Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to speak on the matter of the Yellowknife Improvement Plan that the Minister of Transportation brought forward to this House in his statement yesterday.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to lay out some of my own facts. Canada places 124th out of 141 countries ranked by the World Economic Forum for cost competitiveness of its travel and tourism industry, and a recent analysis says that much of this has to do with both ticket taxes and airport fees.
Mr. Speaker, airport charges alone account for 25 per cent of the price difference between airfares in Canada and the United States according to the Conference Board of Canada. In fact, a Senate report conducted in 2012 compared the cost of flying in Canada and the United States, and it found that a ticket from Toronto to Orlando, Florida, on a Canadian airline had a base fare of $118 and a final cost of $207; 43 per cent was taxes and fees.
A study by the Montreal Economic Institute concluded that airports should be privatized to end the rent payments that are driving up many of these fees. This would free airports to make investments, lower the cost of flights to consumers, and increase demand and services for air travellers, this report concluded.
Mr. Speaker, these facts and these well-known concerns about cost competitiveness in Canada over its air system are well known, and I find it highly ironic that a government that has committed to fighting cost-of-living is opposed to any tax increases and initially opposed to a carbon tax in case it had undue economic impacts on our cost-of-living is inclined to increase the cost to fly to and from the Northwest Territories through our central air hub by an incredible amount.
We still have no clear plan for when the many improvements they are touting that will come out of these fees will actually roll out into the airport, and it does appear again that we are taking an expensive piece of public infrastructure and putting it the costs on to consumers. I think, again, this should be retained as a cost-of-living initiative to keep that subsidy going and shield consumers from the high cost of travel that is already too high in this country and already too high in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.