Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his important question. There are airports, and I am not sure that Grande Prairie is one of them, whose passenger levels are such that by increasing the fees to such an extent, they have to compete with passengers driving to Edmonton, for example.
If fees become too high, whether it is an airport improvement fee, a security charge, this new CARs regulation, at some point it does not make it economical for people to fly to a place such as Edmonton. They will drive instead. Therefore the viability of the airport is in question.
The government has to take a look at this. It has to have some kind of realistic proposals. How is it that the response time in 1997, when the airports were turned over to the airport authorities, was good enough? Then all of a sudden it is being changed and it is no longer good enough. It now has to be a five minute response time.
I would challenge the Minister of Transport to tell the House the last time there was a tragedy or any event at an airport that involved the need to have that kind of response time to the airport. I do not believe Moncton was one of those, the very event that caused the government to react as a result of the incident which occurred there. I do not believe it is.
The answer to my colleague's question is, yes, viability in airports does come into question as a result of government loading more and more fees onto airport authorities.