SoVote

Jun/8/23 10:57:36 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely right. Our rail companies are picking and choosing the winners in this game. They pick the high-value commodities and the others sit by the wayside. I have fought time and again with our largest rail company, CN. They talk about winter operations, saying it is winter that caused this. As long as I have been alive, winter has happened at the same time every year. How can a company that has been around for so long claim that it has been caught off guard? It is the same with our gateway airports, specifically YVR in our network. I have sat with them so many times over the years as a manager of small to medium-sized airports and said, “Winter is coming. Are you guys prepared?” They would say they were prepared and ready to go. Then guess what happens. A little bit of snow happens and it is chaos. This is wrong. I just spoke at an aviation conference on Monday. We had airport operators who were saying they should send their airport staff to our major gateway airports during the winter so they can help clear the runways, because our guys seem to do it all the time. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley mentioned the snow we got in the wintertime that shut down our major airport, YVR. That is just another Thursday for us, if I am quoting him properly. That is the frustration we have. I am not just blaming YVR. It is the whole transportation ecosystem the government has not addressed. The Liberals stand up and give non-answers during question period when opposition parties are pressing them on these challenges. There are no answers. They promise to do better, and then a bill like this comes out and it does nothing. After eight years, they have had so much opportunity. It is time for them to step aside, because I can say that we are going to do better when we form government.

341 words

Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Mr. Todd Doherty

Jun/8/23 11:00:50 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-33

Mr. Speaker, I know a bit about that, as I was part of the executive team that transferred our last national airport system in Canada, the Prince George Airport. We went from a Transport Canada federally operated airport to a local airport authority, the Prince George Airport Authority. The challenge with that is that once it stands alone, it is standing alone. There are very few opportunities for revenue generation. Who creates the safety and security policies for our ports and airports? It is the government, and it transfers very few dollars to these ports and airports to maintain them, whether it is regarding their safety or security. That is, again, why I am frustrated with Bill C-33. We always want our goods and people to be transported via safe, secure and sound modes. However, what we have seen is that the government views our ports and airports as cash cows, not as the economic engine generators they truly are. There are so many things we could do. We are the highest-cost jurisdiction in the world for aviation fees, which is why Canadians pay some of the highest costs for airline tickets. It is why cargo aircraft or passenger carriers that come in have to pay some of the highest costs just to land here and transport goods. If we made things a little easier for people to come to Canada to conduct business, imagine how great we could be. That is the Canada I want to live in.

251 words

Context: House Hansard - 209 - Jun/8/23

Mr. Todd Doherty

Jun/8/23 11:03:37 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, if we were to do things the right way, we would not need these advisory panels. Local airports and port authorities are made up of experts within the industry: experts on the financial side of it, community members, and people who have experience running businesses with the challenges they have. It is a regulatory environment. Our government sees them as cash cows, not the economic engine generators they truly can be, and it picks winners and losers.

79 words