Charlie Penson

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Churchill for her question. I think there are instances where there may not be a proper response time from a nearby facility. Therefore they will have to have facilities at airports.

If the conditions of the agreement, which was reached in 1997, are changing and the federal government is requiring them to go to a response time that it said was not required five years ago, then I believe it is the responsibility of the government to pay those costs. It is really in neglect of the agreement that was reached between the government and that airport authority at the time it was turned over.

In the cases where response time is an issue, it is unfair of the federal government to require the airport authorities to assume that cost. That was not part of the agreement when those agreements were reached.

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his important question. There are airports, and I am not sure that Grande Prairie is one of them, whose passenger levels are such that by increasing the fees to such an extent, they have to compete with passengers driving to Edmonton, for example.

If fees become too high, whether it is an airport improvement fee, a security charge, this new CARs regulation, at some point it does not make it economical for people to fly to a place such as Edmonton. They will drive instead. Therefore the viability of the airport is in question.

The government has to take a look at this. It has to have some kind of realistic proposals. How is it that the response time in 1997, when the airports were turned over to the airport authorities, was good enough? Then all of a sudden it is being changed and it is no longer good enough. It now has to be a five minute response time.

I would challenge the Minister of Transport to tell the House the last time there was a tragedy or any event at an airport that involved the need to have that kind of response time to the airport. I do not believe Moncton was one of those, the very event that caused the government to react as a result of the incident which occurred there. I do not believe it is.

The answer to my colleague's question is, yes, viability in airports does come into question as a result of government loading more and more fees onto airport authorities.

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today and speak on this bill, one that certainly affects an airport in my riding in the city of Grande Prairie.

I believe that the bill is actually a bill of missed opportunities and attempts to solve problems that do not really exist. When one looks at the state of Canada's airline industry and realizes that the Standing Committee on Transport is looking into the continued viability of the airline industry, one has to wonder why the government is choosing this time to introduce legislation dealing with airports, and specifically this type of legislation.

Based upon e-mails, phone calls and letters that my office receives, there is no real sense of urgency to fix the airport situation except for three specific areas that I am going to discuss today and which really are not addressed in this bill at all. In fact, most Canadians are reasonably happy with the status quo. When we compare Canadian airports, both large and small, with similarly sized airports in other countries, Canada's airports stand up rather well. So the question is, if the system is not broken, why are we trying to fix it?

What I believe is happening is that this really is about a missed opportunity to fix three specific problems that are not addressed in the bill. The real problem facing Canada's airline sector is not the way airports are run, because they largely have been turned over to airport authorities and down to a level of community involvement that I think is much better than it was before. The real question is about the way rents are charged by the federal government to these airport authorities and how that cost is passed on to the airlines.

This issue was raised and dealt with in the transport committee hearings over the past few weeks. As a result, on April 11, in its report, the committee recommended unanimously that “the federal government suspend rental payments by airports for a two year period” and that “the airports shall pass these rental savings on to air carriers”. We know that air carriers are experiencing some difficulty during this time. Further study is not needed. It is time to act.

However, we will not find any discussion of airport rents in the Canada airports act, Bill C-27. In fact, the Standing Committee on Transport made another unanimous recommendation: to eliminate the air travellers security charge. This was connected to transferring responsibility from airport security to a multi-modal agency that would be fully publicly funded.

The airport security issue is an important one, but we do not charge other people in our society for the cost of security, specifically those sectors. If we look to the model of why this was put in to begin with, on September 11 in the United States there were more people killed on the ground than there were in airplanes and specifically in airports. Security is a huge issue but it should be one that is taken out of general revenue.

Here again, understanding the nature of security at small airports is helpful. Just as a bank has a better security system than a Kool-Aid stand, large airports have better security than smaller airports. In fact, I was in New Zealand just recently and people who travel within the country of New Zealand have no screening at all. Only if they have connections to international flights are they subject to screening. Some cities like Winnipeg have been trying that model, and I think it is a model that would help save some money here in Canada.

The reason I am here today to speak to this bill is that I have a vested interest. I have to confess that quite frankly. My vested interest is that I have an airport in my riding. The airport is in Grande Prairie, Alberta and it is very concerned about the cost the federal government is imposing upon it through what is commonly known as CARs.

This is a situation whereby the federal government is now imposing on smaller airports a five minute emergency response time. One might ask what is wrong with that, but the fact of the matter is that about five or six years ago, when the federal government decided it wanted to offload the airports onto the municipalities and airport authorities, it told those same airports that they would not need to have firefighting units at the airports themselves. They could have them within about a 7 minute to 10 minute timeframe in a nearby city such as Grande Prairie. The airport is almost a suburb of the city of Grande Prairie. So the firefighting department at the airport was closed down. There were considerable savings, which were transferred to the city when it agreed to take over the airport authority as a result of that. That was one of the enticing factors that the federal government used with small airports, quite frankly, to convince the airport authorities to start managing them themselves.

Why has it decided to go back into this business of having these firefighting units right at the airport? Because there was an incident, I think it was in Moncton, a few years ago. Quite frankly I do not believe that even a firefighting unit at that airport would have resolved that problem. However because there was some negative publicity, all of a sudden the federal government reneged on its promises to the airport authorities and told them that they had to go back to this. All the savings that were realized, that were part of the deal that the government offered to take over this airport, now had to be paid for themselves.

I do not think that is fair to small airports such as Fort St. John, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray. I think a number of airport managers are coming to Ottawa shortly to make this case themselves to the transport minister. If the Minister of Transport wants that kind of response time at the airport and if they are going to have to put in these capital expenditures again after it was all dismantled as a result of the minister convincing these small airport authorities to do just that, then I suggest he and the Government of Canada better pay those costs.

I personally do not believe a five minute response time is necessary in a city like Grande Prairie where the airport is located just on the outskirts of the city. The response time there for firefighting is about a seven minute but that is not good enough for the federal government. There is a huge cost of roughly $500,000 a year which that airport authority will have to incur.

There is an issue of fairness here. This is the government that convinced these people, like the airport authority of the city of Grande Prairie, that it should take over the airport. It was downloaded from the Minister of Transport because government was trying to save some money at a time when there was a cost cutting necessity. I have no objection to that but do not impose rules that change the conditions of that transaction which happened only a very short time ago. That is not fair. That changes the rules and puts airports in a position where they cannot operate effectively. If they have to put this capital expenditure in, companies like WestJet will be charged additional fees.

WestJet flies to Edmonton. It is about a half an hour flight by jet. It is a four hour drive. All of a sudden the cost starts to go up. Airport improvement fees, the security tax that the federal government is still imposing on airlines, now there is the added cost of CARs and pretty soon it does not become economical for companies like WestJet to fly to Grande Prairie. What happens is a substantial sector of the economy that makes it very attractive for business people to come to Grande Prairie by jet is killed. Business people will have to charter a plane or a scheduled flight that does not utilize jet traffic because these companies will have been priced out of business.

The government charges such as the airport security tax, airport improvement fees and all the other taxes represent a higher cost than the actual cost of the ticket itself from a company like WestJet. That is not acceptable, particularly when it was this government that told the airport authorities that if they took over the airports, they would not have to have these five minute firefighting response times with facilities right at the airport. They were told they could have it in the city, a short distance away. Now it is changing the rules and that is not fair.

This should be rejected. I know the Canadian Alliance will vote against it and I personally urge other members in the House to do just that because this issue is really an issue of fairness and the government is not living up to its responsibilities.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, the member was discussing the issue of whether the inspections were working but he might recall that before any missiles were destroyed, about 250,000 troops were gathered around the borders of Iraq. Nothing had happened before that.

I know the Prime Minister had the view as well that we had Saddam contained and things were happening. Does the member think it is realistic to have 250,000 people sitting on the doorstep of Iraq to force the Iraqi government to comply; this madman of Saddam Hussein who did nothing for 12 years to comply? Does the hon. member think that is a realistic solution?

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

No UN resolution.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member for Lac-Saint-Louis state his position, which I understand and respect.

A Liberal member said that under no circumstances should Canada go to war, especially without a UN resolution, although there is some debate as to whether resolution 1441 covers that. This relates to what the member just talked about as well.

We must remember that in 1999 Canada was part of the coalition that went into the former Yugoslavia and took out Milosevic and his regime. The reason given for that was because of human rights. Iraq had its own series of human rights abuses with the Kurds in northern Iraq some 10 years ago. Tens of thousands of Kurds were gassed at that time.

Was the Liberal government wrong to go into Serbia and remove Milosevic under this member's criteria?

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Milosevic.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

The member asked a question but he is not here now.

[Situation in Iraq, April 8th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, my colleague, the member for Lakeland and the defence critic for the Canadian Alliance, raised a question of principle and whether the Liberal government was standing on principle, and introduced a number of questions in that regard.

I would suggest that the Liberals have taken a pretty unprincipled stand and, if they think it is principled, they are far wrong. I think they have tried to play on the anti-American sentiment that they thought was out there. Now they are finding that Canadians are rising up and saying that they support our American allies as we have in many of these conflicts in the past.

We see a government today that is quickly trying to slide into a position where it can change its position because the polls are not what they were a couple of weeks ago on this when the Liberals thought they would be on the winning side of this issue.

There are a number of parties in the House that have taken principled stands. I would say that the NDP has taken a principled stand, although I do not agree with it. The Bloc, I believe, has taken a principled stand, as well as the Canadian Alliance. I think that is what Canadians are looking for. They are looking for leadership. They are looking for people who clearly articulate their view and their vision.

I ask my colleague, should some of the Liberal leadership contenders, those who aspire to be the prime minister and who in fact will win the Liberal leadership once the convention is held and automatically become the Prime Minister of Canada, for example the member for LaSalle—Émard, not be putting out a principled stand and telling Canadians where they stand on this issue?

Does my colleague agree with me that the member for LaSalle—Émard seems to be hiding in his bunker some place and we need to draw him out to see where he stands on these issues?

[Income Tax Act, March 31st, 2003]

The member for Ottawa--Vanier said that was after it cut its own. Let us just examine that for a moment. It cut its own spending by 9%, but it cut transfers to the provinces by 20%. That was an easy target and of course provinces had to supply municipal services, so they had to be cut as well.

We have to ask the question: Why do we consume so much tax money in Canada to begin with? Why do we need all these taxes? The answer is that we have a government with a spending addiction. As I said, it is going up by $25 billion in the next three years alone. In the two years prior to 2001-02, under the former finance minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, we saw increases in spending of 6% to 7% a year. Why would he need that amount of money? Population growth and inflation, put together as a formula, were running at roughly 2% a year. We saw a government that was intent on running up spending, so that was 6% a year.

Why do we have this much spending? I would suggest that there are a bunch of business sector grants that are going out to the aerospace sector, for example. Hundreds of millions and in fact billions of dollars are being spent in grants and subsidies to the aerospace sector: Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, Bombardier and some of the biggest corporations in the world.

Therefore when the member talks about artists, I guess she is just asking for the same kind of treatment that some of our big businesses are getting.

However, members of the Canadian Alliance do not agree with that. To begin with, we do not think that these business sectors should receive that kind of grant. That is the reason we need this kind of tax. The government needs that kind of tax to cover off all of the wasteful and misdirected spending.

Instead of sending those business subsidies out, why not leave that money with Canadians? We will decide how to spend it. If we want to invest in Pratt & Whitney or in Bombardier, which are publicly traded companies, we can do that. I suggest we leave that money in people's pockets, that we reduce taxes for all Canadians, not just certain sectors such as artists, although I agree they are part of the composite that needs that spending reduced as well.

I agree that this is a better approach than we normally see from some of the members in the House where they ask for subsidies for certain sectors. Rather than ask for subsidies, we should ask for tax relief. The member for Dartmouth has done just that. I have sympathy for her argument, but I would not restrict it to only one segment of society.

We must examine what is happening with Canadian families. We must look across the border to the United States and the people we compete against every day for the product that we are selling and for our very jobs.

I just returned from Kitchener-Waterloo. In that one corner of Ontario $9 billion of goods are exported mainly to the United States. Those goods must compete with other products from other countries. They must also compete with taxes. George Bush's latest tax proposal, that has recently gone to the United States senate, has made the case that a family of four earning $40,000 or less annually will not have to pay any federal tax.

What do similar families face in Canada? They start paying taxes at $14,000. There is a $26,000 difference. No wonder artists and hard working families are concerned about the tax levels in the country. There are 30 OECD countries and Canada has the highest personal tax levels.

We will get more groups speaking out and saying that we are overtaxed. I agree with them because we are overtaxed. We must make the case for all Canadians, not just those of us in a special sector.

I will examine a little bit further where that kicks in. Basic personal exemptions in Canada on the federal side kick in at about $9,000. After that individuals begin paying federal tax. Does that make any sense? I think not. Those levels must be raised. In order to allow basic personal exemptions to be raised we must have a government committed to reducing spending and to get some priority on its spending. We must stop the wasteful spending that we saw when the government blew a billion dollars on an HRDC program that moved a Hostess potato chips plant from one place in Ontario to 30 miles down the road to another member's riding. That did not make any sense.

We have other areas where government advertising contracts have blown a lot more money. The gun registry is on its second billion dollars. It does not make any sense. The Auditor General has identified lots of wasteful spending.

We must cut out some of this wasteful spending. Let us get our priorities straight. We should leave money in people's pockets and let them decide how they will spend it. They will make wiser choices than the government of the day.