Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing his time with me.
The government has to take a look at the smaller cities, towns and villages. It has to reach out. My city of Saint John has the largest privately owned oil refinery in Canada, the Irving oil refinery. We also have the nuclear power plant, Crosby's Molasses, Moosehead Brewery and several pulp mills. Yet the government has taken the large planes out of Saint John, New Brunswick, which is the second largest city in square mileage in Canada. It took away my train. Glory be to God, I cut the ribbon for it when I was mayor six months before the 1993 election and six months after, it closed the train and took the train away from us.
We have to have the planes. In order for us to attract business into our communities we have to have all modes of transportation. Certainly we have to have our planes.
I left Saint John, New Brunswick at 11:10 this morning, which was 10:10 a.m. Ottawa time. Guess what time I arrived in Ottawa. I arrived here at 3:30 p.m. my time in Saint John, 2:30 p.m. Ottawa time. If we had the planes we used to have, I would have been here within an hour and a half.
We only have Dash 8s and I know the minister is looking at whether we will even have Dash 8s before the government is through. When that happens, the people of the country can blame the government for the way in which Saint John, New Brunswick will go and it will not be in a positive direction.
Does the minister want me to drive to Halifax? Does he want me to drive to Quebec City, to Montreal or Boston in order to get a plane to Ottawa?
Enough is enough of this. The government has to get its priorities straight. The Minister of Transport has to get his priorities straight. Everybody in this country from coast to coast needs to have transportation. They need to be able to fly. They do not want to drive.
I laughed when the minister said to me one day “Maybe you could drive to Moncton to get a plane”. They do not have them in Moncton. They have them in Dieppe.
For me to drive there takes two hours if the sun is shining, but look at this past winter. Maybe some people in the House would be glad if I was not sitting in the House every day, but there would have been no way for me to get to the House, no way for my colleagues in St. Stephen, St. George and Saint Andrews to get here, no way for my other colleague in Kings County to get here.
There is just no way this can happen. The Minister of Transport does not understand.
We are going to help our colleague over here because he is telling me he is not in favour too. If he had said he was in favour, I would not be giving him any time at all.
I look at the information I just received this week that the government is planning to cut six, eight or ten flights out of Saint John for the month of May. I may have to call on you, Mr. Speaker, to come down and drive me up because I may not be able to get to Ottawa because of the Minister of Transport. There is no way the government should be removing any flights. Every seat was taken on the flight I was on today. In fact, it was overbooked. The flights are always overbooked. There is no reason in the world to cut out any flights.
This is going to be a matter of major debate. If Sir John A. Macdonald were still living, he would make sure we not only had trains but we also had planes.