Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and members of the committee.
My name is John McKenna. I'm president and CEO of the Air Transport Association of Canada, and I'm accompanied here today by Mr. Mike Skrobica, senior vice-president and CFO.
The Air Transport Association of Canada has represented Canada' s commercial air transport industry for more than 80 years. We have approximately 180 members engaged in commercial aviation, operating in every region of Canada and providing service to a large majority of the more than 600 airports in the country.
Our members include large airlines, regional airlines, commuter operators, air taxis, aviation educational organizations, and flight schools.
Our membership also includes the air industry support sector involved in all aspects of the aviation support industry. We refer to them as “industry partners”.
The Air Transport Association of Canada welcomes the opportunity to present its comments on Bill C-51. ATAC has had an active role in the development of air security in Canada for many years. Certainly since the 2001 attacks, the industry has adapted to an ever-increasing level of security, and in general ATAC welcomes Bill C-51 as it adds another layer to the security circles. No one security measure is perfect, and we believe that Bill C-51 will add to the security of air transport in Canada.
Our only comment on part 1, which would enact the security of Canada information sharing act, is to note that a major finding identified by the 9/11 commission in the U.S. was that the lack of timely information sharing between government agencies was a contributing factor in the terrorists' success on 9/11.
We have a number of comments on part 2, however, which would enact the secure air travel act. While it is not explicitly spoken in the SATA, we expect that the system would use the existing passenger protect system known colloquially as the no-fly list. Some may ask, if we currently have passenger protect, why we would augment it with an additional list. The limitation with the existing passenger protect list is that it is based upon the legal construct, which specified that a person must present “an immediate threat” to civil aviation. The list and its size are secret, but we are aware that it is in the low hundreds.
Colleagues from other jurisdictions, for example the U.S., point to its secure flight program list, which numbers in the tens of thousands of names. They question the integrity of the Canadian list and its completeness. This has led the U.S. government to institute additional security measures on Canadian aircraft overflying the U.S. For individuals who require additional screening, airlines can adapt to a Transportation Security Administration system called Selectee for Canadian use.
Proposed paragraph 9(1)(b) stipulates that the Minister may direct an air carrier to do, amongst other things, “the screening of a person”. We would note that airlines do not do the screening, as this is a Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, CATSA, duty, yet the act puts the onus and possible $500,000 fines on the airlines. This is unwarranted and not reasonable.
It should be noted that the passenger project applies to 89 designated airports in Canada. These comprise approximately 98% of all passenger trips. Accordingly, the risk at other airports should be rather low.
Transport Canada practises risk management, and we endorse this approach. Public Safety and Transport Canada should plan on contingencies where an individual located at a site where ground travel is not feasible, for example the Canadian north, is put on the minister's list. How does that individual get home?
Proposed subsection 23(4) calls for a $500,000 fine. This is excessive. The practicalities of any such complex system may have failings that are not necessarily in the air carriers' control, including communications outages and check-in personnel who are not the companies' employees, especially in foreign countries.
We understand proposed section 24 sets out a defence of “all due diligence” but that has not been defined. We suggest graduated administrative monetary penalties. We advocate that in instances where an individual is to be informed at the airport check-in that he will not be able to fly, a law enforcement officer be present as a matter of procedure. This is the practice in the U.S. and we recommend that the same practice be established in Canada. Our check-in agents shouldn't be expected to have to manage unruliness and perhaps even violent retaliation from refused passengers.
We also have great concerns about the high cost of the air travellers security charge, the ATSC. The money collected by the ATSC on tickets sold in Canada is only summarily accounted for. This taxable charge hasn't been audited since 2006. Four years ago, we asked the Auditor General to conduct an audit of the moneys collected, but were told that the data was either too old or incomplete to conduct a proper audit. Therefore, we conducted our own calculations based on Statistics Canada data for 2013 and on information published in CATSA's 2013-14 annual report. It's a simple enough exercise.
Statistics Canada publishes the number of enplaned and deplaned passengers and the mix of domestic, transborder, and international passengers, and CATSA' s annual report indicates the total number of people screened per year. We allowed for more than five times the reported double screening, and based on this data, we concluded that the revenues generated by the ATSC exceeded the CATSA budget by over $250 million. We repeated this exercise for many other years and determined that the money collected by the ATSC generally greatly exceeds CATSA's annual budget.
Why are passengers being charged far more than the services they are receiving? It is our opinion that the ATSC should be a dedicated charge set by and based upon CATSA's operational needs, not just another cash grab for the government.
In order for the system to work, CATSA resources are vital. We recommend that a public review be undertaken of the air travellers security charge and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority's financing, that all air travellers security charge revenue go to CATSA, and that Canada review other jurisdictions with aviation security ticket taxes.
You will find that most other countries contribute a significant portion to the screeners' costs from general revenues. The terrorists are not at war with the airlines, but rather with the the airlines' country of origin. lt is only fair that Canada pay its fair share of this public security cost as is done in the majority of other jurisdictions. The current cost structure results in Canada having the highest aviation security tax in the world.
In closing, I would like to add that ATAC speaks for a large number of airlines in Canada, and contrary to past practices, we were not consulted in advance of this act. Including the considerable expertise of operators upstream of significant amendments is a much more constructive and efficient way to enact change.
I thank you. My colleague and I will gladly answer your questions.