Evidence of meeting #43 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was carriers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
The other question I have is this. Can you share with us some of the major challenges—or hurdles, I guess—you face on a regular basis when you are negotiating these ATAs with other countries? What are some of the challenges that you are almost certain to face with every single one of these?
Chief Air Negotiator, Director General of Intellectual Property and Services Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Perhaps I should defer the question to Marc. I've been in this job for four months and I've negotiated five agreements—
Chief Air Negotiator, Director General of Intellectual Property and Services Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
—and I didn't have too many challenges at the time.
It's like any negotiation; there's a give and a take. Normally you're negotiating on behalf of your stakeholders, your carriers and your airports, and the other party is trying to maximize the benefits to its side. Obviously, as in any negotiation, coming to a compromise is the tricky part.
I don't know if there are any particular issues you can share, Marc, based on your longer experience.
Executive Director, Air Policy, International, Department of Transport
It's amazing. Even when you negotiate with a small country, you think it is going to be pretty smooth, and there's always something that comes up. Every country is very proud and usually wants to put its stamp on the agreement. The number of issues we have to deal with can vary quite a bit. It very much depends on the particular situation.
There are countries, as I said before, where the doing business environment is challenging for carriers. That is something that can cause us some headaches. Sometimes even with our largest partners we have issues to resolve. It depends very much on the case at hand.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My colleague Mr. Cannan has one question. It's a clarification. It will be a quick one.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thanks.
I was going to say, Mr. Christie, that obviously you negotiate good air transport agreements.
I have a quick question on a clarification, Mr. Rioux. You mentioned that we have partner agreements with 112 countries. We have 44 expanded agreements. Is that part of the 112? Are the 112 not open skies agreements per se?
Executive Director, Air Policy, International, Department of Transport
We have 112 partners. An air agreement is a treaty, so we're talking about a treaty in almost all of the 112 cases. Sometimes we have more of an administrative arrangement. It could be an MOU, for instance.
The number 112 refers to the number of partnerships we have around the world with those countries. The number 44 refers to the number of countries that are covered by an open agreement, so yes, those 44 countries are included in the 112. For the rest—
Executive Director, Air Policy, International, Department of Transport
Okay. In almost all cases we have agreements where there is unused capacity. As we explained before, it may not be an open skies agreement, but the rights are there. They're not being used.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
Thank you, Mr. Cannan.
Ms. Freeland, you have one or two quick questions, I understand.
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Our chair, I am now learning, keeps us strictly to our time, so I'll try to get two quick questions in.
The first is a kind of macro one about some changes in the macro environment—the price of oil. Do you see the falling price of oil changing air travel in ways that are going to affect your negotiations? Is there going to be a lot more travel and are we going to be looking at a lot more desire for flying?
Chief Air Negotiator, Director General of Intellectual Property and Services Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I think the falling price of oil should lead to less expensive airline tickets, and that should lead to an increased demand in air travel. If there's an increased demand in air travel to particular markets, that could influence us to want to expand agreements with those markets.
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Have you done any projections on that? Are you making any plans based on that possibility right now?
Chief Air Negotiator, Director General of Intellectual Property and Services Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Not at this time, no.
Liberal
Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Last question, Mr. Christie. You spoke a minute ago about your stakeholders being the carriers and the airports and trying to serve them in these negotiations. How do you fit in the interests of consumers and travellers and also of people who work for airlines? What's the balance you're trying to strike? I realize that it must be really hard. Multiplayer chess comes to mind. Can you give us a sense of your thinking when you're working with all of these different interest groups behind you?
Chief Air Negotiator, Director General of Intellectual Property and Services Trade Policy Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Well, what we're thinking is that basically we're consulting with the main users of air travel, so we cover the airlines and their priority needs, and the airports and their needs, but through the tourism commissions we can get a better sense of what individuals and consumers want to do, of where they want to travel to.
When we consult with the tourism commissions federally and in all the provinces and territories, they've done their own homework in terms of where they are seeing the demand in terms of expanded tourism markets, so that's how we get connected or linked up to individuals.
Executive Director, Air Policy, International, Department of Transport
For very large negotiations like the Canada-U.S. open skies negotiations or the negotiations for the comprehensive agreement with the European Union, for instance, we had in the delegation representatives of the labour movement.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
Thank you.
I'm going to take the chair's prerogative. I have one question. It's about how you negotiate these agreements and landing fees and service fees that are on the ground when you go into different countries. For example, for Air Canada, would they pay the exact same landing fees in London that any Britain-based carrier would pay after these types of agreements are in place? Is that fair to say?
Executive Director, Air Policy, International, Department of Transport
Yes. When we negotiate agreements, we have clauses that ensure all carriers are not discriminated against. If an airport somewhere starts to give a rebate to a carrier, we want our carriers to get the same rebate. But typically we ensure there is no discrimination for Canadian carriers.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen. That rounds up this part of our meeting. I'm going to suspend for five minutes while we go in camera for committee business.
Again, thank you, gentlemen. I'll dismiss you.
If you can quickly grab a coffee, colleagues, we'll come back and get on to committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]