Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this has been ongoing now for some months. I really feel fortunate to have been involved with this because it has been an extremely interesting process.
We were thrown into the middle of this airline merger when Canadian Airlines was presented a proposal to be bought out and then merged with another airline. It was an interesting process and we met some incredibly interesting people. We dealt with some complex issues. As a committee we went into the process truly amateurs with very little knowledge about the background of the industry, the participants or the issues. However, we were educated by dozens and dozens of people from corporations and groups who made presentations to our committee. Every presentation was beneficial and taught us something. By the time the committee process was done we actually had a pretty good handle on it. We were able to participate and add something to the debate and to the legislation.
The dynamics of the committee were really interesting in that I do not think I have ever been on a committee where, although there was some partisanship, everybody took a sincere interest in trying to find answers to the problems. The government committee members were just as aggressive as anybody in grilling the witnesses. The chair was certainly aggressive in his treatment of the issue. He knew what he was talking about. He took the time to understand it.
Although the member for Hamilton West is very humble and would be embarrassed to hear me say this, he actually did a good job in running the committee. I do not think we could call him a good friend to anyone on the committee, but he ran the committee hard. He kept it focused, on track and did a good job, which is what the chairman is supposed to do.
I will take a little interpretive licence here. The minister was caught off guard when this whole issue unfolded and evolved before his very eyes. A lot of us were watching to see how he would handle it and to see if he could find a way out of the mess that really was not of his doing. He had limited tools to work with because there are only certain things the government, a minister or the department can do. If the companies at the centre of this issue were not prepared to invest money or make these decisions, and if the shareholders would not back up the decisions, then the minister was limited in what he could do. It was interesting to watch those dynamics.
It was interesting to meet Kevin Benson, Robert Milton and even Gerry Schwartz who came before the committee. They all did a great job considering that their job was to represent their shareholders. Their job was not to represent the public interest. That was our job. I learned a lot from each and every one of them. I will never forget the experience as we went through this process.
We had a puzzle to deal with, at least I found it to be a puzzle. Where does the Canadian Transportation Agency fit? Where does the Transportation Safety Board fit? Where does the Department of Transport fit? Where does the Competition Bureau fit? We had to learn about all these issues and try to fit each one into a slot where they could be effective and produce the desired results. Of course, there were surprises because every day something would change. It was almost like the politics in our party, it changes every day.