Mr. Speaker, the other point is that the Conservatives keep talking about this being a cost-free proposal. The reality is that it is going to cost $1.2 billion to squeeze an airport the size of the Ottawa International Airport into one-seventh of the land mass.
One of the criteria for the City to study this, which the port authority had to agree to, was that it would pick up the cost for the expansion. The port authority said it would not pay for that. It then turned to the Government of Canada at the time, the previous Conservative government, and said that it had to pay. Faced with a choice for the new building Canada fund, the government did not choose to put the money into an expanded airport; it chose to put it into transit in Scarborough.
Where should this government expect to find the money if the previous government could not find $1.2 billion to expand this runway? It needs to be expanded by 500 metres. The cost of doing it and building the land-side infrastructure is $1.2 billion. The previous government balked at the price, so why would we spend it?