Mr. Speaker, on this very day, October 4, in 1975, we celebrated the grand opening of Mirabel airport, a manifestation of the arrogant federalism at the heart of everything Pierre Elliott Trudeau ever did. Trudeau rounded up a bunch of fancy people in suits to applaud the big white elephant he plunked down right in the middle of a 100,000-acre field that the federal government had expropriated from 2,700 families who called the place home. Ten thousand people were exiled from fertile land. The federal government took our ancestors' land and paved the heck out of it.
Trudeau's airport sure was a thing of beauty, right up until the day the government spent millions tearing it down because there was nothing else they could do with it.
Now there is not much left save the descendants of the people who were dispossessed, and they are still fighting Ottawa for right of first refusal when their families' land is put up for sale. I think the government owes them that much at least, as well as an apology.