Mr. Speaker, small airlines and all small airports across the country will suffer greatly because of any work stoppage at Air Canada. They are going to have trouble meeting their bottom lines. We need to ensure those small airlines are protected because they provide service to areas to which a lot of other airlines cannot get.
In my province of Nova Scotia, I am lucky to have the Halifax Stanfield International Airport in my riding. It is a major gateway. Millions of passengers pass through that year after year. We have very few gateways to Nova Scotia because our province is almost an island, and I am lucky to have two of them in my riding.
We have to ensure that tourist operations can have confidence that Air Canada will be flying. The Minister of State for Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has been stating that tourism is a major economic driver in our area. It needs to have confidence that it can sell those tickets so it will have tourists coming into the riding and the province this year. We need to ensure we protect the economy of our tourist operators, small business and the economy of all Canadians across the country.