Madam Speaker, if regional carriers and smaller carriers had the freedom to grow and expand their market then local businesses could expand and service areas that may not now be serviced.
I take one example of a small local airline that started up in Terrace, B.C., a very small community in northern B.C. with about 15,000 people. It has one or two Dash 8s and provides a two-way service twice a day from Vancouver to Terrace. Because it is local, it offers good service and it originates out of Terrace, it is now bringing in another plane to service the surrounding communities. However, if we allow a dominant carrier to come in, interrupt and interfere with that local airline's potential growth perspective and the travelling public's access to that airline, then it will not maintain its ability to remain in the business.
We need to free up and encourage Air Canada, as the dominant carrier, to concentrate on being the national carrier and to stop trying to drive out the WestJets, the CanJets and other airlines that can provide regional carriage and do it well and service the communities well. If we allow the dominant carrier to replace them, the time will come when they will remove the service as they have done now.
What we want to do is encourage the smaller airlines to fulfill that role in our society. They can do it and they can do it very well.