Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-49, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on December 10, 2001.
I could mention all of the ridings one by one to show that my own riding covers an area of 802,000 square kilometres, compared to some other ridings with an area of only 10 to 14 square kilometres. Coming back to the bill, I intend to criticize it. And if I intend to mention all of the ridings one by one, I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will stop me once I get to the opposition ridings.
I will be speaking on behalf of taxpayers of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik and certain regions of Quebec. Even though I represent a very remote area of Quebec, if members take a close look at the bill, in particular from page 70 on, they will see that we are being penalized in terms of air security fees charged in airports. There is no problem in major centres, but if members look at the list of airports on page 70, they will see that some are located in remote areas.
On January 30, the Liberal member for Nunavut asked a question to the Minister of Finance, and I quote:
How will the Minister of Finance protect northerners from these added costs? Is he prepared to reconsider the charges in the North?
The Minister gave an excellent answer. In the second paragraph of his answer, he stated, and I quote:
In that context, I am very pleased to confirm that the charge will not be applied to direct flights to or from the smaller and remote airports that make up the vast majority of the airports in the North.