Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Matapédia—Matane for his question. The member for Chicoutimi agreed with his question.
The member for Chicoutimi is not a Montrealer, he is a fellow who knows the people in the regions well. Someone who is in shape can bicycle from Montreal to Ottawa. In Montreal, they have means of transportation, such as buses, trains, airplanes, taxis and cars.
In the regions, it is ten hours by car to travel the 950 kilometres from my place to Ottawa. There is a port and airport infrastructure in Baie-Comeau. There is an airport, which we must keep. It is very expensive to travel from Baie-Comeau to Montreal. Right now, we are worried about whether we will have one regional carrier or two.
Recently, I was speaking with the representative of a regional carrier and he told me that it was hard to make any money because there were not enough passengers. But there are not enough passengers because of the cost. It is the chicken and the egg. When it is necessary to fly from Baie-Comeau to Quebec City for professional services or health care, it costs a fortune, but there is no alternative because it is 450 kilometres by car. There are many so-called captive passengers who have to fly from Baie-Comeau to Quebec City, and they do not even get same day service.
We will never agree to the federal government closing our airports and we demand that it provide the regions with the same services major centres get.