Mr. Speaker, deep concerns are being expressed by many individuals around the balance or not in the bill with respect to record keeping and making operational this concept of a safety management system.
The airlines will say, on the one hand, to the travelling public and to Canadian consumers and citizens that they could not possibly afford the damage to a brand. I would point, for example, to the Air France accident at Toronto's Pearson airport a year and a half ago. The damage to the brand had a great impact on sales and on the choices being exercised by consumers not to fly one airline over another. On the other hand, we have heard from mechanics on the front lines of Jazz Air who have gone public to say that the government is compromising airline safety for other reasons now, for example, in terms of some of the existing standards.
We will need to watch for this in committee. I would say to my hon. colleague that any views that he can bring forward as a member who is very engaged with the Montreal airport, the Trudeau airport, and some of the challenges we are facing, if those views could be brought forth to committee we would be in a better position to strike the appropriate balance.
However, we are in good shape because we will be able to use the incredible work that we did as a government on smart regulation, having asked the Privy Council Office to create a smart regulation panel. There is much for us now to glean from those learnings and apply to this bill.