Mr. Speaker, it is true it now appears that the two airline companies were having discussions earlier this year. In the month of March, Air Canada was the first to raise with my officials the use of section 47. We now know that it was in connection with those discussions, but no action was taken and there was no formal request because the talks fell apart.
In June of this year, first Air Canada, with its proposal for the Canadian Airlines international routes, and then Canadian Airlines came to us and talked about a need to restructure the industry. That is why we used section 47.