Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in support of the motion to prevent the government from changing the 10% Air Canada Public Participation Act to increase the available participation by any single entity. This is all being done in the middle of one of the most controversial issues we have going on in Canada and we should not be discussing this. This should not be thrown into the middle of the debate.
We have a great debate now about the future of our aviation industry and the process we are using is nothing short of crazy. This industry involves thousands of employees, dozens of airlines, hundreds of airports and communities. They will all be involved.
Even though this industry has evolved over 60 years, the minister established the criteria on August 13 that we have 90 days to restructure an entire industry that affects thousands of people and many communities in the country. It is absolutely ludicrous that we could even get a handle on the situation. In the middle of that, he throws in a proposal to maybe change the 10% public participation act on Air Canada.
It does not make sense. The process has been mismanaged from the beginning. It must be ratcheted down so we can get a handle on this very serious issue that affects so many people, so many communities, so many airports and so many employees.
Throughout the 90-day process, the minister has been changing the rules. First, he brought in section 47 which changed the rules completely for the first time and removed the Competition Bureau from the entire debate. He then changed the rules again and invited the bureau to come back in, only he gave it a very narrow focus, not the focus it was supposed to have and not the ability to do the job it was legislated to do which was to analyze competition in the interest of consumers and businesses. He wanted it to just analyze the one dominant airline theory. He did not give it the opportunity to look at all areas or to come up with other suggestions, he just focused on his one proposal.
We missed a tremendous number of proposals and we missed all kinds of opportunities to hear other proposals that might be more effective and more practical than the two on the table now. The whole thing has been mismanaged from the beginning.
We missed great opportunities when the minister confined the Competition Bureau to just look at his vision of the future for the aviation industry in Canada. He did not tell the Competition Bureau that he wanted it to look at all the possible permutations and combinations for restructuring the aviation industry in the interest of consumers and business. He took that legislated right away from it and instead instructed it to confine its study to only one dominant airline theory, and that is his theory. We again missed a number of opportunities there.
The Competition Bureau did an incredible report but it was confined and restricted only to the parameters allowed by the minister. If he would have opened up the parameters and allowed the Competition Bureau to consider all options, we would be looking at more options today. If at the beginning of the 90-day process the minister had announced that he was going to change the 10% public participation act, I believe we would also be looking at more proposals and other options would be on the table.
Let us go back to August 13. When the minister announced he was invoking section 47, we had 90 days to come up with an answer. On day one, if the minister had announced he was going to change the 10% public participation act, I believe there may have been other investors, other aviation companies and other proposals put on the table. However, when they looked at this they said that because of the Government of Canada law they would not put a proposal on the table.
On day 74 of 90 days, incredibly, he announced that he was going to change the 10% rule, or at least consider it. That left 16 days for a company, an investor, a group of investors or consortiums to come up with a package involving $6 billion. That was not possible in 16 days. They could not get the approval of the boards of directors. They could not even meet their legal requirements. By not announcing the 10% proposal in the beginning, he precluded a whole lot of options. By announcing it on the 16th, he left it too late for anybody to respond to it or take advantage of it except for one of the applications or proposals that was already in place.
I feel very strongly that the minister has failed to manage this process right from the very beginning.
Competition is the number one issue we hear about from consumers and people who have appeared before the committee that is reviewing the situation. The two proposals on the table now do not provide the discipline supplied by competition, the discipline for competitive air fares, air flights and schedules. Neither one of these proposals provides that competition.
We may have missed opportunities that could have supplied that competition. The Competition Bureau was restricted from analyzing that aspect of it and looking at other options that might be available. The Competition Bureau was restricted to only looking at the dominant carrier approach, which is the minister's approach.
Another serious issue is regional service. In the minister's five principles that he brought out on day 45 of the 90-day process, one of the principles he stated very clearly was that regional service must be guaranteed. The problem is that even if the airlines agree to provide regional service, some of the airports that have recently divested under the divestiture program are not viable.
We had testimony at our committee that 10 to 15 airports in Canada now are not making ends meet. They are no longer viable. We also had testimony from the Onex-American Airlines-Canadian Airlines proposal to say that revenues to those very airports that are not viable now will be reduced. How can we assure regional service if the airports cannot survive?
The problem is that there is no policy on this. There is no policy on anything. We asked the minister the other day in committee if he had a dual airline policy. There is no dual airline policy nor is there a single airline policy.
We asked about the 10% increase, although on August 13 it was not discussed or mentioned. There was no policy then. On day 74 of the 90-day process, he came up with a proposal that maybe there would be a policy on the 10% increase, but again, no policy.
At the standing committee and ad hoc committee we have had academics, flight attendants, airline representatives, travel agents and consumer groups. Every one of them complained that the cart is before the horse.
The academics say that any organized government would have an aviation policy, especially a country like Canada where aviation is so important. The government should establish policy and the private sector should make its proposals to meet those parameters.
In this case the government wants the proposals first and then it will establish policy. It is exactly backwards. In my opinion it is complete mismanagement of a transportation system that is absolutely critical to our country.
Yesterday at committee we an executive from one of the airlines. He commented that he could not believe that a G-7 country like Canada was debating a proposal that was, in effect, illegal. He made an excellent point. We are debating and considering a proposal that breaks the Air Canada Public Participation Act. We are debating this even though it is illegal. He was perplexed by that, and I can only share that confusion.
My position is that the whole process of determining the restructuring of the aviation industry in Canada is grossly mismanaged. We are in a pressure cooker. We have a 90-day window of opportunity. We are supposed to deal with thousands of employees, hundreds of airports, dozens of airlines, communities right across the country and economic development, and we have 90 days to do it. A person cannot even buy a house in 90 days.
It is not sensible to address this, but we have this incredible pressure cooker atmosphere created by a false 90-day window of opportunity which we think was inappropriately instituted.
We are voting in favour of the motion, not because we are against the 10% increase but because of the way it is being handled. It should not be injected into the debate when it is surrounded by controversy and all these peripheral effects. The issue should be addressed in the clear light of day. It should not be addressed when it is attached to so much controversy, this bid and that bid, and all the accusations that are being made.
We are supporting the motion. I compliment the Bloc for bringing it to the table. We would look at it again some time in the future without the pressure and without the undue influence.
