Madam Speaker, the member and members of the committee seemed to put a lot of confidence in the airline ombudsman who will deal with the difficulties and questions that arise as a result of the consolidation that has taken place in the airline industry in Canada.
A while back the official opposition tried to institute another ombudsman, the first nations ombudsman, to try to bring some accountability to first nations undertakings. The House deemed that such an officer would not really be effective or necessary in relation to aboriginal affairs.
I note that the office of ombudsman for the airlines was not a creation of the airline executives or I am sure we never would have had it. Yet the minister of Indian affairs seems to think it has to be the chiefs who create an office of ombudsman if ever there were to be such a thing with Indian affairs. It occurred to me that there was quite a bit of hypocrisy evident in such a position.
Moving on, I would like my hon. colleague's comments on another aspect of competition. It concerns not prices, not frequency or anything like that but that little word innovation which often comes to light when people are in competition with one another. In other words, how can we attract customers? How can we best serve customers? How can we make things happen?
One of the things I was interested in as a business traveller was that Canadian Airlines made provision for computer plug-ins. It seems a small thing but when we are on a long flight and we want to do some work we end up doing work somewhere between Toronto and Winnipeg. That is not necessarily the full extent of a lot of our trips. That is just one small example of innovation.
Despite the Competition Act, I wonder what my hon. colleague thinks is now going to drive innovation. We know that business class subsidizes seat sales and will continue to do so, but how is that going to work with respect to innovation in airline travel? Will we see many changes in the future or are we going to be stuck with what we have?