Transport committee  I note that in Australia they're doing a couple of studies, and one of the large pillars of that is how to meet the other goals in an environmentally responsible fashion. Our recommendation is that Transport should go back and do an air policy for Canada. It would be an opportunity to make sure that's in there.

Transport committee  That's obviously our concern, as well. I think that Canadians, along with successive governments, have all wanted to have the sovereignty and the control of the domestic airline industry with Canadian players, allowing limited landing rights for international flights from international carriers, obviously, but no cabotage, as was mentioned, and with foreign ownership limits in order to have control by Canadians so that they listen to the regulator or regulators.

Transport committee  We're back to the perpetual question of whether there are certain routes that have to be subsidized, because you're going to have one player who will then charge monopoly prices, or whether that should be regulated in the sense that it is the only carrier allowed in there and then the prices are regulated in return.

Transport committee  There have been some interesting developments on airports. Australia has a private model, private financing. It's something that should be looked at. We said 35 years ago that airports should be privatized, believe it or not. It could be done with public money as well. The present PPP structures for larger airports have their problems and don't seem to be keeping up with the infrastructure needed and the building that's needed for the increase in air travel that we need in Canada.

Transport committee  That's not yet been the case, no.

Transport committee  If we want to have a new carrier, why not put aside 10% of the boarding gates every year for new entrants?

Transport committee  It's still possible to appeal the tribunal's decision to the Federal Court of Appeal. This recourse will be in place for people who don't agree with the decision. Actually, we're trying to take this power away from the minister.

Transport committee  Sure. Actually, I'm going to cheat a bit and use the Competition Bureau's 2015 submission to the OECD. The first one was the change of foreign ownership, which has been done. The second one was “Lack of feed traffic at both ends of their routes”. The third one was “Lack of an effective frequent flyer program”, which no one has spoken about so far.

Transport committee  It's a lack of other choice. Also, to be honest, both have rationalized—if I can put it in a nice way—their operations to the east and west of the country, which makes them more money and is more convenient for them but may not be for Canadians. Again, there's no choice. You basically have a duopoly market for many routes in Canada, and so we live with what we have.

Transport committee  There are a number of mechanisms in place at airports, as well as at Transport Canada and within the airlines. How the slots are allocated, I believe, is mostly right now a matter of negotiation between the airports and the airlines. The minister, with Bill C-52, is only going to get the power to ask what's going on.

Transport committee  For the ULCCs, I think they can be very helpful to open up routes to smaller airports, but they have to be supported in some fashion beyond just the competition protection. That's why we suggested a lending library of planes. It could be something else. Also, regional powers like Porter and—well, I'm running out of examples—WestJet could be asked to do more in their regions, and an air policy from Transport would help in that regard.

Transport committee  The present rules are, I believe, that the incumbents get first shot back at it. We want to maybe take a look at that and, as we said in our recommendations, at putting some aside for new entrants so that they're there as a first stop, and then the incumbents get to get them if the ULCCs won't take them.

Transport committee  I'll start. We thought Flair had previously complained, and the Competition Bureau confirmed it today, with respect to route-matching and price-cutting, which is the usual method for an established incumbent to try to break a new player. The specific allegations were about routes.

Transport committee  From a consumer point of view, it's very discouraging. The mergers aspect, which has been spoken about, is very depressing because, in the United States, mergers are blocked with fairly high regularity. In the United States, there was just the Spirit Airlines merger. That's run into trouble, and that's typical of their activity there.

Transport committee  Oh yes, we're well aware, because we work in telecom.