Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a brief question of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance concerning the provision in the budget for a $12 fee for each leg of a round trip flight. As the parliamentary secretary would know, this will impose a very serious hardship on many Canadian travellers and have a very adverse impact on the travel industry, in particular on smaller airlines.
I want to point out that on flights which may be very short flights, Vancouver to Victoria, for example, flights of a very limited duration that have very low fares and may cost under $100, this would result in something like a 25% increase overall in the cost of that fare.
I want to ask the parliamentary secretary a very serious question in terms of the possibility that the government might be willing to re-examine this issue or, at the very least, if it is not prepared to eliminate or significantly reduce this $24 additional burden on travellers, would it be prepared to look at the possibility of some sort of exemption below which that fee would not be charged? For example, on a round trip fare of less than $500 or less than $300, something of that nature, travellers would not have to pay a very substantial percentage in a new fee for a round trip fare. Would the parliamentary secretary be prepared to consider that option to assist travellers?