Madam Speaker, I hear the Conservatives laughing at that. Maybe they should go back to medical school and take a beginner's course in virology.
This motion also attempts to blame the problems of Canadian airports on public health rules. This fundamentally misunderstands what is happening.
The core problem is that there are few flights due to reduced traffic and, more importantly, reduced staffing due to the shortages of workers, especially in security and baggage handling. The causes of this are poor pay, poor hours, shift work and poor working conditions. Airports are having trouble attracting workers back to work because of these things.
Did I say that? No. People in the airline industry say that, yet the Conservatives vote against every attempt to improve workers' conditions. They will not raise minimum wages, they oppose better unionization rules, they fight occupational health and safety improvements and they even wanted workers to work until they were 67 years old before they could retire, which would be especially hard on blue collar workers, who find physical work and shift work more difficult as they age.
If we want to do something to help workers and get airports flying better, let us get improved conditions for workers in every airport in this condition. We are never going to get that from the Conservatives, but we will get that from New Democrats.