Madam Speaker, the member for Windsor West and I sit on the same committee. We have heard the same witnesses. We have had discussions about the inappropriateness of the grandfathering on customs charges that occurs in some specific examples.
Yes, there is the example about which the member from Windsor talked. In my constituency, the community of Comox built a brand new air terminal. WestJet uses it. Last year there were 180,000 passengers. There are international flights to Mexico. Because it did not have any international flights prior to the grandfathering date, the community is responsible for $250,000 worth of customs charges. This is not discretionary in any way.
What happens is communities that are trying to better themselves are being penalized by this system. It is extraordinary how dampening this is. This charge killed flights between Seattle and Kamloops. This very issue apparently killed the ferry run between Toronto and Rochester. The economics were all there except for the grandfathering charge.
We say this is a security charge, a security fee. It is a federal responsibility. It should not be offloaded in a discriminatory way to business or communities in this fashion.