Transport committee  To a considerable degree.

Transport committee  Well, there's the sheer number of fees, the amount they add to tickets in Canada—airport fees and things like that—which in most jurisdictions are funded by the government rather than the flying public. There's a certain logic to saying, “let the people who fly do it”, but it's such an important part of our economy, and not just to travellers.

Transport committee  Yes, but let me turn to my colleagues to modify that and qualify it, as I'm sure they're apt to, as good academics.

Transport committee  It's something where there is a fair bit of competition. When you look at food, it really has improved a lot in the big airports in Canada; it's much better than it used to be. Some improvements have happened over time, I would say. There's still room for more competition for sure.

Transport committee  I just came back from Morocco. One thing that struck us was the government's role in creating clusters. They created a hub, which we stayed at, to bring families to very nice hotels. They created that and they're bringing flights there, so they're creating a reason to be there.

Transport committee  It's not difficult to monitor. Plattsburgh is an hour and a quarter from Montreal. I went down to do a PBS interview last week. The sign at Plattsburgh says, “Montreal's U.S. Airport”. They're not subtle about it. PBS is interested in Montreal, because there are four million people, a million of them anglophones, versus upstate New York.

Transport committee  There is an environmental element of it as well. Very clearly in France if you have trains that go to a destination—I believe it's two hours—you can't fly. This environmental aspect of it has really been taken on board around the world, when we think about it. However, we can look at parts of the U.S., and Europe and so on, where they have great trains, and I think we're rightly jealous.

Transport committee  I'm older. I'm sorry. That was an old-person comment, so my lifetime is shorter than yours, sir.

Transport committee  A part of it is the airport managers who use data from IATA to figure out.... Montreal is growing a lot. Airport managers said, “Look, if people are flying to Toronto, then on to Rome, let's just have a Montreal-Rome flight.” You show the data, and you see that it makes sense. You go to Air Canada and Alitalia and say, “Here's the data.

Transport committee  I'll defer to some of my colleagues who would know more about that. I'll put them on the spot. Do we have a volunteer?

Transport committee  It would be great to have some ultra-low-cost carriers. I've sat down with Skúli Mogensen—who lived in Montreal and founded WOW Air— and the founding CEO of Southwest. I've talked to a bunch of CEOs about this. It's all about costs. This is one of the three basic strategies from Michael Porter at Harvard: low cost.

Transport committee  I apologize. That was cheeky. For an older man, it's totally inappropriate.

Transport committee  You can't own all 49% as a foreigner, which makes it much less attractive to invest in the airline industry in Canada. I'm not sure we have a lot of rich Canadians who want to get rid of their wealth by owning an airline. However, we have a lot of rich foreigners who would see opportunities if there were some changes to the rules in Canada.

Transport committee  If there is demand, sir—

Transport committee  I think you're right, Mr. Rogers. There are two trends. One is that one way of saving money is to fly out of second-tier airports. My brother lives in Abbotsford, and I remember flying out there, then to Calgary and on to Montreal. And it was great because they said, hi, Gary, to my brother.