Bev Desjarlais

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for bringing this issue to the floor of the House again. Obviously it is a serious issue. There is no question that there is a lack of vision in the transportation policy within the country in all modes of this sector.

I want to comment on one of the points the hon. member made. We have privatization of the airports. Certainly some airports will make dollars but there are those that will not.

In the hon. member's view is it okay to privatize as long as the privatized company or authority will make money but not okay if the others will not? Is it one or the other, or should we be looking at a policy that is there for all of Canada where we all support each other?

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thought it rather strange but it sounded good that the NDP would be able to give the answers to the health care problems. We certainly can give the answers.

We never have suggested that money is the only issue. We never have suggested that there is an unending pocket of money to be used for health care. We have said that Canadians want dollars put into health care. If there is a surplus of $11.9 billion or $14 billion within the federal government, it is not because the Liberals did some good money management as compared to everything else they did. It means that they cut $25 billion out of health care, took away services, continued to take Canadian taxpayer money and never provided the services. I want to get the member's comments on that.

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I recognize that she was speaking as if there were a real commitment on behalf of the government to support a public health care system and that there was no way it would allow for profit medicare or health care within our system. However, the reality is that there has been a decrease in funding.

The government is not funding health care to the degree it was a number of years ago. There is not the 50:50 sharing with the provinces. It is not happening. That is not accurate. The government is not doing it. As a result, the provinces make the choice as to whether they want to go ahead and start charging for this or not covering that, instead of having a system where over time we improve it and where we continually benefit Canadians with increased services that are covered.

I want to comment on the point of what Canadians want to see. Canadians have made it perfectly clear a number of times when governments of the past have gone to them and asked what they wanted to see in health care. They have already told the governments. Where have the governments been? Why have they not been listening?

Canadians have said that they want a universal health care system. They want a national pharmacare program. They want national home care standards. If people have never heard that they should get their ears to an ENT and get them cleaned out. That is what Canadians have said loud and clear. They have said that they want a national system. They want national standards. They want to be able to move from one province to the other and get those services. That is not possible.

How can my hon. colleague stand behind her statement of what the government believes in if it is not willing to put an equal share of dollars on the table for the provinces?

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent remarks. He certainly gave the real reasons for being in the situation we are today in terms of the health care service in Canada.

A good number of members and I are from a generation in Canada that has never had to fight for the benefits in our health care system. We have never had to truly experience the horrendous situation that went on prior to medicare.

I will mention an incident that I heard about from the Canadian Alliance member for Selkirk—Interlake. I happened to meet a constituent in his riding last week. He recognized that his own member of parliament was not on the right side of the issue, so he mentioned to me that he recalls the years when his brother on the farm had an appendicitis attack. They called a doctor who came out to the farm. Before seeing his ailing brother in the house, the doctor went out to barn to check out the cow he was to receive by way of payment. That was the state of health care in Canada. That was our health care system prior to medicare.

I find it absolutely unconscionable that the government would not put enough funding into our health care system nationwide to ensure that we have those services for all Canadians. Has my colleague heard of any of such instances?

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any question that jobs were not supposed to be lost. Promises were made that no jobs would be lost. Nobody would lose their job for two years. Everything would be hunky dory. However, we have not seen this all play out yet. If they do not lose their jobs that is great.

I also want to point out that had there been some regulation in the area of capacity some time ago, we would not have gone through crisis after crisis in the airline industry. It happened because we were afraid of the word regulation.

I will be the first to admit that nobody wants over-regulation. We recognize that we have capacity regulations on international routes. We have a very profitable international service. Why would we not think that by having some regulation in the area of capacity we would not have saved these jobs anyway? The hon. member will have to forgive me for not thanking him for saving the jobs that would probably have been lost as a direct result of the deregulation that the government put in place.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is inherent that at least someone takes the time to remind the House and Canadians why we are in the position today of dealing with legislation to address a monopoly air carrier in Canada. Quite frankly we got here as a direct result of deregulation within the air industry in Canada.

I agreed with numerous witnesses, as was done many times in the past when deregulation came up, that it was not the answer. I want to read a couple of statements made by some of those who appeared before committee. This one is from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities which stated:

When the air transportation system was deregulated in 1987, Canadians expected the introduction of new and special service operators to the marketplace, which would increase competition and bring better and less expensive services...by 1993 the industry was dominated by two major airlines competing for market share on every major route. This cutthroat competition undermined the financial stability of both airlines—

The Canadian Labour Congress stated:

The unregulated market has hurt Canada's two airlines without delivering efficiency or higher quality service.

They are two very different groups with the same perspective. All those great promises of deregulation just did not work.

Deregulation has been a public policy failure for consumers, shareholders and workers. The consequences of deregulation have been a crisis in 1992-93, in 1996, in 1999, and now in 2000. We are still dealing with it. We are dealing with layoffs, job insecurity. We saw poor working conditions, wage freezes and cuts, chronic overcapacity in the domestic market and massive cost increases. The overall cost of flying went up 76% since 1992. Gosh, we have to love that deregulation.

Ticket prices outpaced increases in the consumer price index even with seat sales factored in, declining levels of services particularly in small communities and poor investment returns for both the airlines. Competition at any cost without modern regulations was not the answer.

Deregulation was the root cause of the crisis in the airline industry. The solution could have been effective modern regulation, not overregulation and too many price controls, aimed at protecting the public interest and ensuring that Canada's airlines could coexist and compete effectively in the global market. Modern regulations could have seen a flexible approach and the use of government powers selectively to ensure that airlines compete fairly and live up to the public trust.

Profitable high traffic routes such as Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa will naturally attract competition among carriers. These routes do not need government regulation to ensure adequate service. The government needs to play the role of referee to ensure fair competition and prevent damaging anti-competitive behaviour such as the predatory pricing in excessive capacity.

On the other hand, low traffic routes between smaller communities are not guaranteed to attract service. In these cases effective regulations would have been essential because reasonable and affordable service is a social and economic necessity. The government has many tools at its disposal to address this point. Will the bill accomplish that? I do not think so.

Deregulation and unhealthy competition have led to the monopoly situation. What do we do to make sure the monopoly air carrier does not go crazy on us? What can we do? First, we need to recognize that the bill can only work in areas where it does not contravene the agreement made between Air Canada and the competition commissioner and okayed by the transport minister. In essence, it will not address all the difficulties and all the problems that numerous people have talked about and brought before committee.

The bill gives the force of law to Air Canada's commitment in this agreement. However, everybody has acknowledged that Air Canada has been acting irresponsibly and is worried sick over what Air Canada will do. Were there any efforts by the government or the official opposition party to put anything concrete in the bill? Heavens no. We do not want to interfere with the entrepreneurial spirit. We do not want to interfere with the opportunity for Air Canada to make a buck.

Meanwhile the comments made by my colleague from the alliance party shocked me. I think it is the first time she said it. I listened to her talk about protecting workers, protecting small communities and maintaining service, but she supported nothing in the legislation that would have done those things. I actually heard that colleague make a statement that will probably go down in Canada's history. She said that we have to deal with more than the economic issue. Quite frankly, I think she said it just for the sake of saying it because she wants to put it in a householder or a ten percenter that will head out west where they will lose a pile of jobs and where Canadian regional employees will not get the same benefits as other employees.

The bottom line is that Canada's airline industry is vital to the economic and social well-being of hundreds of communities across Canada. That reality goes beyond the concerns of airline shareholders who focus mainly on the bottom line.

There certainly are some things in the bill with which I agree. There is no question. There is no question that we need to have legislation in place, especially in the situation with a monopoly carrier.

I have one area of concern with regard to new carriers coming into business. We extended the length of time that carriers would have to give notice. We okayed it as a committee to go to 120 days. There was concern that it would hinder new entrants. Nobody argued with the fact that we did not want to hinder new entrants. The NDP does not want to hinder new entrants coming in. We recognize that when we want to try out markets we need some time. The additional changes that went into the legislation now before us such as the 120 day extension to apply to new carriers is an excellent move. It will give some opportunity for competition.

I was pleased to see something happen in the area of an ombudsman; however, I am not thrilled with the fact that it is termed a temporary complaints commissioner. For the benefit of the minister, I have to admit that I am pleased the position will fall under the auspices of the Canadian Transportation Agency. However, I wonder about the credibility of how that person will be seen when it is termed a temporary complaints commissioner.

The complaints we were hearing were not minor little complaints; people had serious concerns about the way they were being treated within the airline industry in Canada. I do not consider them to be temporary little complaints. Quite frankly, it would be great if the complaints would end and we had a system that operated smoothly. My guess is that we will probably just leave it all to the monopoly carrier appointed ombudsman to look after all of the little complaints and we will shuffle them off.

The bottom line is that it would be great if it were operating so efficiently that the temporary airlines commissioner would not be needed. That would be wonderful. However, I am not convinced that the complaints will end, especially if the indication we have as to how things will operate is what Mr. Milton has been indicating.

My committee colleagues are great. To the benefit of them all, the majority of them spent a lot of time on committee matters. They listened to witnesses. They asked good questions of the witnesses. Quite frankly, the comments I heard from my colleagues were not the same as the bottom line that came down on paper. There were concerns about the labour issues, the ombudsman and price gouging. What was the final result? Let us give it six months and see if we need to review it.

There was this horrible person we have been dealing with. Let us face it, there is one thing we can credit Mr. Milton for. A survey was done a number of years ago that asked Canadians who they least trusted. Lawyers and politicians were at the top of the list. The only one who is probably least trusted now is Robert Milton, so we should give him credit for that at least. Through all the discussion on the airline merger he made promises that no workers would lose their jobs. I heard him promise Canadian Airlines employees that everything would come together and there would be a smooth transition. Everything would be done for them. What we have listened to is nothing but problems with Robert Milton.

What will we do with this legislation? We will hit him with a wet noodle. That is all this legislation will do to Robert Milton. If I am wrong, so be it. I hope I am. I hope and pray that something in this legislation, between the CTA and the Competition Bureau, will come together, but it does not appear that way.

We were worried about price gouging. Everybody complained. We heard of a situation on the Hamilton-Moncton route. It was just horrible what he had done. My goodness, the legislation is not even there yet. He does not even have the full rein and already he is doing these things. Will nobody bother to put in place something to stop him? We will wait six months and review it. That is disappointing.

I honestly had hoped that my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona would be around to hear this. Prior to question period we were having a discussion on some of the amendments, one of which concerned the 25% foreign ownership limit. We agreed that we did not want to delay the bill. We were not necessarily happy as a caucus allowing things to pass on division, but we accepted the reasonableness. We did not want to delay the bill. We want to get things moving.

My colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona said that the Minister of Transport really is committed to the 25% foreign ownership limit. The minister stood here and said that absolutely we are not going to increase it. Had my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona been able just a short while after question period to listen to the minister's comments, he would have heard him say that if we do not get competition we will raise it. It did not take all of two hours before it happened.

I am not convinced that there is a real commitment not to raise the foreign ownership regulation. Again, this would be one of those times when I would be happy to say “This is great. It worked. It is not going to happen”, but I am not totally convinced.

It is important to note the things that are not in the legislation. As I mentioned, the legislation deals only with particular things and not necessarily everything that came up as a concern. The committee heard the concerns of the labour force. The legislation was not able to address any of the labour related issues. The legislation does not deal with how to bring the two working groups together. Again, we had thought that Mr. Milton would be very magnanimous. Quite frankly, we know that is not the case. I would hope that we would go beyond all the talk in committee and make sure that something is put in place so that we see the swift resolve of the labour issues. Otherwise we will be dealing with an airline industry in constant crisis.

If the labour issue is related to seniority, which everyone recognizes is the key issue to be dealt with, that is not being dealt with. Even if agreements have been reached, the issue of seniority has not been dealt with. It will be left to negotiations a couple of years down the road. As far as I am concerned, that does not address the problem, which is a result of this legislation and a result of a monopoly. It is being delayed for someone else. That is what is happening with that issue.

I would hope that we could assure the employees of Canadian Airlines and Air Canada, and any others who might be affected, that if there are issues as a result of this merger they will be given consideration and that there are persons within the Canadian Industrial Relations Board designated to deal with this swiftly so that it does not become a continuing crisis in the airline industry.

There is nothing in the bill to address the very serious issue related to this monopoly carrier and the merger; that is, the issue related to employees. None of us wanted to see either side, whether it be Canadian Airlines or Air Canada, lose out. I would hope that no one on the committee saw one side or the other as having enough, even though Air Canada ended up being the owner. I would hope no one saw that. It certainly was not what was indicated to us by Mr. Milton or any other parties involved. There was an acceptance that these two companies would come together and the workers would be protected on equal terms.

I do not think the bill gives protection to small and medium size communities. There will be rules in place for a couple of years, which could be extended, but I do not plan to leave my small community in three years. I do not know how many other Canadians do. There are a lot of Canadians who want to know that they will have service for quite a long time. They want there to be some obligation for a carrier which is given a monopoly route, or other companies which have advantages to fly within Canada, to provide services to those communities. The bill certainly falls short of doing that.

The other area which is notably missing concerns a passengers bill of rights. I recognize that falls outside the scope of the bill and would probably be best dealt with another way, but I want to make a point of mentioning it because it was an issue put forward by witnesses at committee on numerous occasions. The key players in our airline industry, the passengers, are the forgotten ones. It is like the airlines are saying “We just want your money. Go ahead and complain, but we do not necessarily want you to have the right to some of these things”.

The key things which passengers had concerns about were flights being cancelled without notice; people getting to the airport only to find they were on a totally different plane; or getting on the plane after waiting an hour, perhaps due to a delay, which we can all accept happens due to mechanical reasons or the weather. Passengers can accept that, but they want to know as soon as possible how long the delay will be and when they will be able to get going. Often they want to know what the delay is for, for their own comfort.

How many times have members of the House boarded a plane after waiting an hour or an hour and a half and no sooner does the plane back away from the gate we are left waiting another hour on the tarmac? We are hostages on the plane. We cannot go back. That is a serious concern for passengers. Those are just some of the issues that come up.

Even though it seems as if this should be something we could deal with in the bill, I want Canadians to know that I recognize it is outside the scope of the bill. We have had discussions with the people who wrote the legislation. We have to look at other ways of addressing those concerns and go at it from a different angle.

We should have ensured that there would be protection for all regions of Canada and that service would be provided. I am not convinced that will happen. Again, this may play out one way or the other in the end.

I felt that Air Canada having to divest itself of Canadian Regional was not a good thing. I know that in a lot of those smaller and medium size communities Canadian Regional was often the other carrier, but Canadian Regional was often the only jet. I am not convinced that any carrier buying in will be able to continue service. I am greatly concerned that those communities will have no jet service.

The Minister of Transport reflected on the fact that small and medium size communities do not have the best choice of service. He mentioned the Churchill area. I would hate to think that air carriers in my riding are giving the perception that there is no service.

I live in Thompson and I know that we have better opportunities than some other areas. We are one of the larger centres in the Churchill riding. The carriers that go into that area, Canadian and Conair, as well as a lot of smaller carriers, have been excellent. Those carriers are not making huge profits. I would not want to risk that service simply because something cannot be worked out with another carrier.

On that note I will end. Again, I am not convinced that the bill will do the job.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-26, in Clause 17, be amended by replacing line 29 on page 21 with the following:

“to which are attached more than 10% of the”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-26, in Clause 17, be amended

(a) by replacing lines 1 to 3 on page 22 with the following:

“than 25% of the votes that may ordinarily be”

(b) by replacing lines 14 to 16 on page 22 with the following:

“votes to not more than 25% of the total number of votes”

(c) by deleting lines 18 to 22 on page 22.

Mr. Speaker, Motions Nos. 5 and 6 in Group No. 2 have been up for much discussion during the whole airline merger debate. They specifically deal with the ownership of shares.

Motion No. 5 deals with the 10% ownership share in Air Canada. We all know why the 10% was initially put into the first Air Canada Public Participation Act legislation. It was to ensure the broad ownership of shares within Air Canada and to ensure that Canadians had an opportunity to be very involved and to give a chance to people throughout the nation to do that.

Motion No. 6 deals with the 25% ownership rule. I propose to keep the Air Canada share ownership limit at 10%. The new legislation changes it to 15%. I want to entrench the foreign ownership limit, currently at 25% in the legislation. As was indicated by the member from the Canadian Alliance, they do not care one way or another if foreign companies literally own everything in Canada. They make no bones about it.

Quite frankly, I do care. I care that Canadians have control over crucial elements in society; over transportation that needs to be provided to all of Canada, not just Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Halifax. We are talking about the whole country. We want to make sure that we have control over companies that benefit from the opportunity of providing a service in Canada. As a result, we believe that in a crucial industry such as our air industry there should be limits.

Right now the Minister of Transport and cabinet have the power to increase the foreign ownership cap up to 49%. The New Democratic Party is not opposed to increasing foreign investment in Canada but we think the decision should be made in consultation with parliament.

It is interesting to note that members of the Canadian Alliance are always saying that everything should come to parliament and that the government should not be doing this or that. In this particular case, because it is allowing foreign ownership to take over everything, they do not care if it comes to parliament. Let the governor in council order it up to 49%.

Entrenching the 25% limit in the legislation would require another act of parliament in the future to change it, guaranteeing that it would be voted on and that all Canadians would have a say as to whether or not they wanted to see ownership of their airline either increased to 49% or increased to 100%. At least Canadians would have a say through their members of parliament.

Bill C-26 will increase Air Canada share ownership from 10% to 15%. We propose leaving it at the 10% which was formerly in the legislation. Raising this to 15% opens the door for a non-hostile takeover attempt. Many industry stakeholders have expressed concerns about allowing Air Canada to fall under the sway of a dominant shareholder. We agree with stakeholders that the public interest is best served if Air Canada remains under the control of a broad cross-section of Canadian shareholders not a single dominant shareholder. This motion would close the door to that dominant shareholder scenario.

Further, it is of real importance to recognize that Canadian taxpayers over the years have been very supportive of Canadian Airlines and Air Canada. As a result, I do not think we should ever look at Air Canada or Canadian Airlines, or any company that has had much support from Canadian taxpayers, the same as any other, just up for sale, willy-nilly to whomever. Canadians do have a real interest in the corporation and should have a say over what happens.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-26, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 42 on page 7 the following:

“(2.1) Every licensee who contravenes subsection (2) is guilty of an offence and is liable (a) on summary conviction, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $25,000; or (b) on conviction on indictment, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more that $50,000.”

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-26, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing lines 46 to 48 on page 9 and lines 1 to 3 on page 10 with the following:

“subsection (1) or (2) on its own motion.”

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-26, in Clause 4, be amended by adding after line 3 on page 10 the following:

“(6.1) Where the Agency makes a finding, under subsection (1), that an increase in fare is unreasonable, the Agency may, in the case where the increase during the year is at least 1.25 times the inflation index for that year, order an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the increase in fare and make any ruling it considers appropriate in the circumstances.”

Mr. Speaker, it is with some disappointment that I am here at report stage dealing with amendments which I hoped would give some kind of clout to the piece of legislation before us.

It was quite apparent through numerous witnesses at committee and numerous comments by committee members that there was much fear out there with regard to having a monopoly carrier in Canada. There was a lot of concern from airline travellers, a good number of them members of parliament who sat around the committee table, and a good many who had horror stories and complaints about the way things were already being done since December 1999 and January of this year when the merger started to show the first signs of how things would be.

With all the talk among committee members and witnesses I was initially getting the impression that we would actually see the committee put some strong rules in place to control this monopoly carrier, to control prices throughout Canada and to provide service to communities. In spite of all that talk, all that huff and puff, we have before us a piece of legislation that is fairly lacking.

I hoped that by making some amendments we could at least have a bit of meat in the bill to give the Canadian Transportation Agency some chance at dealing with a monopoly carrier and to give the Competition Tribunal an opportunity to do something. We listened to these two bodies that appeared before us indicate that they did not have the rules in place to put the clamps on a monopoly carrier.

With regard to the amendments in Group No. 1, I have moved three amendments which I believe would certainly give the opportunity to provide that. I will take this opportunity to emphasize Motion No. 1 which reads:

Every licensee who contravenes subsection (2) is guilty of an offence and is liable (a) on summary conviction, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $25,000; or (b) on conviction on indictment, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $50,000.

This is not the exact similarity, but it was intended that this amendment would deal with the situation similar to the one involving InterCanadian in the last part of 1999 when it withdrew service in a matter of a day or so and a lot of travellers were left stranded.

I think everyone has recognized that in the case of InterCanadian there were some real serious financial problems. We have rules in place to address that, but a discussion took place about situations where a carrier just says to heck with it, does not abide by the rules that are in place, does not give the required time limits to withdraw service, and goes ahead and withdraws.

The bottom line was that we have rules which say the carrier should not do it, but there is no penalty to emphasize that it was not okay for the carrier to withdraw the service and start up somewhere else. There should be some kind of penalty in place. If a carrier has the means to continue the service and the means to give reasonable notice, it should do it. This amendment would give the legislation some clout.

We had numerous witnesses who appeared before us at committee saying that they wanted to know the rules when they got into the game. They did not want to go before the CTA and find out that it will do it this way or that way. They wanted to know upfront what the rules were. That was the indication for the first amendment.

The second amendment in Group No. 1 is in relation to the Canadian Transportation Agency having to wait to get a complaint before it could review a situation. When we have an agency such as the Canadian Transportation Agency and we want it to have the power to deal with issues, we should accept that maybe it could look at a situation and say that it is not right. It should be able to go in and investigate. It should not have to wait a period of three or four months until unsuspecting consumers get up in arms, ask that something be done about it, and realize they have to put in a complaint. We have a qualified group of people at the Canadian Transportation Agency. Let us give them the authority to intervene and investigate on its own initiative should it see the necessity to do so.

Motion No. 4 refers to when the agency may want to review the pricing. We heard a whole pile of complaints come across the committee table from all members about how terrible the price gouging was and about how terrible Air Canada was being already. What was the result of the committee? It wanted to give it six months and if it appeared there was a problem the committee would review it. Boy, did that ever put a lot of meat in the bill; let us give them six months and we will see how things happen.

I would suggest that we have some rules in place. Motion No. 4 reads in part:

Where the Agency makes a finding, under subsection (1), that an increase in fare is unreasonable, the Agency may, in the case where the increase during the year is at least 1.25 times the inflation index for that year, order an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the increase in fare and make any ruling it considers appropriate in the circumstances.

Again, it recognizes that the agency is qualified and should be able to review. It knows all the different fares involved in the airline industry.

Most passengers do not know the number of fares involved. They do not know what applies in certain instances but the agency does. We need to give the agency that opportunity. We need to give it something to go by. Again this reflects what the witnesses said, that they want to know the rules before going in. If they know the rules ahead of time, and they know that if the increases are above a certain point and there can be an investigation, at least it is going to put the clamps on those airlines which may decide to raise their prices to heaven knows what.

Those are the three motions in Group No. 1. I am not going to go on about it. Members know what has been happening; certainly the committee members know. Over the weekend the government should have had a little insight into the fact that the bill has not given any clout whatsoever to the Competition Bureau or to the CTA in regard to addressing the problems that are going to be. I would hope it would see fit to put some rules in place in the legislation so that we are not reviewing some whimsical idea of what we think may happen with Air Canada or any other monopoly carrier.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to Group No. 1. I wish to withdraw Motion No. 2.

(Motion No. 2 withdrawn)

[Airline Industry, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the transport committee has found a number of problems with last December's deal between the transport minister and Air Canada on the takeover of Canadian Airlines.

Small communities are only protected for three years and then thrown to the wolves. There is forced divestiture of Canadian Regional Airlines for no good reason. There is nothing to ensure a smooth transition for airline employees.

As the minister knows, these problems are in the deal with Air Canada, not in the bill itself. Our committee can only recommend amendments to the bill. Will the minister please tell the House what he can do to address the problems with the deal?