Bill C-10 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act to provide that Air Canada’s articles of continuance contain a requirement that it carry out aircraft maintenance activities in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba and to provide for certain other measures related to that obligation.

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is true. I was a mayor in the region of Montreal. Since the forced mergers in 2001, the MUC has not existed in that name, so technically we would certainly want to amend the law for that reason.

As I mentioned in my speech, the situation has changed in 27 years. Twenty-seven years ago, the state was giving assets and privatizing a company, and as a result the state felt that it was incumbent upon it and reasonable to impose limitations on that company. Some of them remain in effect, such as the need to keep a head office in Montreal and the requirement of Air Canada to provide services in English and French across the country. Due to the changes in the industry and changes in Air Canada, which went through CCAA proceedings not 10 years ago and was losing money until 2011, some changes may need to be made, and the government is modernizing the law to make them.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

This bill would amend the articles of the Air Canada Public Participation Act that stipulate that the carrier undertake operational and overhaul maintenance in Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. For all intents and purposes, these articles would be removed. This would allow Air Canada to fulfill its maintenance needs outside of Canada and presumably at a lower cost. Consequently, Air Canada would no longer have to employ approximately 3,000 heavy maintenance workers in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba.

The language that is used in Bill C-10 states:

...while not eliminating those activities in any of those provinces, change the type or volume of any or all of those activities in each of those provinces, as well as the level of employment in any or all of those activities.

I challenge any Liberal member to inform the House what he or she believes are the minimum number of Canadian jobs that article would protect.

Every member knows that all airlines do some maintenance work in every airport out of which they operate. This is called line maintenance, the routine checks that ensure that the planes are in good order and safe for passengers on a day-to-day basis.

Heavy or overhaul maintenance is the work that takes several days. It involves high skill because the mechanics are performing tasks such as replacing an engine or airframe upkeep. These are all high-end jobs, vital to Canada's aviation sector because of how skill-intensive these tasks are. By not specifying the type of maintenance work that needs to be done in Canada, as Bill C-10 proposes, Air Canada would be able to fulfill its legal obligation without having a single heavy maintenance person on staff.

While all Air Canada overall maintenance work would continue to be done in facilities that are certified by Transport Canada, the Liberal member for Scarborough—Guildwood made the following point a few years ago. He stated:

By keeping Air Canada’s maintenance in Canada, we ensured a superior level of safety with tight regulations and a highly skilled aerospace workforce. By shuttering Canadian overhaul centres, Canada is losing its ability to ensure that our aircraft meet safety regulations.

While the government should be commended for looking at ways to make Air Canada more competitive, and we agree with that, it cannot be commended for introducing a measure that would lead to job losses in Canada before even considering anything else.

Earlier this year, the Minister of Transport tabled a statutory review of the Canada Transportation Act, and the review looked forward 20 to 30 years to identify priorities and potential actions in transportation that would support Canada's long-term economic well-being. The report makes a number of recommendations concerning the aviation sector that stem from many months of analytical work, significant public consultation, and experience from eminent Canadians, including the Hon. David Emerson, who actually chaired that review.

Some of the examples of these recommendations include establishing a set of principles to guide all airports in Canada when determining fees, tying all airport improvement fees to specific projects with explicit sunset provisions, and overhauling the regulator, financing, and delivery models for security.

None of these initiatives would have cost the taxpayers any dollars, and considering the size of the Liberals' budget deficit, this would be especially important and, for the context of this debate, lead to job losses in Canada.

This legislation can and should be modernized without removing one if its key provisions. Air Canada has important heavy maintenance operations in Richmond, B.C., that should be considered by this act, but it is not even mentioned.

Canadians benefit from the efficient, affordable aviation sector. As Canada's largest carrier, having carried 40 million passengers last year, ensuring that Air Canada can provide affordable service to Canadians is extremely important. However, the government should always exhaust all measures available to it to achieve its objective, before picking the one that could cost Canadian workers their jobs.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member did not sit with her colleagues in the last government, but that government was saddled with the distinction of making changes to regulations in the tax structure that allowed 400,000 well-paying jobs to leave Canada. The Conservatives' idea was light touch regulation or deregulation.

Now I hear the hon. member talking about holding on to regulation to hold somebody's feet to the fire in order to make it potentially uncompetitive and less able to sustain itself and good Canadian jobs.

How does the member reconcile those two?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, the previous government was very proud of the 51 trade deals that it signed. They were negotiated in good faith, and they were signed by all parties.

With respect to this, there is an issue with amending the legislation and not looking at other options. These are the issues that the Conservative Party has. We have no issue with modernizing legislation and with making companies more competitive, because that is what we do. However, it cannot come at the loss of Canadian jobs when other opportunities have not been realized fully.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I am wondering whether she believes, as I do, that the government should be encouraging the creation of new jobs in Canada rather than introducing legislation that will legalize something that until now has been illegal. In addition, we know why those jobs were in the agreement that was signed. Air Canada wanted to take advantage of taxpayers' money when the transfer took place and the company was privatized.

Does my colleague believe that the government should instead be encouraging job creation, or at least preserving the jobs we already have in this sector and at Air Canada? Should we at least be ensuring that Air Canada will keep a minimum number of jobs here in Canada, instead of encouraging the outsourcing of jobs to other countries?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is precisely the point. This was embedded within the agreement in 1988 because significant concessions were given by Canadian taxpayers. We want to ensure that Air Canada is viable, that it has opportunities in the market. It is our firm belief that there are many other options for doing that, not losing these Canadian jobs. As well, a fundamental piece of the agreement was to keep those jobs in Canada.

As a free enterpriser, it is important to maintain that undertaking as well as look at opportunities for expansion in trade and opportunities to expand business.

[Kate Young, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Madam Speaker, would the hon. member agree that this issue should be debated at the committee level so we can hear from witnesses and hear more of the discussion we need to have on this issue?

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I always believe open discussion is a good thing to have when we look to amend any bill. However, extracting fundamental components out of it prior to having those conversations is backward. We should maintain the fundamental components of the agreement and the deal that was put in place in 1988, but the committee can still come forward with additional amendments that look at other options, other than losing Canadian jobs.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

So far, we have heard members on the government side and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport go on and on about the quality of the Bombardier C Series aircraft and about how happy they are that Air Canada has ordered so many aircraft.

Bombardier has been promoting its new aircraft for several years now, and what Bombardier needs is to get more orders. The government's platitudes here will unfortunately not help Bombardier sell a single aircraft.

That said, it does not matter that the minister is justifying Bill C-10 by saying that Air Canada's will purchase C Series aircraft and that the maintenance of these aircraft will be done in Quebec. None of this has anything to do with Bombardier or its new aircraft.

The text of the act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures makes no reference to Bombardier or its C Series aircraft. The changes that the government is proposing in this bill make no reference to Bombardier or the C Series aircraft. Even if Air Canada purchases and takes possession of 45 of Bombardier's aircraft, that will represent only a small portion of its total fleet, about 15%.

We all know that most of Air Canada's fleet consists of Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer aircraft. This bill is only concerned with where Air Canada must do its maintenance. Talking about other things only diverts attention away from what is important. What is important is to strike a balance between keeping good jobs here in Canada and making it possible for Air Canada to continue becoming a more flexible and competitive private company.

Let us go back in time in order to understand why the federal government at that time included a provision on aircraft maintenance that read as follows:

The articles of continuance of the Corporation shall contain

...

(d) provisions requiring the Corporation to maintain operational and overhaul centres in the City of Winnipeg, the Montreal Urban Community and the City of Mississauga;

By passing legislation guaranteeing that operational and overhaul centres would be maintained, the then government ensured that Air Canada maintenance jobs would stay in Canada. This condition was deemed necessary because we, the taxpayers, had invested a lot of money and implemented policies that supported Air Canada. Accordingly, in 1988, when Air Canada was privatized, all parties felt that Air Canada's good maintenance jobs had to stay in Canada and, more specifically, near the cities of Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg.

These policies and this financial support still exist today. That is why the government at the time ensured that this condition for privatization was included in the legislation. That way, only a change to that legislation made by the Parliament of Canada would allow Air Canada not to have its maintenance done in the three cities named in the legislation.

We all know that the airline industry has changed a great deal since Bill C-129 was introduced and debated in 1988. We all know that the Montreal Urban Community no longer exists, but we can all see that the law intended for the maintenance to be done in Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg.

What has not changed is the need to have aircraft regularly maintained by reliable mechanics with the necessary experience and training to ensure passenger safety.

Canada has one of the best air safety regimes in the world, possibly even the best. We can be proud of that, and it is not something that should be changed overnight. We all recognize that aircraft maintenance is not the same now as it was in 1998. The technology and maintenance practices have changed a lot since then.

However, this bill does not propose modernizing the act to take into account the changes that have occurred in the airline industry with regard to aircraft maintenance. It proposes eliminating Air Canada's obligation to have its aircraft maintained in Canada. That is not modernization. Modernization would be an amendment that describes the type of maintenance that must be done in Canada, for example, with regard to airplane engines or flaps. My government colleagues are arguing that Air Canada is going to maintain the C Series in Quebec, that it is going to move jobs from Mississauga and Montreal to Winnipeg, and that that is enough.

Air Canada has a fleet of nearly 300 planes that need maintenance. Its Airbus and Boeing aircraft and even other planes that were built by Bombardier but are not part of the C Series could be maintained outside Canada. As a result, 85% of the fleet of Air Canada's largest planes, such as the Boeing 787, the Boeing 767, and the Airbus A330, could be maintained abroad.

Given the comments that the parliamentary secretary made in her speech and particularly outside the House, and given the content of the bill, it seems that the government intends to pass this legislative measure before Air Canada has even taken possession of a single C Series aircraft.

That is surprising because there are many measures that the government could introduce that would make Air Canada more competitive without affecting Canadian maintenance workers.

The government could link airport improvement fees to specific projects with clear end dates. It could do a complete overhaul of the airport security funding models. It could increase the number of trusted traveller programs, such as NEXUS and CANPASS. It could increase the ownership limits to at least 49% for commercial passenger carriers. It could also reduce or eliminate the aviation fuel tax, better align the regulations with those of the United States and Europe, and simplify customs and immigration processes.

All of these measures could be introduced quickly, and they would stimulate Air Canada and the country's entire airline industry. All of these measures have Air Canada's support. Unfortunately, the government is ignoring all of these measures in this bill.

I hope that the government will explain why it is ignoring many measures that would support Air Canada without affecting nearly 3,000 maintenance jobs in Canada.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I was wondering how much confidence my colleague has in the Air Canada executives. They are trying to reassure the government and tell it what it wants to hear. They also seem to want to charm us by saying that they are going to keep the jobs in question, there will be no outsourcing, and this will not change anything, when in fact they are lobbying the government for change.

Does my colleague trust Air Canada and its executives, even though they are calling for change while, at the same time, trying to reassure us that nothing is going to change, all the jobs will stay here, we should not worry, and there are going to be even more jobs created? Does he trust this company?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for the question.

I would like to say that I do not trust this government to make changes to help Air Canada, or other Canadian airports and companies.

Our party thinks that the government should do whatever is necessary for every industry that might contribute to jobs in Canada. It has to be said that the Billy Bishop airport is a good example where we can help the airline industry. However, the Liberal government said that we cannot make any changes to the Billy Bishop airport. I therefore do not trust the Liberal government, but I am confident that the airline industry will survive.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party's position is not entirely clear.

Am I to understand that the bill does not go far enough, or does it go too far?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for his important question.

We think that Air Canada must respect certain obligations, since Canadians gave Air Canada certain benefits when it was privatized in 1998.

The Conservative Party believes that we must protect Canadian jobs, especially well-paid jobs. We think that the government can do many things, but it is not doing them, according to Air Canada.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier, members on the Liberal side said that there were other ways to help Air Canada. The Conservatives said the same thing, claiming that we should not take it this far and that we should look for other solutions to help Air Canada.

Could my colleague elaborate on how these alternatives will help Air Canada stay competitive in this extremely competitive market, while requiring it to maintain these jobs in Canadian cities?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke.

The government could be doing many things, but it has done nothing.

For example, it could be tying airport improvement fees to certain set projects, with clear deadlines once these improvements have been made; changing the financing model for security; and replacing the one-size-fits-all screening approach to the airlines so we could tailor certain approaches—two different airlines, two different airports—for a more agile, more nimble response to the airline industry. It is something that is important, certainly to the Quebec industry, but to all provinces as well.