Mr. Speaker, I will be giving the government's view in a minute, but both the member for Cumberland—Colchester and the member for Brandon—Souris took us to task on a lack of vision with the airline policy. That party supported the government on Bill C-26 and I was very glad of that support.
I would like to ask my colleagues over there what was the alternative they wanted to what we actually did. Did they want the Government of Canada, the taxpayers of Canada, to bail out Canadian Airlines yet again? Did they want a bankruptcy of Canadian Airlines like some of their columnist friends in the national newspapers? Did they want 16,000 people put out on the street, including many in western Canada, Manitoba, the province of the hon. member for Brandon—Souris? I put that to them.
Would they have wanted an incredible disruption at Christmas where there was not capacity from Air Canada, U.S. carriers or our own charters? Thousands and thousands of people would have been stranded and in chaos at the airports. Is that the kind of chaotic policy response the Conservative Party follows?
We can see the chaos in their own party on an ongoing basis. It is okay for them to muck up their own party but do not ask us to muck up the airlines system just to emulate their own lack of cohesion.