Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Here is an area where I have to take exception with the department and at times other areas of our public service as well that we make comparisons with other jurisdictions and that is a very legitimate part of our job. We should know what we're doing in relation to the rest of the world, but it does not for me, Mr. Chairman, and in all cases all the time justify whether we do something in a certain way just because this is what the landing fees are in Ottawa or Halifax or Saskatoon because they are airports that may have a similar number of landings or air traffic movements or passengers or this kind of thing.
Mr. Chairman, the point is that we can't just be compared across the board all the time with these other jurisdictions. We are not in the same operating environment. We are in an isolated place. We don't have the options of rail or perhaps multiple road connections or sea or all of these kinds of things. Our dependence on air travel and the amount of money that we put out for it professionally in our businesses and personally is quite high. For that reason I just really downplay, I don't reject altogether, Mr. Chairman, but I downplay these ideas that if this is what happens in the rest of Canada for an operation of our scale, this is what we can do up here too. I don't buy that. Let's do what we need to do to serve our needs. Whether or not it jibes with the way someone else does it doesn't really matter. This is where I go back to my point that I don't believe the Department of Transportation has really looked hard enough or pushed all the buttons hard enough to give the traveling public these other options.
I've gone over my time here, Mr. Chairman. I'll stop now with that point. Thank you.