Madam Speaker, I lived in the north of Canada for 15 years. I lived in a community where we thought we would have scheduled airline service but no one would take it. It was not profitable for a company to keep a service there.
If people want airline service they must use it. When an airline like Air Canada has a monopoly it tends to drive the little airlines out of business. The little airlines can offer that service in the north. I will use the example of Hawk Air in British Columbia that started out with one plane, a Dash 8. It flies from Terrace to Vancouver and I think Terrace to Prince George as well. It runs a couple of trips a day providing good service and undercutting Air Canada. Hawk Air has since bought a second airplane to service other communities.
If we allow those smaller airlines to grow they will provide the service but when there are dominant air carriers that go out of their way to undercut these smaller air carriers and drive them out of business, the smaller carriers are not allowed the opportunity to grow.
When we handle the restructuring of the airline industries in Canada, we must ensure that the Hawk Airs in Canada are given the opportunity to grow, to expand and to have control over and be able to function in their marketplace without the fear of having a big carrier come in and chase them out because they built the business, which then becomes viable for a bigger carrier which comes in and drives them out. We have seen that in the country more than enough.
The time has come for us to recognize and support smaller operators who may have half a dozen planes but who serve the north and isolated areas better than the bigger carriers will in the long run. We have to make sure they can survive.
I think the government must look at this from a bigger perspective and in a broader scope by being creative and supportive to the small business guy who is willing to serve those markets given half a chance.