Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by stating that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
To begin, I would like to reassure everyone. I know that some Bloc members have already said this, but I will say it too: We are happy about the high-speed rail line. Is that clear now? We have been asking for it for several years, we have hoped for it, we have defended it. Now that it is here, we are happy to have it.
That said, I want to quickly review some history. In 1969, Pierre Elliott Trudeau's federal government decided to expropriate a total of 97,000 acres to build Mirabel airport. I should say that I had no idea how big 97,000 acres was, but I checked, and it is 4,268,000 square feet. I had a little trouble visualizing that too, so I did the math. That area is equivalent to 74 football fields, each measuring 57,600 square feet. That is pretty big.
In 1969, Pierre Elliott Trudeau told the people of Mirabel that he was sorry, but that he needed their land because it was in the public interest. Some people cried, as our colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles said earlier, and some children cried when they saw their parents crying. It was tragic. These people were farming and received a notice in the mail saying that the land was no longer theirs. The government said it was sorry, but explained that Mr. Trudeau had decided to take their land.
I will spare my colleagues the details of the legal saga that ensued. Obviously, most of the people contested the expropriation notices. The federal government said no and insisted that it was in the right, that the land was not worth anything more. There were debates, it ended up in court, and then people were finally compensated with amounts that, as members might expect, were not enough to buy a comparable property or house. It was nowhere near enough. That was in 1969.
In 1985, the federal government said that it believed it had made a mistake and taken too much land. It then decided to give the land back. That is what was announced, but the land was not actually returned. It was resold. People were told that their land was being given back to them, but that they would have to pay for it. Obviously, people did not have the money for that. The compensation they had received 15 years earlier was not enough. Some of them took out mortgages and bought back their land, while other properties were bought back by different people.
We are not talking about small parcels of land here. It was not a matter of expropriating a few extra acres and saying that they were going to put them back on the market. No, it turns out that 85% of these football-field-sized properties were not needed. The federal government admitted as much in 1985, 15 years after kicking everyone out. Fifteen years later, the government said that it had made a mistake, but did not even apologize. The government said that it made a mistake and was going to put the land up for sale.
That, too, is obviously a tragedy. It is tragic to see that we did not even need that airport, after the people of Mirabel were told that the expropriation was for the public good, that they were participating in the history of Quebec and Canada, that their land was being taken, but that they were pioneers and heroes and that, thanks to their land, the nicest and most efficient and effective airport in the world would be built. In 2004, the government said that it was wrong about that too and that it was closing the airport, and the airport was indeed shut down.
When asked what would happen with the flights, the government said that they would go back to Dorval. To add insult to injury, the Dorval airport was renamed the Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport. It was the ultimate show of disrespect. I do not know who the genius was who came up with that idea, but that was a nasty blow the federal government dealt to the people of Mirabel.
Over the course of 35 years, billions of dollars of our own money were spent to build an airport, compensate people whose lands were ruthlessly and needlessly expropriated, and then demolish the airport by paying even more billions of dollars. This whole adventure cost us a pretty penny, not just in terms of money, but also in terms of tragedies involving people, families and companies.
It is no wonder that the people of Mirabel have been left traumatized. Some may say that they are overly sensitive. I encourage my colleagues to go back and listen to the stories we heard, because, even after all this time, it is mind-boggling.
I listened to our Liberal colleagues. In the moment, as they were speaking, I was happy. I was saying to myself that they understand that this was a terrible thing that must not be repeated. I was happy about that. The member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles was telling us about trauma, although I do not recall her exact words. Her father took her to visit a plot of land. Hearing that, I thought that they are on the same page as the rest of us, that they realize that what was done was not right, that it was cruel. That is reassuring.
The Bloc Québécois motion is simple. We are not talking about high-speed rail. First, we want Parliament to ask the government to apologize. When someone messes up that badly, the least they can do is apologize. Second, we want the government to recognize the trauma that its extraordinarily awful mistakes caused to these people. It seems to me that, when someone does something like this, it is fairly easy to admit that a mistake was made, especially considering 85% of the land has been given back and the airport has been shut down. The mistake is obvious, in any case. Third, we are asking the government to commit to not doing it again, to not undertaking such expropriations again without public consultation, social licence and appropriate compensation. What is so terrible about this motion?
If I were a Liberal member, I would hurry to say that my government, the government I inherited, that is, the Liberal government at the time, made a ridiculous mistake and it apologizes. If I were a Liberal member, I would say that I apologize on behalf of my government and on behalf of the Canadian government of 1969. I would think that would be the first thing to do. Second, I would acknowledge the trauma that it caused, as several members have already, including the member for Mirabel a few moments ago. I would say that I recognize that trauma. Third, I would say that I think such a thing must never be allowed to happen again. I would therefore urge the government to be careful never to make the same mistake. I almost heard that, but the words “I apologize” were missing. It is not complicated. We teach our children to say it in preschool: When someone misbehaves at school or with their friends, they apologize.
The people of Mirabel, the people of Quebec and I would go so far as to say the people of Canada expect a greater show of responsibility from their federal government. I fail to understand why we cannot do that. I urge my colleagues to apologize, to acknowledge the trauma, to promise never to do it again and to compensate people. I do not have much time left, but I will talk about compensation.
As it stands now, the high-speed rail project, which, as I said, we are very enthusiastic about, is unfortunately exempt from every landowner protection mechanism that exists in Quebec and Canada. Bills C-5 and C-15 throw them right out the window so that the promoters can do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want.
Representatives from Alto said that they did not want to ask for too much, but that they wanted a 10-kilometre wide by 1,000-kilometre long right-of-way between Quebec City and Toronto to make sure that the rail line is in the right place. That is a 10-by-1,000-kilometre area where properties have not yet been expropriated. People have houses or farms there, but they can neither renovate nor mortgage nor sell their properties. Their hands are tied now that Alto has published their map on the website.
We were talking about fearmongering earlier. There is no need for that; people can simply go on Alto's website and they will see the map. They will know that they are in the corridor. Cities like Boisbriand, Rosemère, Sainte-Thérèse, Mirabel—I will not name them all since I only have a few seconds left—are all impacted by that right-of-way. People cannot sell their homes. It is impossible to sell a house in a situation like this. Not a single bank will give a mortgage loan. Renovations make no sense. Why throw money down a bottomless pit?
They need to be compensated and consulted, and we need to make sure not to repeat what happened in 1969.
