Mr. Speaker, Pearson airport is near Mississauga, my colleague's constituency, so he takes a great interest in these things. He was also very constructive on the transport committee.
The province of British Columbia is preparing for the 2010 Olympic Games and there are some grand ideas, grand schemes, and grand projects with regard to transportation. We see it in British Columbia on the land side. There were some rumblings and some concerns.
Ultimately, the choice of the federal government to have two airports with no proper distinguishing features between the two, or to choose one as an international airport and one as a domestic airport with the proper international certification under the Chicago convention, caused a lot of problems in the expansion of Mirabel Airport in a way that was conducive to the situation there.
There were voices on the ground at the time. There were some people who are still members of the Liberal Party and of course Otto Lang was involved in discussions at the time. There was fierce debate but not a lot of it was spoken in public. There were no public discussions about it partly because people were wrapped up in the spirit of 1967 and the spirit of 1976.
My colleague's second question was with regard to the motives of bringing up this issue and what we do now. There is a concern about this. I have concern about this. The transport minister has said that this land may be used in the future for testing by Bombardier, for example, of certain jets and rocket engines that need vast stretches of land.
I had dinner with some representatives from Bombardier last night and I posed this question to them directly. I asked them if selling the land at Mirabel would pose any problems for them and they said, and I do not think they would have any problem with me saying this publicly, that they have more land than they need right now. They have more opportunity for research and development. They have more capacity than they can fill with what Bombardier is trying to fulfill right now.
The selling of these lands is not only the right thing to do, but it makes sense from the industry side, from the compassionate side, and from the side of the people who live near Mirabel.