Madam Speaker, the member and I have become colleagues in another cause, which is to protect the consumer rights of airline passengers. We have been working on this effort collaboratively, as we are in developing our tourism industry.
It is a fact that five million fewer international arrivals are occurring by air in Canada than just a few short years ago. We moved from number seven in terms of international arrivals as a destination of choice to number 15 in the world. We are losing our market share and our position.
The member rightly points to high-cost airport services as having a major implication in this. Canada has an aviation system that is high cost not only in terms of the direct ticket price, but influencing the ticket price of Canadian air travel are other ancillary costs, such as security.
The member quite rightly points out that the Canadian government today is collecting more in airport security fees than it is spending on airport security. This is adding to the cost, causing Canadian passengers to move to U.S. airports to take U.S. airlines, to take U.S. flights, rather than Canadian airports, Canadian airlines and Canadian flights to international destinations.
That high-cost factor is also causing fewer international arrivals into Canada, especially on Canadian airlines in Canadian airports. It is a serious problem. Why the government does not at least balance the books on the airport security charge is beyond me. The government does not seem to want to explain that.