Transport Committee on May 4th, 2016

[Calin Rovinescu]

That's over the Atlantic and over the Pacific, as we have routes, for example, to Seoul, China, Hong Kong, etc. Those obviously have large volume. A large number of aircrafts have now been purchased to be able to accomplish those missions.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I think you mentioned Singapore, but outside of North America, which regions pose the greatest competition to Air Canada?

[Calin Rovinescu]

Frankly, as I said earlier, we have 70 airlines now that fly into Canada, so we have fairly intense competition over the Atlantic and over the Pacific from respective carriers of those countries. For example, we'll face competition to Europe from British Airways, Air France, and those kinds of European carriers, and we'll face competition to Asia from Cathay Pacific, from Singapore Airlines, and those types of carriers. Then in each one of our markets we face enormous competition from Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad in respect of connecting traffic.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Do you see greater growth out of Asia in terms of competing with Air Canada?

[Calin Rovinescu]

As Asia has grown, there's no question that we're facing what we call in the industry “the Pacific century”, so there's no question that there will be increasing competition coming out of Asia.

A lot of Chinese carriers have now come into the market. We used to just see Air China, China Eastern, and so on, but now we see more and more of the Chinese carriers. Hainan has come in to the market. The Asian carriers, of course, have a substantially lower cost of delivery and will be significant competitors going forward—

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Sorry to cut you off there.

Last question, could you confirm for me the number of employees Air Canada employs?

[Calin Rovinescu]

Yes. As I said at the beginning, there are 28,000 ourselves, and with our regional partners who work exclusively for us, about 33,000, so it's 28,000 in Air Canada on its own, and if you include Jazz, Sky Regional, and Air Georgian, it's 33,000.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Of those, how many are in maintenance?

[Calin Rovinescu]

There are 2,400.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

One of the overriding themes of the Bill C-10 issue to date has been a lack of consultation. Certainly I think if you speak to the workers and their families in Winnipeg, they would say that losing the right to overhaul maintenance work is a blow to the aerospace industry in Winnipeg and that they were not consulted sufficiently before moving ahead with that. It's the reason I'm proud that the NDP has tabled a motion at this committee:

That the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities extend its consideration of Bill C-10 in order to hear from all interested individuals and groups, and that it hold hearings in Montreal, Mississauga and Winnipeg as part of its deliberations.

Having read the motion, I now move it, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Blaikie, we do have that on our agenda to deal with following our meeting today.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Indeed, but given that it's moved, as long as it's in order, I think we can move to debate nevertheless.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

What is the desire of the committee? Do you wish to deal with this issue now? If we're going to deal with committee business, we're automatically in camera.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I don't see that we have to move in camera in order to deal with this motion, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

To deal with committee business, we go in camera, so we'll be going in camera.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Is that a standing rule of the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, our committee business is done in camera. It's on the agenda today following this meeting.

After we had had a chance to listen to the witnesses on many sides of this issue, the intent was to do committee business and discuss both Ms. Block's motion as well as your motion. We have interested witnesses here who are anxious to give their testimony to us.

My suggestion to the committee is that we listen to the witnesses in between votes today, so that everybody gets a hearing, and then we'll have a chance to go in camera and deal with both motions, Ms. Block's and Mr. Blaikie's.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Chair, I concur that we have witnesses we would like to question. I really don't want to waste their time debating what we've already scheduled in committee business. It's my understanding the bells are actually ringing. How much time do we have? When did they start? Does anybody know that?

[A voice]

Ten minutes ago.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

They started 10 minutes ago. Typically, I think when the bells start, committee suspends and we go to the House. I think we probably should do that now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Then we'll have to suspend and go for the vote.

My apologies to all our witnesses. I would appreciate it if you will be patient; we will be back as soon as we can.

I will suspend the meeting for the moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We are reconvening our meeting.

Apologies to everyone, but democracy is in play.

We have two minutes remaining for Mr. Blaikie, if you would like to resume the floor.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

My understanding was that I was going to speak briefly to the motion that was on the floor, and then we may decide to deal with it or not. Typically, when you move a motion, it doesn't come out of your time for questions. We may have had a misunderstanding there in terms of....