Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, with whom I work together on the Standing Committee on Transport.
In his comments, he mentioned that the status quo would be maintained in regard to the official languages. In light of his own demonstrated bilingualism, I would like to ask whether he thinks that this is enough under the circumstances. We know very well that Air Canada has been criticized on a number of occasions for failing to meet its obligations regarding the official languages of Canada. A number of examples have been cited, including in committee.
We must keep in mind the air liberalization agenda, which the government wants to apply to the air transport sector as well. Air Canada is the only company required to comply with the Official Languages Act, and the role that it plays will be diluted even more than it is now. Does my colleague not think that it would have been a good idea to take advantage of this bill in order to require other companies than just Air Canada to comply with official languages legislation? Since it was privatized, it has been playing an ever smaller role and it must compete with several American companies as the skies become increasingly open.