Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the number of comments made here this morning on this legislation. It is quite apparent that the legislation seems to have overwhelming support among the different parties.
To briefly comment on it, because I do not want to rehash everything that has already been said, the New Democratic Party broadly supports the bill and the Cape Town convention on mobile equipment. The ratification of the protocol could be a positive development for Canadian industry and Canadian workers as well as support for international development. The convention could also promote the use of newer, cleaner and more environmentally friendly aircraft, and actually that is one point that is not brought out here. Again, this is a bill that could give those countries that do not have a lot of dollars to work with an opportunity to purchase new rather than second-hand or used aircraft that other countries or airlines put up for sale.
Just to make it very simple for the Canadian public, because we all acknowledged at committee that this was very much a technical bill, our biggest challenge was in making sure we were not missing something just in case there was some underlying sneak attack on us that we did not want to miss. As committee members, we acknowledged that the legislation is very technical. In checking with people involved in the industry, we found that it was broadly supported so it certainly was not our intent to hold it up.
I am going to try to simplify it as briefly as possible. The bill makes it easier and more orderly for people who lend money to an airline for purchase of a new aircraft to repossess that aircraft in the event that the borrower stops paying off the loan.
The international registry will keep track of every aircraft, listing who owns it and/or who owes what on it. This will facilitate the return of the aircraft to the lender in the event that the borrower stops paying. In theory, the result should be somewhat lower financing costs for countries where the credit risk is perceived to be too high, especially in developing countries, but the new mechanism will apply to all aircraft purchases.
An international mechanism is necessary because of the big differences between countries in terms of their respective bankruptcy laws and because of the ability to move aircraft, unlike tangible assets that are used in collateral loans. There is a potential benefit for the Canadian aerospace industry.
As has already been stated by my colleague from the Bloc, loans are under provincial jurisdiction and, for this reason, it is necessary for the provinces to come on side and enact their own legislation to work concurrently with this piece of legislation.
To try to clear up what happened at committee, I want to make a comment related to the amendments that were supposed to be put forth on this bill but were not. I acknowledge the Speaker's comments today and I think we take them as justifiable comments. As a committee, we were hearing from witnesses. Right toward the end of the witnesses' presentations, they mentioned that we needed amendments in the bill to acknowledge the differences in language.
My colleague from the Conservatives has mentioned this as well: the differences in language between different countries and how things are perceived. Within this legislation there were two terms that we would see as maybe having the same meaning, but which would not necessarily be seen that way elsewhere. So we know that we have a piece of legislation before us which we need to vote on, but as committee members we think--and certainly other members of Parliament now know--there is something missing in the legislation, which is going to make it hard to deal with. I am not totally sure about how the government is looking at addressing that.
It has been mentioned that the government has been dealing with this convention for a number of years, but had the government come forth with a complete bill with those changes it would have had support. It is certainly not our intention to hold up the legislation or to make it unworkable. It will be interesting to see how we deal with this, because this is actually one time where we do have agreement. The government, by not getting the job done properly, has created a problem for the industry and it is going to take up a bit more of Parliament's time to deal with it.