Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this adjournment proceeding to come back to a question I asked the Minister of Transport in November 2016 regarding non-designated airports in Canada.
For the benefit of those watching us at home, I will sum up the situation. The 89 airports in Canada that are designated can receive services from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. Unfortunately, there are more than 89 airports in Canada. Unfortunately, regional airports are non-designated and are not on this list.
The problem we have in Sherbrooke is that we have an airport with a runway long enough to accommodate large aircraft and a terminal large enough for security screening. However, ours is not among the 89 designated airports. Adding an airport to the list of designated airports is easy enough. There is a regulation for that. It is a matter of adding a schedule to the Canadian Aviation Security Regulations, 2012. The list of 89 designated airports can be found in the schedule of these regulations.
These regulations were created in response to the September 11 attacks to provide maximum security in our airports. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority was also created. At the time, it was determined that 87 airports would be designated, because it was believed the level of risk justified their designation. A few years later, there was even a decision made to add two airports, in Mont-Tremblant and Red Deer. The mechanism is therefore quite simple. Airports can be added to the list. At that time, the number of airports went from 87 to 89.
Sherbrooke has long been asking for what nine other airports are also asking for, which is to be added to the list. Just as we are asking to be added to the list, some airports that do have the designation are not even using it. Some airports in Canada are designated and are on the list of 89, but have no regular or commercial flights. Ultimately, the designation does not mean much. These airports are not in operation.
However, airports such as the Sherbrooke airport and others are ready to move forward. Sherbrooke had even signed an agreement in principle with an airline for commercial flights. Unfortunately, one of the conditions of the agreement was that security check points be set up in the airport, which did not happen under the previous government. The best they could do, and it is important to mention this, was to come up with a way for non-designated airports to set up screening check points anyway, but on a cost-recovery basis.
This is a viable solution for Sherbrooke. We are currently attempting to set up the necessary check points with this mechanism. However, the fact remains that the simplest and quickest solution would be to have Sherbrooke become the 90th designated airport. Another solution would be to remove an airport from the list, because it is just as easy to add one as it is to remove one. We could remove an airport that is not being used. There are some. We could keep the 89 designated airports if that is what the government absolutely wants to do. We could continue to have 89 designated airports substituting one for another.
My question is when does the government intend to propose an amendment to the regulation adding to the list of airports, or changing some of the current designations in order to keep the number of designated airports to 89?