Mark Strahl

[Canada Labour Code, November 27th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech, and he talked about the legislation and how necessary it is. Why, in 2016 and in 2019, did he vote against legislation that would have done the same thing that the bill before us would do?

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I have no problem with part 2 of the legislation, which would increase transparency and visibility for Canadians with disabilities and would provide a response to the Auditor General's report. I said that quite clearly.

With the noise complaints, it is interesting to see the different approaches and contradictions within the bill itself. The noise complaint portion of the bill includes what constitutes proper notice of meeting and what constitutes quorum. It is very prescriptive. The government has decided that it knows how that should be meted out, but for the parts of the bill that deal with passenger protection and that sort of thing, it is all left to regulation. The government should make up its mind. I think that part is very prescriptive. It would impose a very strong standard on airports, and unlike other portions of the bill, it would not leave it to regulation. I am unclear on why that portion was so prescriptive and other portions are left entirely to the minister and cabinet.

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it adds insult to injury when a passenger has experienced a significant delay or a flight cancellation and has tried to get it resolved with the airline, for the airline to say no, that it does not meet the criteria and that it does not believe the passenger is entitled to compensation. Then, when the passenger disagrees, they file a complaint with the agency of the government that is supposed to adjudicate these things independently. The passenger not only has the insult of having slept on the floor of an airport. They now have to wait 18 months to even have their complaint heard by the agency that is supposed to be there to protect them.

That system is also broken. The government has not resourced it well enough. It has not held it accountable enough.

I did not get into this in my speech, but the latest information that we have shows that the government has given bonuses to senior executives. All of them have received maximum bonuses for the last two years. We do not have the data for this year yet, but rather than holding them accountable, the government pays them bonuses for their inability to serve Canadian passengers. That is not right. This bill does not address the failures of the CTA, which is another reason we should not support it.

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, obviously I am appearing virtually. I wish that I were in the House today with my colleagues. My personal circumstances do not allow for that today.

We do have to look at keeping everyone in that air space and the air passenger space accountable. When there are failures in the system, the entity that has failed the passenger must be held accountable. What is really missing in this bill is that the focus is on airlines, and they should be accountable, but so should all of those other entities I talked about, including CATSA, airports, Nav Canada and CBSA. All of those that have an impact on passengers should be held accountable, and this bill would not allow for that. We think the government should have done better, and we will be voting against this bill.

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I would simply say that experience has taught me, and has taught us as Conservatives, that supporting a bad bill at second reading is not a great strategy for improving the bill. The bill is flawed. We saw this with Bill C-33. We said the same thing. I heard the same comments from members of the Bloc and members of the government. They asked, “Why not support it to committee and then make amendments?” What we have heard confirms our position that the bill is fundamentally flawed. There are issues with that bill that cannot be resolved. The government did not consult, and the bill did not address the concerns of port users and port authorities.

We have very recent knowledge of a transport bill, which we were told to just fix in committee. Some bills are fundamentally flawed, and we believe they should be sent back to the drawing board. That said, if stakeholders come forward and propose changes, we will always try to improve bad Liberal bills. However, we believe that sometimes the best thing to do is just vote against them.

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is quite rich to hear the parliament secretary, who two days ago would have defended that in the House, and has, in fact, voted on it numerous times.

We proposed a motion to exempt home heating oil from the carbon tax, and that member, and every Atlantic Canadian member, voted against that motion because they told us that these phony rebates would more than compensate for the cost of the carbon tax. The Liberals are now admitting that their carbon tax causes affordability problems in Atlantic Canada.

I have news for that member. The carbon tax causes affordability problems from coast to coast to coast under this leadership. Under the Leader of the Opposition, we would axe the tax from coast to coast to coast, and not just for those select Canadians the Prime Minister is suddenly taking an interest in because of his plummeting poll numbers in that region.

[Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in the Transportation System Act, October 27th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House today with respect to Bill C-52, on behalf of the official opposition and on behalf of my constituents in Chilliwack—Hope.

I think we are seeing a trend here with transport legislation from the government. It likes to put things into a press release that make it look like it is doing something, like it is taking action. When, in fact, we get into the details of the bill, no action is actually being taken.

The bill was in response to a disastrous summer 2022 travel season overseen by the Liberal government, when we saw unprecedented cancellations, delays and waits in airports. It was an absolutely catastrophic reopening after the government shut down the industry during the pandemic. In the fall of 2022, the minister brought together a group of airlines, airports and executives in Ottawa because that was apparently going to solve the problem. It reminded me, quite frankly, of the industry minister's calling up the CEOs of Loblaws and other grocery stores to address the affordability crisis. In the end, it did nothing. It did not affect food prices. It did not bring down grocery inflation. It was just a photo op.

The minister of transport gave the idea, assuring Canadians with a photo op he held with airports and airlines in the fall of 2022, that the winter holiday travel season would be different and that the Liberals would come together and solve the problems. We have seen that they had not solved the problems. There were more disastrous delays, cancellations and people sleeping on the floors of hotels because they could not even get into the airports to catch their flights. We saw unprecedented delays in that winter holiday travel season. We held emergency transport committee discussions about that. We called the minister before us and found out that he had not even bothered to pick up the phone to call the airports that were in chaos. He had not called the Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal airports. He had not called Via Rail when it had a massive shutdown that stranded passengers. The minister was missing in action and was called to account for that.

The government, having seen the disastrous summer and winter travel seasons, decided it needed to do something. That something was Bill C-52, which was introduced in the last days of the spring session of Parliament. Once again, we are supposed to take the minister's word for it that this would now solve the problems in the air passenger system. Quite frankly, we have no problem with some of this, but we do have a problem with what is in part 1 of the bill. The government indicates there would be data sharing, there would be visibility on the data, and service standards would be set. It indicates that this would somehow make things better for Canadian passengers.

What the bill does not actually set out is what entities would even be covered by the legislation. The bill would instead give power to the minister and the cabinet to determine which entities would be covered by the regulations. It would all be done by regulation, and there is very little in the bill that is actually defined. We are supposed to trust the minister and government that have presided over numerous travel disasters and numerous travel seasons that have been disrupted and have impacted thousands of Canadian passengers. We are supposed to trust them to get it right, because the bill itself provides a framework but does not provide the details.

There is not even an indication of what data would be captured, but there is also not an indication of what would happen when service standards are not met. It is fine to collect data, to share that data and to have service standards, but if there are no penalties for failing to meet those things, there are no teeth to the bill and passengers would not be better served.

One thing Conservatives have long called for is accountability for all federally regulated entities in the air travel system. Once again, the bill before us, while addressing some concerns, would not be strong enough to ensure that everyone who can impact a passenger's travel experience is held accountable. Airlines are held accountable through our air passenger protection regulations. However, these need to be strengthened, quite frankly, because too often there are cases where things within an airline's control are said by the airlines to be outside their control, and we agree with tightening that up. However, we believe that not only airlines should be held accountable but that entities like CATSA, the security service, also need to be held accountable. When it causes a delay because the security lineups are so long that people miss their flights, it needs to be held accountable.

Nav Canada also needs to be held accountable. When its staffing delays cause airlines to have to throttle down, delay or cancel flights, it is the passengers who are impacted and not compensated, because those issues are outside an airline's control. Another entity that should be held accountable is airports themselves. If their baggage handling systems break down or if they are unable to clear flights in a timely fashion and they cause delays and cancellations, right now they are not held accountable. That is a glaring omission in this bill. We want to see all of these entities included and passengers able to be compensated when those entities cause them cancellations and delays.

We see also that the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, is not part of the legislation. We know that the CBSA's land border service standards are made public and show what its expectations are, but when it comes to airports, that information is not available and would not be captured by this bill. We know that when there were delays at customs halls caused by a lack of CBSA officers, people sat in planes on the tarmac or at gates, unable to deplane because a federally regulated entity, in this case the CBSA, was unable to provide services. Again, that means that passengers who are impacted by that are not able to be compensated because it is not included in the air passenger protection regulations and the CBSA is not held accountable.

We believe that it needs to be explicit that all of these entities would be captured by the bill and that there would be actual repercussions if they fail to deliver for Canadians. Airlines should be held accountable and so should all the other federally regulated entities in the air passenger system.

We have not talked about the Canadian Transportation Agency and whether it should have to share data on its performance, which impacts Canadian passengers. I would argue that it absolutely should be part of this accountability package. Right now, the backlog for the CTA is approaching 60,000 passengers. There are 60,000 people who failed to resolve a complaint with an airline, have gone to the next level and are now being told they have to wait up to 18 months to even have their complaint considered by the CTA. This is unacceptable. The backlog is growing by 3,000 complaints a month, and there is no plan that we have seen to clear this backlog or to hold the CTA accountable for its 18-month processing delays. Canadians who have experienced a delay or cancellation by an airline should not have to experience another 18 months of delay from a government entity to get that matter resolved.

We know that an airline has 30 days to respond to the CTA, and if they do not respond, they get a fine, but the CTA can wait over a year. We have heard of cases where all of the information has been submitted, the airline has responded to the complaint and the CTA is sitting on it for over a year. That is not right for Canadian passengers. This bill should have visibility, data and service standards laid out for the CTA itself.

I did find it a little interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary talk about the climate change policies of the government. I thought perhaps after yesterday's announcement that he might have deleted that section from his speech. The Prime Minister, after having voted numerous times to impose a carbon tax on Atlantic Canadians, on those who use home heating oil, came out yesterday and suddenly reversed his position. This is after his voting record and his actions, which have shown that he has no problem imposing a punishing carbon tax on Atlantic Canadians and those who use home heating oil. Now, just conveniently, for the next three years, until after the next election, he is taking that tax off of Atlantic Canadians.

That is great for Atlantic Canadians and those who use home heating oil, but it does not do anything for those Canadians who use natural gas and are suffering under a carbon tax, which is actually a cleaner burning fuel by 30%. Interestingly enough, choosing to give relief for something he will not even admit causes pain is quite a climbdown for the Prime Minister, but it does not go far enough.

That is why Conservatives would axe the tax for all Canadians, not just those the Prime Minister is concerned with, due to their plummeting support. Again, I think it is quite rich to have a Liberal government talk about how it is going to impose climate change targets or policies on airports when it has just shown that it would flip-flop, swallow itself whole and go against its own votes in the House of Commons when it is politically expedient to do so. We should not be expected to take the government seriously on this issue any longer.

I want to talk a bit about the marine section of the bill. We are currently studying Bill C-33 at committee. We have yet to find a stakeholder who is satisfied with this bill. The witness testimony has been extremely clear that the government did not consult with them, the government did not listen to them and the proposals contained within Bill C-33 on port modernization would actually impose a made-in-Ottawa solution. There is more control from Ottawa and less local control. There was no response to the concerns of those who use and run the ports.

We now have a marine section tacked on to Bill C-52, when the ink was not even dry on Bill C-33, which actually deals with port issues. It is interesting, to say the least, that a government that has a port modernization bill before the transport committee is already amending that bill through another bill in the House of Commons, which proves that the government does not have a plan and that it is not getting this right.

Overall, we have seen that in the approach of the government, and this bill is a hollow shell. All of the major components of the bill would be decided later on in regulation by the minister and cabinet. The bill is something to talk about. It is something to point to, but it actually does not do anything. When it comes to part 1, that would all be left to regulation.

I have feedback from some of the people we hear from, from time to time, such as experts on air passenger rights or aviation management.

John Gradek, a lecturer at McGill University's aviation management program, said, “There’s lots of stuff about data sharing but not much about what or who would be taking action and in what conditions would action be taken”.

Gábor Lukács, the president of Air Passenger Rights, said, “There may be penalties, but even those powers are left to the government to create”, rather than being set out in the legislation from the start.

In its analysis of the bill, McCarthy Tétrault said that the bill contains “vague language, and, most importantly, [gives] significant latitude...to the Minister and Governor in Council to enact wide-sweeping regulations.”

This is a bill that is vague and does not contain specific remedies to the problems that have been plaguing this system for months now. The bill would give way too much power to a minister and a government that have, quite frankly, failed to show leadership in this space for the last number of years. As we have seen with other bills, such as Bill C-33, for the bill we are currently dealing with, the government did not consult with the entities that would be impacted. It did not take their advice into consideration. Once again, it is an Ottawa-knows-best, Liberal-government-knows-best approach that would not serve Canadian passengers well enough.

However, there are some things in the bill that we can support. We have no problem with the accessibility and disability portions of the bill.

The marine stuff, even though it appears to be tacked on, is certainly controversial between port authorities and port users. Many port users are looking for increased accountability, and many port operators are indicating that they already have complex dispute resolution mechanisms that would be impacted by the bill. They anticipate, based on the record of the government, that it has not actually consulted with those entities directly and is just imposing its vision of what it thinks would work best.

We believe the bill is a missed opportunity. There could have been more done to spell out who would be held accountable, how they would be held accountable and that everyone in the air travel space would be held accountable. However, the bill fails to do that. Therefore, we cannot support it.

[Guests in the House of Commons, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and his office organized President Zelenskyy's visit, down to the most minute detail. Every moment of the visit was planned, and every guest in the House should have been or was vetted by the Prime Minister's Office, but somehow a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS was not only allowed to attend but also was celebrated on the floor of the House.

The Prime Minister's Office organized the entire event. The Prime Minister's Office vetted the entire guest list, so when will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility, come out of hiding and apologize?

[Guests in the House of Commons, September 26th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, that a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS was even invited to attend an event in the House of Commons is appalling. That he was honoured during the address of the Ukrainian president is an inexcusable failure for the Liberal government. The Waffen-SS committed numerous atrocities in Poland and members of the Polish government have now demanded an apology for this international embarrassment.

This has become a diplomatic disaster, requiring immediate action from the Prime Minister. Will he finally take responsibility, do the right thing and apologize?

[Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, September 26th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I think the member said that Canadians are not fools. His constituents are not fools. They know a tax when they see one. They know that the Bloc Québécois is not supported by Quebeckers when it says that it wants to radically increase the carbon tax in Quebec. There is a second carbon tax, the Liberal carbon tax, that the Bloc Québécois has enthusiastically supported. We reject it. Its members will have to take that up with their voters in the election, and we will have many more Quebec MPs in the Conservative fold after that time.