Mr. Speaker, as I said in my remarks, when Air Canada was privatized the decision was made to limit single shareholders to 10%. That was done so that the shares would be widely distributed across Canada. I was not there at the time, but it was probably a sensible policy decision. My colleague was there and he agrees with me. The irony is that there is no such requirement for Canadian Airlines.
Foreign ownership is another interesting twist. In the Onex proposal, American Airlines would actually own less of Canadian Airlines than it owns today. I think it owns about 34% or 35% today. That would come down to about 15%. How can we apply one standard for Air Canada and another for Canadian Airlines?
The policy objective of widely distributing participation in Air Canada has been met. Why do we perpetuate this? It is a good debating point, but to me it does not make any sense to close down the option until we have had a discussion about it. Frankly, I do not see the public policy objective.
The unfortunate thing is that when Canadian Airlines was in severe financial difficulty American Airlines came in, put a lot of money into Canadian and sewed up a lot of agreements which, in the final analysis, as a business proposition, was probably the thing that had to be done. However, at the end of the day, Canadian has been strapped with some agreements which have really hampered it.
I am not very happy with the extent of control American Airlines might have over Canadian the way it is structured now. However, I gather that Onex has come forward this afternoon with a new proposal and I will read it with interest.