West fumes over airport grants
B.C., Alberta get far less: $5.3-million goes to Quebec airport with little traffic, but near Desmarais estate
Andrew McIntosh
National Post
Thursday, November 06, 2003
CREDIT: Shaun Best, National Post
Guests to Paul Desmarais's estate have included golfer Tiger Woods.
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OTTAWA - A small airport in Quebec's remote Charlevoix region whose users include members of Montreal's billionaire Desmarais family has been refurbished with $5.3-million in federal money since 2001, even though its has no regularly scheduled passenger service and is open only half the year.
The Charlevoix airport was one of 31 small airports across the country that Transport Canada decided to divest in 1994 -- along with their ongoing operating costs -- to local municipalities under a Liberal government cost-cutting policy.
Charlevoix airport was transferred to local authorities in 2002, but not before it enjoyed a massive injection of federal money from the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions agency in 2001. Government documents show that funding was far in excess of what any other small airports received.
Two other small airports, one in Red Deer, Alta., that has over 30 times more take-offs and landings every year than Charlevoix and is open all year round, and a second in Tofino, B.C., have not been as fortunate.
The Red Deer airport has received no federal financial assistance, despite having made requests for funding. Tofino has identified close to $4-million in repairs it needs over the next five years, but got a federal grant of just $210,000 when it was divested to the local authorities.
When the government divested three Saskatchewan airports -- Swift Current, Yorkton and North Battleford -- in 1996, Transport Canada gave local authorities a combined total of $320,375 in grants.
The government money for the Charlevoix airport came just after financier Paul Desmarais also embarked upon a $40-million expansion of his sprawling Domaine Laforest estate in the nearby Charlevoix hamlet of Sagard.
The estate features 30 private lakes and an 18-hole golf course on 75 square kilometres of grounds. Visitors also enjoy fishing and pheasant hunting.
Merv Phillips, the business and marketing director for the Red Deer Regional Airport Authority, and Sean McGinn, the municipal manager of the Tofino airport, were stunned to learn about the Charlevoix airport's windfall.
"We don't have any prominent Liberals that live close by. So, it's an uphill battle," Mr. Phillips said.
Mr. McGinn of Tofino added: "I didn't know anyone else was getting that much money, especially for a small airport. It's quite amazing. We've been told we need to show the traffic before we can get any money."
Another small airport in Rivière-du-Loup, Que. -- directly across the St. Lawrence River from the Charlevoix airport -- received $850,000 in federal money in June to fix its runways and fence its grounds. But that money flowed only after Jean D'Amours, Rivière-du-Loup's Mayor, angrily denounced the grant to Charlevoix, noting his town was to get a paltry $50,000 federal grant when taking over its airport even though it was running a $75,000 annual operating deficit.
He said his complaints of favouritism in the local press yielded results.
"We got what we wanted and we're very happy now," he said.
The Desmarais family -- whose members include France Desmarais, the Prime Minister's daughter -- often use the Charlevoix airport to fly guests to their estate aboard Challenger executive jets for weekend visits.
Jean Chrétien himself used the refurbished Charlevoix airport on the Labour Day long weekend in late August, travelling to the Desmarais estate for a party along with 230 other world political and business leaders, after the Domaine LaForest renovations were completed. The party was also held to mark Paul and Jackie Desmarais' 50th wedding anniversary.
Many guests at the estate, who have included golf star Tiger Woods, have also used jets and planes to fly into the Charlevoix airport for parties and visits with the Desmarais family, parking aircraft on the apron during their stays.
Edward Johnson, a vice-president of Power Corporation in Montreal and a spokesman for the Desmarais family, declined comment on the federal airport spending in Charlevoix, referring all queries to government officials.
Officials in the Prime Minister's Office said Mr. Chrétien did not intervene to help the airport get the grant.
The $5.3-million federal grant was announced locally by Martin Cauchon, who was at the time the minister responsible for the Canada Economic Development agency in Quebec, the federal development arm in the province.
The government invested the money so that "the existing runway and associated installations may be refurbished to handle greater aircraft traffic," Mr. Cauchon told reporters in a news release at the time. "This project will promote a greater flow of foreign visitors attracted to the region on the basis of its uniqueness," he added.
Mr. Cauchon was also assigned to be the surrogate Liberal MP for the riding, which has been held by the Bloc Québécois since 1993.
An official in the Prime Minister's Office and another in Mr. Cauchon's office yesterday both cited "high levels of tourism and traffic at the airport" in Charlevoix to justify the $5.3-million grant.
Mr. Cauchon's 2001 news release omitted any details about airport traffic.
When ground workers at the Charlevoix airport last recorded aircraft take-offs and landings and reported them to Statistics Canada -- in 1997 -- they counted just 1,458 such aircraft movements.
The largest type of user was private domestic aircraft with 456 movements.
Charlevoix reported aircraft movements for only 151 of 365 days that year.
There were speculative reports in the local weekly press about efforts to arrange charter flights to Charlevoix from New England states for gambling jaunts at the casino owned by the provincial government at the Fairmont Manoir Richelieu Hotel.
But those plans never materialized, said Jean-Pierre Roy, a spokesman for Loto-Québec, the provincial gaming corporation. "It was exploratory," he said.
Mr. Cauchon, now the Attorney-General, worked as a servant for the Desmarais family at the estate in his student years and has remained "a family friend for many years," one political aide said.
Mr. Cauchon was among the 230 political and business leaders invited for the Labour Day weekend bash after the estate renovations were completed. Luce Asselin, his chief of staff, said the Minister drove to the Charlevoix estate in his own car and covered all his own travel expenses.
The party was organized by a Montreal public relations firm. Other guests included Brian Mulroney, Lucien Bouchard, businessmen Peter Munk and Galen Weston, George Bush Sr. and his wife, Barbara, and Jean Charest, the Quebec Premier.
Mr. Chrétien travelled to the Desmarais party in his government Challenger 604 jet, which he must do for security reasons at the RCMP's request, officials said.
Ms. Asselin and Thoren Hudyma, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, said any suggestion that the Charlevoix airport renovations were approved "to meet the needs of one person" is untrue.
Ms. Asselin said Mr. Desmarais and members of his family can just as easily use the Bagotville airport to get to their estate.
"Before the renovations, that airport was a closet. We've made it an OK airport to help the needs of a region with a tourism economy," Ms. Asselin added.
The $5.3-million cash injection in Charlevoix stands in sharp contrast to the situation of most of the other small airports divested by the federal government.
The Red Deer Airport, located between Calgary and Edmonton, has almost 50,000 aircraft movements per year. Half its flights are charters; the rest are training flights operated by a local flying school.
Yet when Transport Canada divested the airport to a newly created non-profit airport authority, officials provided the facility with only the existing snow removal equipment and a newly purchased front end loader.
"That's the only investment they've made in our airport," said Mr. Phillips, the Red Deer Airport business and marketing director.
Otto Epp, operations supervisor at the Red Deer Airport, said when his snow removal equipment breaks down, parts have to be made at a local machine shop because spare parts are no longer available for the 40-year-old equipment.
Mr. Phillips has also applied to the Western Economic Diversification Agency, the Western counterpart to the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions agency, but has had no success there.
Mr. Epp suspects federal politics and local voting patterns have a lot to do with it because Red Deer has elected Canadian Alliance MP Bob Mills to Parliament in three federal elections held since 1993. "Quebec gets everything. If they put the Charlevoix airport in Alberta, they would get zero," he said.
Another small airport in Sherbrooke, Que., received $1-million from the federal government when it was transferred to local authorities in April 1997, just months before the June 2 federal election that year.
amcintosh@nationalpost.com
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