Transport Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 101 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, November 20, 2023, the committee is meeting to study accessible transportation for people with disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Although this room is equipped with a very powerful and sophisticated audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to our interpreters and can cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too closely to a microphone. We, therefore, ask all participants to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when their microphone or their neighbour's microphone is turned on. In order to prevent incidents and to safeguard the hearing health of our interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged, and to avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table, away from the microphone, when they are not in use.

Appearing before us today for the first hour, from Air Passenger Rights, is Dr. Gábor Lukács, president, who is joining us by video conference.

Welcome back, sir. It's always good to have you here.

From the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, we have Nada Semaan, president and chief executive officer; Louise Alberelli, general manager, operational programs; and Rhoda Boyd, director, communications and passenger experience.

Welcome.

I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Lukács, so that you can begin your opening remarks. You have five minutes, sir.

[Dr. Gábor Lukács, President, Air Passenger Rights]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, Air Passenger Rights is Canada's independent non-profit organization of volunteers devoted to empowering travellers. We speak for passengers whom we help daily in their struggle to enforce their rights. We take no government or business funding, and we have no business interest in the travel industry.

The right to accessible transportation is enshrined in article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Canada is a signatory.

Accessible transportation is also a matter of common sense and compassion, affecting millions of our fellow Canadians. For example, one in 10 Canadians has a mobility-related disability and one in fourteen a vision-related one. Disability rates increase with age. Two out of five Canadians aged 65 or older have at least one disability. If you do not have one yet, you may develop one sooner or later.

Yet, passengers being deprived of their mobility aids or of adequate assistance in air transportation and having to crawl on the floor as a result, is, sadly, not a new problem. The advance of technology has brought to Canadians' living rooms the footage of the all-too-common inhumane treatment of passengers with disabilities. These incidents can no longer be ignored. Canadians deserve an answer as to why these incidents keep happening and what needs to be done to stop them.

The culprit is the perennial problem of inadequate enforcement and inadequate legislation. The Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations, ATPDR, codified important principles, but were not written with enforcement in mind. They do not stipulate clearly defined, predictable and significant financial consequences for violations, nor do they offer automatic compensation to affected passengers.

While the Canadian Transportation Agency has fined Air Canada and WestJet in a few high-profile cases with significant media coverage, consistent and strict enforcement is lacking. The fines in high-profile cases were in the right ballpark of $50,000 to $100,000. However when the media is not paying attention, the fines are insignificant. Last week, Air Transat was fined only $11,000 for a similar violation.

These fines are just the tip of the iceberg. No statistics are available in Canada because, unlike in the U.S., airlines are not required to report any data on mishandled mobility aids or disability-related complaints they received.

The ATPDR themselves also contain harmful loopholes. The most significant loophole is the exclusion of international flights from the one-person-one-fare rule.

The one-person-one-fare rule prohibits airlines charging an additional fare if a passenger requires an additional seat for disability-related reasons. This rule is vital for providing equal access to air transportation to passengers who must be accompanied by a support person due to their disability, or who are too large to fit into a single seat or who rely on a service dog.

In 2008, the CTA imposed the one-person-one-fare rule on flights within Canada as a measure to eliminate undue barriers to the mobility of passengers with disabilities. Since 2008, however, the CTA has rejected every attempt to expand the one-person-one-fare rule to international flights. The CTA incorporated the one-person-one-fare rule in the ATPDR, but excluded international flights from this important rule.

In 2022, the CTA refused to hear a complaint seeking to expand the one-person-one-fare rule to international flights, citing incompatibility with Canada's commitments to other states. These concerns about Canada's international commitments are devoid of any merit. Canada is not only entitled but also has an obligation to impose requirements on airlines operating to and from its territory to implement article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the right to accessible transportation enshrined therein.

Since the CTA is failing at protecting passengers with disabilities, it falls upon you, the lawmakers, to do so. I ask that Parliament repeal subsection 31(2) of the ATPDR and pass legislation that enshrines the one-person-one-fare rule for all who travel within, to and from Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

I just want to confirm something. I should know this, because you have appeared before committee multiple times. What's the correct pronunciation of your last name, for the benefit of our members here?

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

It's “Lu-catch”, like you catch a ball.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you so much for confirming that.

Next we'll go to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. You have five minutes for your opening remarks, please.

[Nada Semaan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to join you today.

My name is Nada Semaan, and I am honoured to appear before this committee as president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, or CATSA. With me are Rhoda Boyd, director of communications and passenger experience, and Louise Alberelli, general manager of operational programs.

As I believe everyone knows, CATSA is responsible for securing specific elements of the air transportation system. We have four mandated activities: pre-board passenger screening, hold baggage screening, non‑passenger screening and ID card management for restricted areas. We deliver our mandate at 89 designated airports across the country through a third‑party screening contractor model.

Our goal is to provide professional, effective and consistent security screening across the country with a focus on service excellence. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide an inclusive and barrier‑free security screening experience for those working at or transiting through Canada's designated airports.

Ongoing improvement is always at the forefront of CATSA's efforts. With this in mind, we saw the Office of the Auditor General's recent report, “Accessible Transportation for Persons With Disabilities”, as an opportunity to look at what additional steps we could take to better meet the needs of those we serve.

Personally, it was a great way for me to focus on such an important topic just a few days after my appointment as CEO of CATSA.

We definitely agree with the recommendations made as a result of the report, which provided additional measures we can undertake to remove barriers for persons with disabilities.

The report contains three recommendations for CATSA. They are areas for improving accessibility of online content, implementing enhanced accessibility training and leveraging complaints data to prevent barriers to accessibility.

Today, I'll give a bit of an update on where we are in these areas.

On the first recommendation, we have taken critical steps toward ensuring that our online content meets web accessibility standards. As planned, we upgraded our content management system. Since then, we've been working on an ongoing basis to ensure that outstanding website accessibility issues are addressed. Right now, we expect that these improvements will be completed by March 31, 2024, providing an enhanced level of accessibility on our website for all travellers.

With regard to training, we have implemented a process to monitor and ensure that all screening officers receive accessibility training prior to starting to work with the public, that CATSA management and decision-makers are immediately offered accessibility training upon joining the organization, and that they complete it within a set period of time. We also introduced three new modules that screening officers, managers and decision-makers are required to complete, and all employees are encouraged to explore.

We are also working to improve the data gathering and analysis of CATSA's complaints. More specifically, we are improving how we categorize complaints to allow us to extract more accurate data. At the same time, we are enhancing our reporting of these complaints.

As noted by the Office of the Auditor General, we currently evaluate and process complaints individually. This allows us to review complaints in real time, and share information and feedback to our frontline operations team right away and to our training team. However, to improve our reporting, we are creating a quarterly report that will allow us to better analyze our data and identify potential trends that we can work to address.

CATSA actively listens and engages with passengers, airport workers, screening officers, the CATSA workforce and accessibility advocacy organizations to identify, prevent and eliminate accessibility barriers, both current and future. In fact, my colleagues and I had the enormous pleasure of meeting the chief accessibility officer recently. We voiced our support for the very important work that is being undertaken by her office, but also our commitment to continued collaboration.

We remain available to participate in various forums dedicated to the common goal of taking action today to work toward a more accessible and barrier-free tomorrow.

Even with all the progress that CATSA has made in terms of accessibility, this is an area where we will always be looking to improve. We believe that everyone deserves and is entitled to an inclusive and barrier-free experience.

We thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today about this pressing issue. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have about our role in terms of travel and accessibility.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Ms. Semaan.

We'll begin our line of questioning today with Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours. You have six minutes, please.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing for a very important study.

I think that Canadians have been very troubled by some of the high-profile stories we've seen in the media, starting with the chief accessibility officer having her wheelchair left behind on one of her flights. I think that was ironic and unacceptable and led to a focus on this issue, which I think is a very important one for this committee to delve into.

I want to start with Dr. Lukács.

We've all seen the stories of passengers who have been forced to drag themselves down the aisle of an aircraft or lift themselves up exterior stairs. Both of those incidents, those two high-profile incidents—perhaps the most graphic incidents in the last number of months.... One occurred in Las Vegas, and one occurred in Mexico.

I guess my question to you is this: How should the Government of Canada—through regulation—and the airlines be forced to address this issue? What are the complications, or should it matter at all, when these incidents are happening to Canadian passengers on Canadian carriers but outside of Canada?

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

In my view, it is immaterial where the incident is taking place as long as it is travel to and from Canada. Air travel does not have jurisdictional borders in the usual sense. A flight starts in Canada and ends somewhere else. The fact is that these are carriers that are licensed to operate to and from Canada, and as a condition of their licences, they have to comply with Canadian law, including Canadian human rights legislation. It is essentially the airline's responsibility to ensure that its staff members and subcontractors—whoever it is entrusting to handle passengers—are compliant with the Canadian law that airlines are required to comply with.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

In addition to these passengers who were subjected to humiliating and unacceptable boarding and disembarking processes, we've heard about numerous cases where a wheelchair or a care aid is not the same as a piece of luggage. This is essential to the ability of a person with a disability to live life to the fullest. When you damage a wheelchair that costs sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars, or it doesn't arrive and someone is thrown into an airport wheelchair, that's obviously unacceptable.

What do you believe the solution is to ensure that these disability aids are not treated like Samsonite suitcases and are, in fact, treated as extensions of the persons with disabilities? How do we ensure that they are given a priority where there's just no chance that these highly specialized pieces of equipment can be left behind or damaged? What is the response of government to ensure that this simply cannot happen to persons with disabilities who are travelling?

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

I agree that mobility aids are extensions of the body of the person with a disability. That's a very important message that, unfortunately, is not sufficiently passed on to those staff members who handle those mobility aids.

There's no foolproof solution. Right now, aircraft are not necessarily equipped to transport those mobility aids in the cabin, which would be perhaps the perfect solution, although it may be an aspiration to move in that direction in the coming years in terms of engineering and what may be safe and possible.

What certainly can be done in the short-run is to impose a very significant, automatic and immediate financial consequence of over $100,000 per each incident that happens. Once there is a high price tag, the airline will work much harder to prevent that type of financial consequence.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I'll move now to CATSA.

I'm interested to know how your ability to serve Canadians with disabilities is impacted, if at all, by the size of the airport that you are operating in. If you have a couple of agents who do a few flights a day, are you still able to offer the same service to persons with disabilities, or is it more difficult in those smaller or regional airports as opposed to the major airports, where you have hundreds of staff and perhaps all of the latest equipment and technology and the ability to perform those pre-flight checks in a dignified way for a person with a disability?

Could you talk to us about the challenges you might face based on the size of the airport you are operating in?

[Nada Semaan]

Actually, we have standard operating procedures throughout all airports, so we do provide a very consistent method.

Does the size of the checkpoint help with mobility? Absolutely, but we always make sure, when we are designing it, that there is easy access for all passengers to get through regardless of the size of the airport.

We do work with the airport authorities. If we ever hear anything—if there is ever a complaint or anything—we would address it immediately. I'm not aware of any issues in the smaller airports that would in any way hinder a person with a disability from going through. Those are our standard operating procedures, and all of our training is done by CATSA, even though we go through different third party service providers. We try to ensure consistency no matter where it is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Next we have Mr. Iacono.

Mr. Iacono, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I welcome the witnesses this morning and thank them for being here to enlighten us on these incidents.

Passengers with disabilities who use mobility aids, specifically those with wheelchairs or scooters that require certain kinds of tools to adjust, face inconsistent application of policy as to whether they are allowed on the plane or not. What is the policy? Can you tell us how that is communicated to your frontline staff in terms of inconsistent application of this policy?

I recall that, more than 10 years ago when I was travelling with my mom, she didn't have much of a disability, but we took precautionary measures to get her from her entry to the airport to reaching the plane by getting here transported by a wheelchair so that she wouldn't get fatigued. We were the ones to instigate that. We needed that type of service.

What happens today with somebody who has disability X, Y or Z, the moment they purchase a ticket? What are the questions asked of them? What are the procedures that follow right after that? Where does this information go after that? Whom does it connect to? Who reacts?

[Nada Semaan]

I can't speak to what the airlines do when a ticket is purchased. I can speak to what happens when the person reaches the airport and the security lines, if that helps. I know that we share data, but we don't share specific data on who is coming. They share data on the number of passengers so that we have the right amount of staff for security screening.

With regard to our processes, the minute we see anybody who requires any kind of assistance, whether it is a mobility aid or not.... We have family special needs lines. In the smaller airports—

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but aren't you the ones giving guidelines to the airline companies? They have their own procedures, but are there any set guidelines that come from you as to how they should react towards disability?

[Nada Semaan]

I believe that Canadian Transportation Agency might have guidelines, but CATSA does not have any regulatory oversight over any of the airlines. We just provide—I don't want to say "just"—security services to ensure the security of the travelling public when they get into the sterile area.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

When you have a passenger who is hard of hearing or completely deaf, how do you communicate with them?

[Nada Semaan]

We have training on that. I'll ask Rhoda or Louise to talk about the training and what we do—if either of you want to jump into that.

[Louise Alberelli, General Manager, Operational Programs, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority]

Your question is what happens when a passenger with hearing loss presents at a checkpoint. As Nada has mentioned, we have very detailed standard operating procedures that our screening officers follow when dealing with passengers. Our procedures are very specific and address passengers with special needs, including hearing loss.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

You have some procedures in that case, but you don't have any procedures set out when it comes to people with disabilities.

Is that what I'm understanding?

[Nada Semaan]

No, no. We actually have procedures for people who require mobility aids. We have some for those with vision loss. We also have instructions on how to handle equipment, such as defibrillators or things like that. We also have procedures for hidden disabilities, those that you don't necessarily see.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have put forward new training modules. In that training, people with disabilities actually provide us with their lived experiences and tell us what they saw. They say, “This is what could be done. If you could do this, it would be better.” We're finding that this type of training is really helping to crystalize what we really need to do to improve, because we try our best, but we also know we can always improve.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

What is the complaints procedure for passengers with disabilities who have an issue with CATSA?

[Nada Semaan]

We actually have our independent complaints.... She is in charge of all the complaints. I'll let you speak to it, Rhoda.