Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for his hard work on this file and for keeping it alive, and also my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas for his remarks that he just made.
However, I also want to touch on some things that my other colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned. He talked about the north coast and the air taxi industry where loggers, miners and fishermen have to use air taxis to get back and forth to work. That is something that is very common in the riding of Vancouver Island North.
Several years ago in 2005, a small airplane crashed into the ocean and all five of the loggers who were on their way to work lost their lives, but a very brave woman, one of the spouses of the men who were killed, has continued to raise awareness about air traffic safety and what is happening in this industry. She has tried to come to the committee and make a presentation, but has so far not been successful.
Therefore, on behalf of her, her name is Kirsten Stevens, I bring this issue up in the House to talk about air safety. What she said to me was that the concerns are very real. There is a general feeling in the industry that the air taxi sector suffers from a considerable lack of effective oversight and enforcement.
Many concerns which were addressed by Transport Canada in the safety of air taxi operations task force's final report of 1998, which related to the problem of occupational health and safety as well as oversight in this sector, have never been corrected.
This sector suffers from a high accident rate. I find that appalling. My question for my hon. colleague from Burnaby—Douglas is this. When we see the amendments and this act which is asking for more oversight by the industry, and in this case the industry is not living up to the commitments now, what happens when they are in full control of it? Would he not think that we need more oversight and not less?