Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to speak to the opposition motion. I will share my time with the member for Mississauga West.
Today's motion reminded me of what happened in the early days of aircraft flying. I am reminded of a story told by Bishop Wright one Sunday in church when he was lecturing to the congregation. At that time there were two significant things happening. One was that there were to be blood transfusions coming out of Stanford and he thought that was not a good thing. There was no mention of it in the Bible. As well, he said “I hear that some people have developed some of these metal things that can fly”. He said “Ladies and gentlemen of the congregation, I want to tell you that flying is only reserved for angels”.
The government is here to make legislative changes, but those changes have to be what is best for Canadians. The country is large and has a northern climate. There are airports in many remote areas. Canadians would like to be able to get across this country as often as they can and as cheaply as they can. Every once in a while when it gets a little cold they want to go south. As a member of the transport committee, the question I have is what is in the best interests of the public and how can we get there? The minister has outlined five points.
The problem with the debate today is that it is being clouded by extemporaneous things. We have our own little nuances and little enclaves because we are a federation. We have to look beyond the federation to see how the system can be better while being reminded that this is a Canadian institution. None of us in the House, including members on this side, will ever give that up.
We want to have full control of the Canadian airline industry. So far we have done well. We started with Air Canada which had a lot of help from the government. The government helped Air Canada get on its feet. As always happens in this place, when Air Canada started making money the opposition did not like it and we had to privatize it. We said it was okay, that it could fly on its own.
Later on we did the same thing for Canadian Airlines in a balanced approach. We gave it some international routes and allowed it some slots in British airports. It is working quite well.
The transport committee heard from the Canadian Transportation Agency. It heard from the Competition Bureau. They have a lot of resources, skills and experience. They told us that we have benefited from deregulation over the last number of years.
I do not think the Minister of Transport got up one morning and decided that the industry had a problem. We ended up with this problem because of the changes in the international market, in international allegiances and alliances and because things do change in the marketplace.