David Collenette

[Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation And Safety Board Act, June 12th, 1998]

A distinguished Canadian.

[Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation And Safety Board Act, June 12th, 1998]

moved that the bill be now read the third time and passed.

[Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation And Safety Board Act, June 12th, 1998]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

[Air Transportation, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is from the province of Quebec. I would invite him to go to Dorval airport to see the level of increase in traffic; not just domestic traffic, but international traffic. Open Skies, which Air Canada did not want, was brought in by this government and it has benefited Montreal as well as all the other cities.

[Air Transportation, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should really take a look at the press release I issued last week. He will clearly see that Air Canada received permission to operate a daily service from Toronto to Hong Kong. It received authority to have five code-sharing arrangements of its choice to anywhere within the Star Alliance. It also got assurance that we would look at the specific question of T'aipei later this year and that we would review the entire file within 12 months.

Now, tell me that Air Canada did not get anything out of it.

[Montreal Port Corporation, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have already discussed the issue with the hon. member and yes, he is right, the situation is serious. We have made representations to the Montreal Port Corporation in an attempt to solve the problem.

[Air Transport, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we have looked at each of these routes. We have analysed it meticulously.

Let me draw the hon. member's attention to the fact that two years ago we had a crisis in terms of the viability of the future of two airline carriers in this country. This government stood steadfast behind competition and assisted the competitive nature of the Canadian airline industry. We are not going to penalize one of those companies in a way which would hurt its restructuring plan, in this case Canadian Airlines.

Air Canada got a lot out of these deals. He should got back to the officials at Air Canada who will tell him that they are going to make more money out of this arrangement.

[Air Transport, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have already explained that it is in the interest of all Canadians to have profitable airlines, whether it is Air Canada or Canadian Airlines.

For the hon. member, day after day, to take the position of one commercial carrier, I would say he is not really doing justice to those people who work for Canadian Airlines. He is not of course taking the pan Canadian view and looking at the health of the Canadian airline industry. But that is no surprise because the Bloc Quebecois traditionally only looks at narrow points of view that reflect parochial interests. In this case, when it talks about harm to Montreal, it is dead wrong.

[Railways, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the policy of 1996 has been very successful because five times as many short lines have been created as have been abandoned. That shows the policy is working. Smaller companies can take over these small tracks, make them economically viable and serve the interests of producers and especially farmers in Saskatchewan.

[Railways, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member was in the House when we debated the amendments to the National Transportation Act which give the railway some latitude in terms of dealing with their excess infrastructure, much of it in western Canada.

We put in place the Estey commission, the statutory grain transportation review, to look at all various aspects of grain transportation including rail line abandonment. What I found in our dealings with the railways is that they are very sensitive to the concerns of the hon. member, especially in his province of Saskatchewan, as we are here.

After all, we on this side of the House agreed to fund facilitators to help small communities that want to take over these branch lines.