Transport committee  I think the AIFs are the perfect example for this. It's one of the very few products I've ever come across where you have to pay today for a potential future benefit. You wouldn't see that in any consumer good. You wouldn't go and buy a car now and pay extra to General Motors for what development they might do for the future.

Transport committee  We do operate to Montreal. We also looked a lot at Saint-Hubert as a potential port. It's one of the most high-cost airports in the country—there's no doubt about that—but there is a good market. We enjoy operating to Montreal, but it is a very expensive airport.

Transport committee  I apologize, Chair and Monsieur Barsalou-Duval, but I did not get a translation.

Transport committee  It's an excellent question. The issue really is in Toronto Pearson airport. In other airports, the availability of slots is much less of a constraint, but it certainly is in Toronto Pearson, where the slots are controlled by the existing players. I think, for example, as Sunwing got folded into WestJet, WestJet got control of another big bundle of slots in there.

Transport committee  I do agree with it. I think loosening up access to investment is good for competition, because investment from Canadians tends to have a more risk-averse tone to it. Opening up to a broader investment universe is good. The controls around foreign ownership are dealt with differently in different countries.

Transport committee  We analyzed them closely—we're a very analytical company—and it's hard to imagine that they were making any money on that. No, absolutely not.

Transport committee  I disagree with it. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think regulating prices in airline markets works anywhere around the world, in fact. In many markets, it doesn't. It will only encourage inefficiency. I think competition is good. Competition drives efficiency, but predatory behaviour needs to be monitored closely, and there needs to be a faster intervention mechanism for predatory behaviour.

Transport committee  Well, this is why it takes so long to get a ruling on it. It's a free market, and people can choose to fly where they want to fly, but when the evidence is that it hasn't been served forever in the market, we go and enter into it, someone comes and sits in on the same day of the week and same time of day a month after we start, we end up saying we can't live there, and we get out and then they get out, you can draw your own conclusions.

Transport committee  I'm sorry, Mr. Bachrach, I'm not familiar with it in detail, but being relatively new to Canada, I do hear a lot of complaints. There's almost an acceptance of the fact that you have these oligopolies that will control prices in different industries in Canada. There's an acceptance by Canadians that it's just the way it is in Canada, that it's the price we pay for living in this beautiful country.

Transport committee  One approach might be to offer a revenue subsidy of some sort that is there to be bid on by other airlines. It's a very transparent subsidy that the most efficient airlines will be able to make the most of. That would be one mechanism.

Transport committee  Sure. You see it in parts of Europe as well, in Scandinavia and so on.

Transport committee  I would say that Canada's been a cozy duopoly for too long and Canadians have been paying too much for too long. Flair—and Lynx alongside us, until they exited the market—has disrupted that. It would certainly be in the best interest of the duopoly for Flair to fail, but we're not going to.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Through taxation, we would. We haven't gotten to that point yet.

Transport committee  I dispute the last fact—