Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions. It is not me who is suggesting WestJet would be devastated on short haul routes like Calgary to Edmonton. WestJet is saying that. The hon. member should refer to the testimony of Mark Hill, the vice-president of WestJet, at the finance committee. He clearly said:
On our super short-haul routes, that is, Calgary-Edmonton, Vancouver-Kelowna, Hamilton-Ottawa...the flat tax is an enormous percentage of our low fares...Once the tax is implemented, we believe the traffic will evaporate off the short-haul routes. Once the traffic goes, we'll have to back out of some of our short-haul flying, and once that begins, the genie is out of the bottle, and it's very hard to stuff the genie back into the bottle once that happens.
That was his testimony. I do not think it was an idle threat. People who work at WestJet are concerned the tax could be devastating to them.
We are not only assessing a new $24 tax on the industry. On a flight from Edmonton to Calgary with a base fare of $100 there is already a $26 Nav Can fee, a $22 airport improvement fee and $10.36 in GST. There would now also be a $24 flying tax. That would bring the total ticket price to $182.36, 86% of which would be taxes.
The hon. member may not understand this, but if a couple going to Edmonton from Calgary to visit family were given a choice of driving three hours or paying an extra $48 in taxes, which would easily buy a couple of tanks of gas, many people would opt to drive.
The hon. member made a point that the security cost would be applied only once regardless of how far one was flying. That may be true. However the bill would also tax people who get little or no security.
People flying tiny six seat float planes from the south harbour terminal of the Vancouver International Airport Authority to, say, Salt Spring Island now pay $60 for a 12 minute flight. Because the south harbour terminal falls under the aegis of the authority, with the new tax they would end up paying $24 for security even though there is no security at the airport and no need for security.
We are not worried about terrorists hijacking six seater float planes on Salt Spring Island or the damage they could do to civilian infrastructure. Yet we would look in people's bags to satisfy the government the fee was being applied to everyone whether on flights from Toronto to Tel Aviv or from Vancouver harbour to Salt Spring Island. They would all be affected. It is a stupid policy. I am surprised to hear the member supporting it.