Madam Speaker, constituents in my riding find it insulting every time a Bloc member talks about taking a major part of the country out of confederation. I do not apologize for a single thing I said in this or any other speech in regard to that.
Let me answer the question. The member talks about servicing small communities. I can tell him that my province of Ontario has many small communities as he would well know, as does the province of Quebec. I can tell him that the government is concerned that those communities continue to be serviced by air.
The airline industry is part of nation building. We cannot leave the people of Nunavut without that kind of service. We cannot leave northern Quebec and remote regions in Labrador or western Canada without some kind of access to affordable quality service. The minister has laid that out in his program which he presented to the committee. Pricing is absolutely a concern. Service to small communities is a concern. Jobs are a concern, not only for Air Canada employees, but for Canadian employees.
I believe that through debate in parliament, through discussion in committee, through submissions that will be made by many people who will be appearing before the transport committee, all of those issues need to be addressed. I agree with the member that they are extremely important. The government is committed to that.
Above all, the government is committed to ensuring that we continue to have one of the finest, safest airline industries in the world, which we do. We have terrific people who work in them and we have two quality airlines. We just have one that is in serious financial trouble and that issue must be addressed.