Transport committee  That would be screening. That's not an airport authority conducting the actual operation. That's CATSA.

Transport committee  I don't want to get this wrong technically, so I'm going to defer to Gordon Duke.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the proposed amendments to the Aeronautics Act contained in Bill C-43, which is before you today. My name is Daniel-Robert Gooch, and I am the President of the Canadian

Finance committee  I think the sense was that it had been slipped into the omnibus bill, so it perhaps hadn't had a lot of consideration by and consultation with industry. We were aware that the minister had concerns about private aerodromes and wanted the legislative authority to regulate in that

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  Well, our airports are governed by airport authority boards. They're all established under long-term leases with the federal government. I'm speaking, of course, of the national airport system airports. There are additional airports in our membership that are not NAS airports.

Finance committee  —or not expansion, of course, would have been part of the political process. Now they're under local airport authority not-for-profit corporations, and those decisions are made locally at the airport authorities themselves in consultation with the community and with their users.

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  It's a bit more than one line; it's a couple of paragraphs.

Finance committee  The language is written pretty broadly. I don't have the text right here, but my recollection is that it doesn't actually get into differentiation or any sort of threshold, which I think is part of the concern. As I said, the intent, as we understand it, is to deal with private a

Finance committee  That's not something I've tried to do, but my understanding is that the department, the minister, feels there is an insufficient level of—

Finance committee  —exactly, in terms of the ability to have a role or a say in the building of private aerodromes.

Finance committee  I'm not an expert on the environmental requirements for an airport, so I don't really want to comment on that, but certainly airports comply with all the requirements in various elements of federal law today, in terms of what they need to do.

Finance committee  We have no quibbles that additional regulatory powers over private aerodromes may be needed. Certainly we consulted with the department on that. There were concerns about some private aerodromes that were under development. We had discussions with the government on that. Certainl

Finance committee  If I may, sir, certainly we're not so familiar with the problems, or the perceived problems, that led to the language. I'm more familiar with the concerns about the unintended consequences. Certainly there are a great number of rules around safety and security in aviation today.