Mr. Speaker, WestJet has not only managed to survive, but has managed to thrive for a number of reasons. Chief among them is because it is a well managed and well operated company that is interested in making a profit rather than securing market share.
The dominant problem with Air Canada, with its current financial problems at least as I see it, is that it has been obsessed with gathering market share regardless of its costs to its bottom line. It was more interested in garnering market share because in the long term the financial worth of having a substantive network of a hub and spoke model imposed on a G-8 country with very little competition was an asset that was worth mortgaging over time by flying three quarter empty planes on routes and cannibalizing its own capacity on routes in order to squeeze its competitors out of business.
WestJet is a true Canadian success story. As a western Canadian I like to say a true western Canadian success story. It is a well managed and well operated company. Clive Beddoe certainly deserves all the praise that he got from all observers for managing an airline efficiently and well. His company has grown exponentially over the last few years, but even though it is growing exponentially, he is growing it in a prudent, well managed, and reasonable way with measured responses to measured market forces and taking calculated risks. He is growing his company in an effective way.
It is worth knowing that while we do have all these crises in the air industry, the reality is that there are air carriers out there that are making a profit. JetBlue last week announced a profit in the United States. The United States has huge problems with United and American Airlines, Delta and others, but JetBlue just announced that it is making a profit. Ryanair Ireland and Southwest in the United States are still profitable. WestJet is still profitable. There is a real tectonic shift in the airline industry and certain air carriers that have learned the lessons of how one operates in a free market by providing reasonable products to people who are willing to reasonably pay for them can succeed. WestJet has shown that it can succeed.
The federal Liberal government needs to listen to companies that know how to build in the air industry, in the new era of air carriers and impose government policies that allow airlines to succeed, thrive, and grow in the new environment. WestJet has done it and the fact that the government takes policies that do not allow other air carriers to continue to grow in our environment along with WestJet is a tragedy. Eight air carriers have died in the past six years that we have had our current Liberal transport minister. I understand he will not be transport minister for very long. I know people are happy about that.