Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this important matter. There are a number of points I wish to make. I listened to the speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I found it curious that he took a shot at the official opposition on the question of free votes, in that when we vote in unison somehow that is free votes, but when the government does not do it that is not somehow imposing party discipline.
Coming from the authority he has as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, I find it absurd for him to stand in the House and lecture anybody on the issue of free votes and represent democracy. Consider the debacle that happened in the second election of the chair of the finance committee and how much of an embarrassment that was, not only to the Liberal government, but to the entire House and to democracy.
What is more, consider the lack of democracy at the finance committee when the Liberal member of parliament for Hillsborough, Prince Edward Island, dared to say that he might vote in favour of lowering a tax. Then the committee was gaveled and shut down. We came to the House to vote 15 minutes before any of the other committee meetings broke to come to the House for the vote. Moreover, the chair of the committee would not entertain a vote prior to us coming here even though there was nobody left on the speaking roster.
Clearly, the whip appointed chair of the finance committee did not like what was going on. When we came back to the committee after the vote, the member for Hillsborough was nowhere to be seen for close to half an hour. Then when the Liberal member for Hillsborough came into the committee, he said that he had been made aware that the government would be reviewing this tax sometime in the fall. Therefore, he was not going to vote for my amendment to cut the tax in half.
It was curious given that he said he learned that information in the previous half hour while we were voting. The government said that back in December. Somehow it was a revelation to him even though the information had been made public almost two and a half months prior.
I want to speak to Motion No. 10 which is to remove northern airports from this list. In the House of Commons the finance minister said and I quote:
--the charge will not be applied to direct flights to and from the smaller and remote airports that make up the vast majority of the airports in the north.
I challenged the finance minister and the Liberal government to live up to that recommendation at committee. I tabled a bunch of small and rural communities and airports at committee for them to vote on, to put some muscle behind their rhetoric.
I put the Inuit village of Rankin Inlet which has a population of 2,500 people on the list. It is exempt from the tax. I also put the smaller community of Kuujjuaq, with a population of 1,470, on the list to have exempted. In Liberal math 1,470 is bigger than 2,500. For some reason the people of Kuujjuaq with a population of 1,470 will have to pay the $24 round trip air tax, but the people of Rankin Inlet with a population of 2,500 will not.
Frankly, the government did not fulfill the spirit of what was said by the finance minister in the House. What was very interesting was I said that Miramichi, New Brunswick, another small community, should taken off the list, the argument being that there was no air service to its airport. Somehow the government said that it needed 90 airports, a round number, so Miramichi, New Brunswick was left on the list. There is no air service to Miramichi, New Brunswick, none whatsoever.
Liberals at the committee and all the genius that was mustered said that they would agree with my amendment to take Miramichi, New Brunswick off the list.
After that we voted on taking Dawson Creek off the list, another small city in British Columbia. The Liberals said no, that we could not do that. They also voted to keep Churchill Falls on the list. Churchill Falls has a population of 717 people. It is a small, rural, northern community which is trying to pull the community up, expand it and grow it. However the government is going to tax that community $24 round trip on air service. Then there is Miramichi, New Brunswick. Its airport is dead. Therefore because there is no revenue for the government, it is not going to charge it the tax. Only when an airport is dead will the government say it should be taken off the list. I will bet that if Miramichi airport at some point in the next year or so, if one Dash 8 flies out of that airport, the government will come in and nail that community for the $24 tax again.
There are many reasons the $24 tax is bad public policy. First, it is not revenue neutral. The government's own numbers in Bill C-49 contrast with the budget it announced in December. In year one there would a $90 million surplus. That is not revenue neutral.
Second, I sat for hours at the transport committee and we unanimously came up with a list of recommendations for airport and airline security. Not one of the recommendations found its way into the law that is supposed to improve airline and airport security.
At the finance committee the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance seemed to be an expert on airport and airline security. However he was not on the transport committee so he knows not of what he speaks when he talks about the recommendations.
Recommendation 14 was unanimously supported by the Liberals including the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. It states:
All stakeholders--including airports, air carriers, airline passengers and/or residents of Canada--contribute to the cost of improved aviation security.
The transport committee's recommendations were totally ignored and brushed aside. The finance minister said he wanted tax revenues to go to the general revenue. The government has ignored the recommendation of the transport committee and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. The Liberal arrogance on display in the House is quite typical. The Liberals see a tax grab and they like it. They throw corporate welfare to the people in their constituencies. It is a huge a tax grab.
The government did not do one impact study on the tax. Government members should know WestJet's profit margin is four passengers per flight. We have heard from industry people that WestJet may eliminate its Calgary-Edmonton run. Today WestJet flies 14 or 16 daily round trip flights from Calgary to Edmonton. It may completely eliminate the run from its schedule because of the air tax. The government did not ask one air carrier or industry official what the impact of the tax would be on their business. WestJet's profit margin is four passengers per flight.
WestJet may kill its Toronto-Calgary run altogether. That is the route on which it built its business. It may lose the run because of Liberal policy. The government did no impact study or assessment whatsoever.
The tax would be collected on April 1. All the money from it would go straight into the general revenue of the government. Air carriers and travel agents would cut cheques to the receiver general which would go straight into the general revenue. The money would then go to the new airport authority the government is supposed to be creating. The airport authority would not be created until November or December of this year. In other words, from April 1 until November or December of this year Canadians would essentially have taxation without representation through the authority they are supposed to be financing.
What are Canadians to expect during that time? The $24 fee is supposed to finance $2.2 billion in air security improvements. More than $1 billion of the $2.2 billion would be for new technology such as bomb detection equipment, metal detectors and so on. There would be a one year backlog in getting the equipment because of the attacks in the United States. However the government would pay cash upfront in 2002 for equipment it would not receive for a year. It would pay 100% of the cost upfront.
If the government had any common business sense it would do what people in small business do all the time: amortize the cost of the equipment over the life of the equipment. It could do that. It would cut the tax in half. However the government would rather put the money into the general revenue. After the government paid upfront for equipment it would not get for a year, the same amount would keep pouring into the general revenue. The Liberals could keep throwing it at corporate welfare and their friends. They could keep spending the way Liberals love to spend.
I encourage all members of the House to support the transport committee's amendments and bring sanity back to the House. We studied the issue for hours and spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. The member opposite may not care because he is a Liberal, but taxpayers care about their money being wasted.