Environment and Sustainable Development
Date: 2023_04_20
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Francis Scarpaleggia: I am pleased to address the issue of the aerospace and aviation industry. I grew up in Montreal, and my family and I were always aware of the existence of this industry, particularly when we went down what was then called Laurentien Boulevard in Cartierville. There was even an airport attached to the Canadair plant. Now it has become a residential area, but it was very impressive to go by that plant. In fact, I believe that, today, it is by far the biggest manufacturing plant in Montreal. My father worked for Canadair after the war, in the 1950s, when Canadair specialized in manufacturing aircraft for putting out forest fires. I have always been aware of the aerospace industry. However, I am rather confused as to why the decision was made to discuss this report now. If I am not mistaken, this report is over a year old and the government has already issued a response to it, as it is required to do when a committee report is tabled. It is my understanding that we are supposed to be debating Bill C-27 , which deals with some issues that are very important at present. The purpose of this bill to modernize our privacy protection laws in a context where we are increasingly seeing the danger of the spread of disinformation. It is a growing and current challenge that threatens the very foundation of democracy. Bill C-27 is timely. I think it addresses rather crucial issues for our society. That being said, I would like to turn to the subject at hand, which is the aviation and aerospace industry. In Montreal, this industry has a long and extraordinary history. It goes back nearly a century. Montreal in particular played a key role in the Second World War. I have before me an article from the Hamilton Spectator dated September 7, 1939. I will read a few paragraphs from this article. It will become clear that Canada and Quebec, but especially Montreal, were instrumental in the war effort in Europe. This article is from New York. A sharp expansion in Canadian airplane manufacture is expected as a result of President Roosevelt's proclamation of the United States Neutrality Act, the New York Herald-Tribune says today.... The neutrality proclamation has cut off for the time being at least the delivery of nearly half of the 600 warplanes ordered in the United States by France, Great Britain and Australia. "The embargo proclamation, however, does not interfere with the manufacture of similar planes in Canada under licences already obtained by the Dominion's manufacturers from American firms," the dispatch says. Basically, what was happening was that the United States was not allowed to export fully built airplanes to Europe to help with the war effort, but it was not prohibited from sending parts to Canada and having Canadian manufacturers manufacture the planes and send them over to Europe. There were two important manufacturers in Montreal that were doing this manufacturing for overseas markets. One was Vickers, which, as I understand, later became Canadair, and the other was Fairchild Aircraft, which I believe was located on the South Shore, in the riding of Longueuil--Saint-Hubert , which became, after that, United Aircraft, and then Pratt & Whitney. Another Montreal company was involved in this wartime production, and that was the Canadian Car and Foundry Company. That company was founded in 1909. It was given a contract to produce Hurricane aircraft. By 1943, the company had a workforce of 4,500 people, half of them women, I might add, and had built 1,400 aircraft, about 10% of all the Hurricanes built worldwide. I would like to take a moment to mention the company's chief engineer, a woman by the name of Elsie MacGill. Let me tell members a bit about Elsie MacGill. She was known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes", and she was the world's first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering degree and the first woman in Canada to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during World War II and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at the Canadian Car and Foundry. We can see, very clearly, that Montreal and Quebec and Canada played an extraordinarily large role in the development of aerospace and aeronautics. Montreal is the home of IATA, the International Air Transport Association, which governs procedures, rules and regulations around commercial transport in the world. It is an international organization. I would also like to mention that Dorval Airport basically started as part of the war effort that saw planes built in Montreal and other parts of Canada and shipped over to Europe. Dorval Airport, now known as Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, and I say that very proudly, was where the Ferry Command was based. The Ferry Command was a process by which planes would leave from Dorval and fly to England. These airplanes were being delivered to the air force over there. Montreal has an extremely rich history, and throughout that history it has built up an industrial cluster or an industrial ecosystem. Because next week is Tourism Week, I would also like to mention, in passing, that in my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis we have the Montreal Aviation Museum, which I invite members to visit because they will learn all about Montreal's and Canada's aviation history.