pilot does not speak the language of the country. But of course, it is another when pilot and controller both speak the same language. This is the norm in all countries except in the land of the Reform Party.

[Stéphan Tremblay, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are hearing absolutely incredible things in the House today. We are getting back at the linguistic debate. We wanted to talk about the issue of security, and we have taken for granted that French had its place in the air in Quebec, but our colleagues beside us want to

debate the linguistic question again and are saying that French should be eliminated. I will not get into that debate because it is obsolete.

I would prefer to point out the intervention of my colleague for Laurier-Sainte-Marie, who was quite eloquent. He said something that I found interesting and really true. He said that, at some point in time, he was the only passenger aboard an Air Alliance plane, probably a DH-8 that can seat approximately 30 people. That illustrates very clearly the problems of small carriers. You see, a big carrier servicing the Vancouver-Montréal line has no problem because its planes are 80 per cent full most of the time. They have big planes that cost a lot of money, but there are a lot of passengers. So, they are profitable.

But, in regions, the reality is much different. The planes take off even if there are only one or fifteen passengers aboard. It does not mean that that sole passenger is not important. That passenger must be flown to Montreal. There is an air service between Montreal and, for example, Alma, which is also in my riding. This service is very important and very costly, in terms of privatization, because small carriers have very high costs even if they have only a few passengers. That explains the price of plane tickets. And this is my concern because small carriers are finding it hard to survive, due to the situation mentioned by my colleague and that small carriers experience every day. We will have to think seriously about it.

Therefore, the question I put to my colleague concerns the fact that Nav Canada will not be accountable to the government, just like ADM is not. A board is set up and the government says that if a bad decision is made, it is not its problem because it was taken by the Nav Canada board. I would like our colleague to talk a little about the problems that that may cause, since he knows better than me ADM's situation.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are two aspects that must be given special consideration when commercializing government services. First, the bureaucracy that characterizes so often the public sector must be eliminated. So, I do not think that there will be endless consultations. To avoid that, there needs to be a series of standards and the area, jurisdiction or issue that is transferred under private sector control must be regulated.

There must be standards against which the decisions can be evaluated. There must also be a complaint or consultation mechanism to determine if those standards are adhered to. That is what I think is missing in the bill. There are no specific standards concerning the use of French and even less concerning air safety.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have accepted to take part in the third reading debate of Bill C-20 because it is a bill that I am most interested in. One of the reasons is that it creates Nav Canada, a non-profit corporation, which will allow the government to apply $1,5 billion to deficit reduction. It is also because the Bloc Quebecois thinks it is a good idea to privatize air navigation and to have competent people to provide these services.

However, we have some concerns about this bill. The most important one, I think, is the fact that we do not see in this bill a clear political will to give priority to passenger and crew member safety as well as to the safe transportation of goods. In my opinion, this is a rather important issue. Personally, even though I travel almost every weekend from Ottawa to my riding and back in small aircrafts, I have not yet gotten over my fear. So when I see that the government is creating such an organization without including explicitly in its mandate the requirement to ensure passenger safety, there is cause for concern. One of the things we can expect from a society is to protect the people.

The official opposition also has a problem with the appointment of the 15 members of the board of directors. My colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, with his experience, has underlined in his speech the importance of small air carriers and of the Association québécoise des transporteurs aériens, whose interests will not necessarily be taken into account by this board of directors.

It is hard to think that the 15 members of this board, the majority of which will represent large carriers, will really care about small carriers. In establishing rates, who will they be thinking about? Normally, they will make decisions that are to their advantage and nobody will be there to defend the interests of small carriers.

For instance, if the small carriers had been given equal footing, it would have been possible for the Association québécoise de transport aérien to be represented, so that the 15 people would have included someone with the mandate to see that the French language was well represented on the board and properly defended across Canada.

The French language received a great deal of attention earlier. Several of my colleagues mentioned it in their speeches, and some of our colleagues across the way or beside us are surprised that we are raising the issue. Of course, the bill states clearly that Nav Canada will be subject to the Official Languages Act. But, Madam Speaker, you yourself are in a good position to know, coming from an officially bilingual province, that we do not always take the trouble, on a daily basis, to defend our rights and see that they are respected. There is a tendency, with the French language being the minority language in every group, to forget that French even exists and to begin speaking English and conducting all our affairs in English.

It is not because Nav Canada releases all its proceedings, reports and press releases in both languages that it is a truly bilingual organization that really cares about respecting the language of the minority. In the current context-and since the past has a tendency to repeat itself-it seems pretty hard to believe that the French language is very safe with Nav Canada.

Every year since that law came into effect 25 years ago, the Commissioner of Official Languages, who is always biased in favour of the English language, still manages to write several pages or paragraphs of his reports on the flaws in the implementation of that law with respect to French. He has done so every year for 25 years.

Since there is no guarantee in that regard, you can understand why, although we in the Bloc Quebecois basically agree with the creation of Nav Canada, we are opposed to this bill, which does not give us all the guarantees in that regard.

We could go on discussing this problem for a very long time, but if we listen to some of the members in this House-for example, I read again with interest the comments made by the parliamentary secretary-I understand that Transport Canada will remain responsible for setting the safety regulations and standards applying to this new corporation and for monitoring operations to ensure compliance.

The Bloc Quebecois wanted this bill to specify that safety had priority over all commercial decisions made by Nav Canada, but all the amendments proposed by the Bloc were rejected. One of our amendments had been accepted by the committee, but it disappeared as if by magic when we got to the vote at the committee report stage.

Speaking of committee work, one may wonder why the House bothered to create these committees. Perhaps to give the illusion that this is a democracy. These committees can ask people to testify, hear witnesses and travel across the country. These committees can travel and meet people across the country or they can get people to testify at a hearing here in Ottawa, but when the government makes a decision, no one can change its mind because, with its large majority, all it has to do is vote against all the amendments proposed by the opposition, even if many of them were designed to improve the situation. They were not designed to undermine the bill. On the contrary, we wanted to make sure certain important elements would be included in the bill, but they were not.

Once again, the government is turning a deaf ear to everything we propose. It seems important also to look at another bad habit this government has. It will become obvious with another bill coming up for debate in this House, but let me just say that the government has this funny little way, every time it brings in a bill, of providing for exemptions in the legislation. This time, National Defence is exempted from the charges.

Given the number of DND aircraft that will fly in Canadian airspace and use our airports and the air navigation services they provide, by deciding to exempt the Department of National Defence from the application of this bill, the government itself is depriving Nav Canada of an important source of revenue. At the same time, the government is asking Nav Canada, this not for profit corporation, to balance its budget, while depriving it from the start of an important source of revenue. I wonder why the government is doing this.

Required to act, it does away with a function by transferring it to a private sector corporation and tells this corporation it shall be a not for profit corporation, which in itself is excellent. For once, the government is not privatizing for the benefit of some friends of the government, but rather putting local stakeholders in charge of operating the air navigation system, which is already giving it half a chance of succeeding.

However, the government is telling the new corporation it has to cough up $1.5 billion to start up. While the government may offer interesting terms and conditions, as a client, it will be exempt. The Canadian government's reasoning is really hard to follow, because one has to wonder how it will manage to make up for these massive revenues it will be forfeiting.

In a different but related vein, the Bloc Quebecois suggested many amendments to the government right from the start. We requested changes regarding the corporation's board of directors. We asked that efforts be made to ensure safety and security. But each and every time, the government denied our requests. The result is that problems will surface for small carriers in the various regions of the country, including companies that fly tourists. These small carriers will find themselves in difficult situations.

We seem to be the only ones interested in carrying on the debate but, believe me, we are not trying to kill time. We know we have a very important agenda involving other issues. However, we are using the few minutes at our disposal to tell the public, and to convince our fellow members, that the bill presents a danger, since it is not specified in Nav Can's mandate-the agency that will manage air navigation services in Canada-that the safety of passengers, airline personnel and the public must have priority.

Be that as it may, I want to point out one aspect of the bill which may be somewhat unfair. New companies or newcomers relying on Nav Canada must not be adversely affected. Priority must also be given to regional development. I am thinking of a region like mine.

The airport is currently managed by the federal government, but it will be transferred to the private sector.

Negotiations are ongoing which should help resolve this issue in the near future. However, since Nav Canada will be responsible for the control tower and another private corporation will be responsible for managing the Mont-Joli airport, if, for example, the board of directors of that corporation decides that it needs new equipment in the control tower to promote airport expansion and regional development, that decision will have to be approved by Nav Canada.

Since Nav Canada's first concern will be to balance its budget, it is likely that both corporations will have conflicting objectives. Therefore, Nav Canada could say, for example, that unfortunately it cannot approve the acquisition of such equipment because the volume is not sufficient. That would have a direct negative impact on the development of our region.

We will find ourselves in situations like that, where it will be difficult to make a decision because we will likely have a problem with regard to the number of passengers.

My colleague who spoke before me mentioned that it happened to him to be the only passenger on a plane. Unfortunately, we know that, in the regions, Canadian carriers compete in a rather stupid way. For example, instead of having two flights in the morning at different times, they have two flights that leave within five minutes of each other just to try to compete. Very often, one of these flights leaves with very few passengers on board. I have travelled very often between Ottawa and Rimouski on flights that were half-full or half-empty, whichever you prefer.

When the situation gets this bad, it means that things have to change if we want to have air transport in the regions once again. We need it but we have lost it, mainly because of the fares we have to pay to support trans-Atlantic flights. Studies have shown that, unfortunately, regional fares are very high to compensate for lower fares on trans-Atlantic flights.

It is also known that all flights departing from or arriving in Ottawa are more expensive than others since the main purchaser of plane tickets is the Canadian government. Even when all carriers lower their fares, they make sure that these reductions do not apply to flights between Ottawa and the regions so that they can make as much money as they can.

We will find ourselves in a somewhat difficult situation in terms of development. Unfortunately, we will have to see this new corporation in action but, as you already know, we will not support this bill.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, I want to quickly address a couple of concerns brought forward by the hon. member.

The Bloc worries that a facility at a smaller airport could be closed down because it is not profitable. This concern is probably based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Nav Canada.

Nav Canada is a not for profit entity. Its focus will be on whether particular services are necessary for safety and wanted by the users, not on the profitability of such services. Financial consideration become relevant only in so far as the needs of the users are affected and their willingness to pay for these services.

However, if a particular service is required in the interests of safety, and I heard the hon. member address this point too, it will be provided. It will be required regardless of the financial considerations.

What about air navigation services at local airports? There are a number of air navigation services at existing airports that are not required under the criteria laid out by Transport Canada. It is reasonable to assume Nav Canada would try to rationalize some of those services, although it does not mean safety or even levels of service will suffer.

With constantly improving technology it is possible to provide the same or even better levels of service from centralized facilities. In all such cases the corporation will be required to consult widely before acting. It has to provide due notice and it has to establish with Transport Canada regulators that the proposed change in service does not affect safety. These are all the provisions built into Bill C-20.

Unfortunately I did not see the hon. member at committee. I understand we cannot attend all committees but we do have our concerns.

Nav Canada is a not for profit corporation, not a company going out to take over the air navigation services from the government trying to make big money. That is not the object of Nav Canada. I hope with these assurances the hon. member will see fit to support the bill.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear my hon. colleague continue to repeat, since this is not the first time that he says so in the House, that Nav Canada will have safety as its priority. It is clear to us. We said we approved the idea of creating a non profit agency. There was never any doubt about that. We think it an excellent idea.

When people came before the committee to explain the bill in more detail, we asked them whether Nav Canada's mandate provided a guarantee or a clause giving safety priority over a balanced budget. The answer given in committee was the budget had to be balanced.

According to the information I have obtained, Nav Canada's mandate gives priority to passenger, personnel and cargo safety. This fact was never mentioned in committee. If in fact it does, I wonder where it is set out, because we did not see it in the bill, and there was no mention in committee.

Now, with regard to our concern that Nav Canada will hinder the development of certain regions, I have only to look at what is happening in my own riding. Air transport has dropped, and prices have risen. In order to spend a weekend in my riding, I have to pay twice the cost of a trip between Montreal and Paris. There are extras and conditions that block the development of an airport like that of Rimouski.

On top of that there is the non profit organization that, in order to balance its budget, may forego buying certain equipment. Everything develops quickly. Today's high tech will perhaps give us the means to manage our control towers much more effectively than we do at the moment. As we know, however, the price of such things keeps going up. So perhaps Nav Canada will hinder the development of a region like mine-not only my region, but a lot of similar regions-where there are low traffic airports. Nav Canada is an operation whose prime concern may not necessarily be safety, and this is one of our basic concerns.

[Paul Mercier, Bloc, Blainville—Deux-Montagnes, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata has rightfully pointed out the impact of language on safety. Before her, my parliamentary leader mentioned the airspace over Magdalen Islands, where pilots cannot receive services in French because these islands are served by a base in Moncton.

I think my parliamentary leader does not have to go as far as the Magdalen Islands to find a case in which the Official Languages Act is not being complied with. All he has to do is stay here on Parliament Hill where, a few days ago, I received from the office of the clerk of the transport committee an eight-line text with five errors in French.

How can we believe that French is respected in this country after receiving such texts?

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that we may seem a tad touchy on the linguistic issue. There is no denying it can always be argued that there is the Official Languages Act. But as I and many of my hon. colleagues have said, and will keep repeating for as long as we are in this place, the French language is in peril in Canada.

Commendable efforts are made by everyone involved in transcribing speeches and committee proceedings, but still, all too often and in the case of some offices more than others, clearly a closer attention ought to be paid to language quality.

As for the use of the French language in the air transportation industry, it can be a major problem. For instance, there are times when on a flight from Ottawa to Toronto, not a soul on the plane speaks French, including the captain, who may not even understand French. An absolutely brilliant solution was found. At the touch of a button-we can now have a perfectly bilingual person filling the job-a pre-recorded message is played in English or, at the touch of a button, a voice explains in good French how to fasten our seat belts, what the safety rules are, and so on. Pre-recorded messages are used onboard many planes now. The trouble is that, if something unforeseen happens, we cannot just push a button and hear: "Take off has been aborted; we are going back to the airport." These explanations would then have to be given in English.

Already, we notice in the transportation industry, and at Air Canada in particular, that since being privatized, the company has considerably lowered its standards regarding the use of the French language. There are now captains who speak English only. They would be in big trouble if they were flying an international flight and had to land in Paris for example.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate at third reading on Bill C-20, an Act respecting the commercialization of civil air navigation services.

Let me first say a word about my personnel flying experience. I am not very brave when it comes to flying. I only do so out of obligation, not pleasure. If, in addition to my natural fear, I feel my personal safety is at risk when I board an aircraft, I might think twice before flying again.

Nav Canada was just recently established. Incidentally, we have nothing against this non-profit corporation, which will manage services that are of public interest. It reminds me of a very similar corporation which I will tell you about, because it concerns people in my region.

Not too long ago, a similar non-profit corporation was established to manage services that are of public interest. I am referring to ADM. ADM is the corporation managing the Montreal and Mirabel airports.

Lately, it made a decision which, personally as member for Laurentides, I find totally unacceptable. This corporation, which is made up of business persons, is not accountable to the public. Its

members made a decision; they decided to transfer flights to Dorval; they decided to invest millions of dollars to develop Dorval airport without any public consultation.

ADM's decision to transfer flights was arrived at without public involvement. Social, economic and environmental impacts were not explained to decision makers as a whole, other stakeholders and people living in and around the areas concerned. This is funny, because this government is telling us about the fine well articulated pieces of legislation we have in this great country to ensure its prosperity, but it does not abide by them.

Not very long ago, the environment minister tabled an environmental bill we just could not support. We voted against it, but it was passed anyway by the government and is now in force. It concerns environmental assessments and overlaps our own legislation, the BAPE. In Quebec, we already had something which worked very well, but the federal government insisted on passing a bill on environmental assessments. This is fine and dandy.

And now, with ADM, our hands are tied. ADM goes ahead with its decision. We cannot demand that it shows us its assessments. We are not asking for new ones, it tells us it has already conducted assessments. All we want is to see the results, we want the process to be open. Same thing with the economic impact, and the social impact as well. What will happen in a region such as mine, the Laurentides region, and in the regions of Argenteuil-Papineau and Blainville-Deux-Montagnes, represented by two of my colleagues? What kind of impact will this have not only socially, on the community, but also on employment?

Especially when we are told that, within 15 years, operations will have to move back to Mirabel. As far as I am concerned, this is a decision that does not make any sense. We want facts. Prove to us that this is indeed the right decision. Produce the documents we have requested, put them on the table so that we can take a good look at them, then maybe, we will be in a position to discuss. For the time being, there is nothing definite. There is nothing on the table and we cannot get our hands on any facts. ADM is seven individuals who have made a certain decision.

I am not saying that a corporation like ADM or Nav Canada cannot make decisions, but I do think that, before creating a corporation like Nav Canada, which is already in existence, and passing this kind of legislation, in light of what ADM had done, we must make sure not to repeat our mistakes the second time around with this other not-for-profit corporation.

We should take some of the mistakes made par ADM and use them as examples to ensure that the same mistakes are not made again with another not-for-profit corporation. In privatizing services and transferring them to corporations along with the decision-making authority, we always run the risk of having decisions made behind closed doors, decisions that I personally find undemocratic, as I said earlier.

Bill C-20 just created yet another not for profit management corporation, which could at any time make the same kind of decisions that ADM made, decisions that may not be desirable because of the waves they are bound to make and the controversy they will cause in the public. I wonder why the government is not consulting the public before, instead of having to mend the fences after.

Here is one of many articles I have gathered on the subject. Let us say that, since ADM decided to sue, a flock of people have been writing on the subject. This paper on Mirabel reads as follows: "The future of Mirabel is closely connected to the future of the greater Montreal area, which will not do without its international airport". That was written by Jean Cournoyer.

Mirabel is not bankrupt, on the contrary. Mirabel is profitable but remains incomplete because, while the work was under way, the conductor did not agree with the concert master on the piece to be played. It is still a bold enterprise which, for reasons that do not come under its responsibility, ran out of breath before getting to the finish line.

In 1993, ADM, having done its homework, announced that the best solution to the problem of the two airports was to maintain the status quo. In 1993, it was the status quo. Three years later in 1996, ADM, after redoing its homework, announces that two airports are an impediment to traffic growth and proposes to allow regular international flights to land in Dorval.

As a staunch defender of freedom, I really believe that the main concern of an airport is to meet the needs of its clients. But let us consider the price we will have to pay to meet the needs of a hypothetical clientele: $36.4 million to build a temporary international jetty and renovate the international arrival lounge, plus $185 million to build a permanent international jetty and expand the multi-level parking garage, for a total of $221 million, except for the cost of an underground terminal for regular trains from Ottawa and Montreal. When I see that this money is to be invested over a 15-year period only, I do not understand the decision that was made. The people in my region are very disappointed in ADM's approach.

I now get back to Nav Canada, a non-profit organization. I sincerely believe that, in a case like this one-and, again, non-profit organizations are an excellent thing, but we must use both bad and good examples. Certainly, good things were achieved, but mistakes were also made by corporations like ADM. Before drafting a bill, we should at least ensure that public safety is mentioned in the preamble. That is a priority. Plane crashes are often fatal. I think the first thing we must do is to reassure the

people who fly-and who pay good money to do so-that their lives are not in danger.

[Paul Mercier, Bloc, Blainville—Deux-Montagnes, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of the hon. member for Laurentides regarding Mirabel airport and ADM. She was right on track, because there is an obvious similarity between ADM and Nav Canada, as we have been pointing out since this morning, and also in recent days. Both are private corporations with a mandate to provide services to the public. However, privatization has resulted in reduced services to the public. For example, ADM is not concerned by the Access to Information Act, while Nav Canada is not subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act.

I want to ask the hon. member if this is how she sees things, and if she feels ADM's decision should be postponed, considering that it is not accountable to anyone, regardless of the statement to the effect that ADM is free to make its own decisions and is accountable to no one in that regard.

So, my question is: Does the hon. member feel this measure should be postponed? Dorval was supposed to close five years after Mirabel opened. It did not happen because of a lack of political courage, with the result that we now find ourselves in this extremely complicated situation.

Does the hon. member feel, as I do, that this decision should be postponed?