Transport committee  In my view, social contracts no longer work. Social contracts are still a form of taxpayer subsidy, because taxpayers pay higher fares on profitable routes, which are being protected by limiting competition. Social contracts cannot be economically quantified. They're not legally

Transport committee  Right now, there is a monthly survey that shows only the total number of passengers moved and a very small amount of information, and even that has to be kept confidential. If you go to Statistics Canada's website, you, as an average Canadian, cannot even access what is being rep

Transport committee  I'm familiar with the premiers' letter. I actually have it right on my screen. The premiers were objecting to certain aspects of the APPR that have been in place since 2019. When I was reading the letter, I was wondering if they actually read the APPR and understood what letter t

Transport committee  Unfortunately, that's very true. This secretiveness around airline data seems to be a Canadian problem, both in the area of disabilities and in other economic activities. What I would add is that it would be in the public interest to have a greater level of transparency, because

Transport committee  I'm not sure which exact methodology they are referring to. It would be helpful to see it. I'm hesitant to comment on it without seeing it. What I can tell you is that on-time performance, in my view, is not a methodology for measuring competitiveness or market concentration. Wh

Transport committee  Certainly one would hope that those subsidies, if they were implemented, would go to creating new routes, not existing routes, and to airports. However, if we would like to genuinely implement competition and a competition-based airline sector, we have to be blind to which airlin

Transport committee  Whether it's going to help more large carriers than small is an economic question that requires research and verification by numbers, not just my guesses or anybody's guesses. However, as a matter of general economic policy, I would strongly favour a neutrality toward which carri

Transport committee  In Europe, we have the gold standard of passenger protection, and we also have substantially lower fares and more competition than is happening in Canada. They don't have to chose one or the other. In my view, passenger protection actually stimulates competition because it creat

Transport committee  Mr. Chair and 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

Transport committee  There are two sources for these numbers, maybe even three. The first one is looking at the maximum fines available for disability-related violations under the current legislation, which is pegged at $250,000. It is not going the full $250,000 per offence, but it is still signif

Transport committee  There is clearly a duty for the airline to properly train staff and to ensure that its staff have the necessary tools to provide accessibility in transportation. In my view, that duty also extends to any subcontractor the airline hires, as agents or in any other capacity, to do

Transport committee  Personally, I'm finding it very troubling that the crew members don't get paid for the work that they do, and that work doesn't start when the flight takes off. I, obviously, support fair pay to the crew members. In terms of these disability issues, I'm not sure if it directly r

Transport committee  Unfortunately, when we're talking about air passenger rights, the government has been sabotaging its own policy. Parliament last summer passed legislation allowing for an increase in the maximum amount of fines—administrative monetary penalties—to $250,000 as the cap, per instanc

Transport committee  There's a significant lack of will. In terms of how many resources are needed for enforcement, that's also a question. The rules need to be simplified and made more clear to make enforcement easier. The fewer data points you need to have a guilty verdict, so to speak, on a viol

Transport committee  Unfortunately, we don't have statistics on this. That's part and parcel of the problem. It's a whole larger set of problems. It's not just about disability-related issues, although those issues are prominent. If you look at the U.S. DOT statistics, it's a treasure trove of statis