Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, one of the problems is that this plan to help the aerospace and airline industries green their aircraft is so far off from what France is planning. France has announced that its hydrogen-powered plane will be flying by 2035. Here, the government is doing everything piecemeal. France knows how to develop a coherent strategic vision for a vital sector.
Another problem is that the funding is being distributed through the strategic innovation fund. This fund is problematic because its criteria exclude SMEs. For example, if we look at its support for transportation electrification, funds went to Ontario-based multinationals instead of SMEs in Quebec. Quebec's SMEs are actively innovating in the field of electrification, but they cannot access the fund because of its criteria.
It is important to note that 99% of the fund's money went to Ontario, mostly to multinationals based there, even though the Ontario government is against electric vehicles. Members may recall that one of the first things the Government of Ontario did was eliminate electric vehicle purchasing incentives, causing a 50% drop in electric vehicle sales. I will wrap up my remarks about transportation electrification here because I just wanted to point out the flaws in the strategic innovation fund. The fund's criteria must be changed so that Quebec's SMEs can benefit from it.
Again, when it comes to greening aircraft, Quebec can lead the way in this sector. Take, for example, the Coalition for Greener Aircraft, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing smarter, more efficient and effective technologies. The coalition is made up of industry partners. Phase one, set up in 2010 by the Government of Quebec within the framework of the Quebec strategy for research and innovation, lasted until 2015 and involved six large companies, 28 SMEs, and 16 universities and research centres in Quebec. It is now at phase three. That is how a real policy is created.
The machinists' union was right when it said it did not help the workers in the sector. The budget presents a Canada-wide strategy for artificial intelligence. That is very good, but why is there no Canada-wide strategy for the aerospace sector? When will the government understand how important it is?
We will just have to keep educating the government. We managed to make the government understand that the airline industry and the aerospace industry are not the same thing. Now we have to get it to realize that a strategic policy for a strategic industry takes more than financial assistance.
I want to talk about something else related to the aerospace industry, and that is the tax on luxury goods. The sale of private aircraft is part of that.
Canada is a country that exports business aircraft. We have 700 suppliers. We spend an average of about $1.2 billion on goods and services from Canadian suppliers. That can have an impact. Of course, we need to pay back the debt, which will be huge, and taxing the wealthy is not a problem at all. However, what may cause problems and could impact the supply chain in Quebec and Ontario is the way we go about it.
I completely agree that the government should tax the sale of luxury planes for personal use, but the description set out in the annex of the budget of what constitutes a personal aircraft is very broad. The definition will need to be refined because, with some exceptions, all aircraft with a carrying capacity of 39 passengers or more could fall under the definition of an aircraft for personal use.
A company that buys aircraft for commercial, rather than personal, use could actually fit that definition. That could be problematic. Although the annex mentions that some aircraft used in certain commercial activities, such as public transportation, would be excluded, a company that is making such purchases is not doing so for the the purpose of public transportation. That should be clarified.
We also need to go farther in developing a real aerospace policy and a defence policy. National Defence should work with the industrial base to develop technologies. The government needs to fund a National Defence research program. Unfortunately, these are some of the many things that are missing from the budget.
I want to apologize to all my colleagues for the interruptions in my speech. I hope they will not have too much trouble piecing it all together and understanding the logic and what we expect of an aerospace policy.