Mr. Speaker, I would love to have an hour but I am splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon--Humboldt, so I will have to keep my comments fairly brief.
Bill C-49 is a response to implement the budget tabled on December 10, 2001. Although there are six major parts to the bill, I would like to concentrate on three of them: part 1, the air transport security authority act; part 2, the air travellers security charge act; and part 6, the Canada strategic infrastructure fund act.
I will begin my comments by following up on what my colleagues have said on the government's decision on the Canada strategic infrastructure fund act. When the government announced this in the budget, the money was to be administered by a foundation with a board of directors. The foundation was to be responsible for assessing the potential of these projects and making the decisions on key public infrastructure projects based on their merits.
Somewhere between December 10 and February 5, the government changed its mind. We have heard all kinds of explanations as to why it changed its mind, but there seems to be only one simple reason, that is, government members of parliament do not want an arm's length foundation and do not want to have to go to it to lobby for money for projects in their ridings.
There is widespread support throughout our country for this type of infrastructure program. We have seen, at least in my part of Canada, some really good projects like the Annacis Island sewage treatment plant for the greater Vancouver area. However we have seen an awful lot of wasteful projects as well, like the fountains in the Prime Minister's riding, projects that occur when funds are distributed for political reasons.
It is amazing that it took the Liberals almost two years to come up with a budget but less than two months to change the delivery of that budget.
The Canadian air transport security authority is also covered in this act. It creates this arm's length authority to oversee activity in Canada's airline industry. What is really significant about this in Bill C-49 is that it totally ignores a report from the committee on transport. The transport committee studied aviation security from October to December. We heard from dozens of individuals and organizations in our hearings on aviation security. We received testimony from individuals and groups on every aspect of the aviation industry in the country. Not only that, we travelled to Washington, D.C. and heard from senior members of the federal aviation administration and other authorities in the United States regarding civil aviation. The committee took in all this information. Those of us on the committee worked in a non-partisan manner and I mean that honestly. We produced an excellent report on aviation security.
One of the major recommendations in the report was the creation of a new secretary of state for transportation security. The reason is that we realized the importance of having an elected official who would be responsible for aviation security as well as the other modes of transportation and who would report back to parliament and be held accountable. However the government decided to ignore the report and instead created an authority to oversee aviation security. This authority will consist of a board of 11 directors, including a chairman.
What type of airport or aviation security will we have? We do not know, because of course the bill does not go into details as to what the security will be and it passes on this decision making authority to this board of directors. Whether we have government employees or contractors providing this aviation security, it will depend on a decision by this arm's length authority. Given the tax the finance minister is imposing on air travellers, this authority will have a budget of $2.2 billion over the next five years.
In comparison let us look at the two ways of dealing with things, the infrastructure and the airline security.
The government rejects the use of an arm's length foundation to be responsible for the $2 billion strategic infrastructure fund, with the Prime Minister claiming that these decisions should be made by a minister of the crown who is accountable to the House of Commons. Then in the very same bill, it rejected the Commons committee report that asked for the creation of a new minister of the crown who would be accountable to the House of Commons and instead put it into an arm's length authority for a budget of $2.2 billion.
Why the discrepancy? Why on one hand the argument to have an arm's length organization to oversee the $2.2 billion and on the other hand the need to have a minister overseeing $2 billion? It just does not make sense. Could it be that the Liberals have not yet figured out how to use the aviation security budget to line the pockets of their friends for patronage purposes?
When we look at the $2.2 billion budget and the air traveller security charge that is included in the act, we have to look at what it is about. This is a $12 one way ticket charge for all air travellers in Canada and a $24 return charge on international flights. Look at an airline that is trying to reduce the cost of air travel to get passengers off the roads and into planes. The fare for a trip between Calgary and Edmonton or Vancouver and Kelowna is under $100. This tax that will be imposed on the traveller will increase their airfares by over 20%. This increase will take hundreds if not thousands of people off planes and put them on our already crowded road infrastructure.
We can understand why there were over 15,000 passengers with WestJet who signed a petition asking the government to reconsider.
Compare that to how the United States handles this. The United States has implemented a similar fee, but it is only $2.50 U.S. one way with a maximum of $5. Why are the Americans, with their overwhelming airline security, two or three layers of screening, bomb sniffing dogs and the use of the national guard only charging $2.50 while the Canadian government is charging $12 a flight? There are two possible explanations.
The first explanation could be that this is the way the government is handling the value of the Canadian dollar, that it believes that the $2.50 U.S. will be worth $12 Canadian at some point this year. The other explanation is that the $12 fee is needed to provide patronage positions to Liberal hacks.
The response of the government to this outrageous tax is ludicrous. The government and the Minister of Transportation have said that the high security tax would actually increase airline traffic by reassuring the travelling public that they would be safe. These comments demonstrate how disconnected the minister and the government are from reality. If they really believe this why is the tax not $100?
It is ironic that the day Air Canada announced that it lost $1.25 billion last year, the government did everything possible to prevent more Canadians from flying.
Then we have the finance minister saying that this is just a user fee and that airline passengers are the only ones who benefit from the airline security. Did the finance minister not watch what happened on September 11? More people died in offices and going to work than people who were in the airplanes. Those people who died were policemen, firefighters and people sitting in their offices. Aviation security is everyone's concern and that cost should be shared by all. That was a recommendation from the transport committee and was ignored by the minister.
In conclusion, there should be one individual responsible and that person should be sitting in the House of Commons reporting to parliament. The security tax is out of proportion and will probably become the next Liberal billion dollar boondoggle.