Transport Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting 34. Pursuant to orders of the day and the order of reference of Wednesday, May 13, 2009, we are discussing Bill C-310, An Act to provide certain rights to air passengers.

Joining us today is the MP who proposed the bill, Mr. Jim Maloway, the member for Elmwood--Transcona in Winnipeg. He will speak on the bill in the first hour.

Thank you for coming. I'm sure that having attended some of these meetings, you understand that you have about 10 minutes to present. Then we'll go to questions and answers.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm very pleased to be speaking on Bill C-310 and leading off on the committee stage of debate on the airline passenger bill of rights.

I'd like to begin by thanking Mario Laframboise and the Bloc caucus and Dennis Bevington and the NDP caucus for their ongoing support of this bill. I'd also like to thank Gerry Byrne, Joe Volpe, and the Liberal caucus for supporting this bill at second reading. Without all three parties' support we would not be here today discussing the details of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, the Air Passengers' Bill of Rights flows from private member's motion 465, introduced last year by Gerry Byrne and passed unanimously by this House of Commons.

The motion has still not been acted upon by this government. Instead there was a voluntary agreement called “Flight Rights Canada”, which had no effect in law but did promise that tarmac delays, for example, would not exceed 90 minutes. Even the airlines now recognize that 90 minutes is the maximum time to confine people on a plane.

What did the airlines do? They proceeded to keep people on the tarmac for six or eight hours, just three months after they agreed on September 7 to adhere to flight rights. So much for flight rights.

On March 2, 2009, the airlines decided they would put flight rights in their tariff, voluntarily letting the Canadian Transportation Agency enforce it. Unfortunately, these tariffs are airline-specific, and the only passengers who will be protected are those on the four airlines that adopted flight rights. That's just four airlines. That doesn't even include all the Canadian airlines. For example, all foreign carriers would be excluded. That's why we need Bill C-310. Bill C-310 covers all carriers operating in Canada.

Furthermore, even if the four airlines do not follow their own tariffs, there are no penalties if they do not comply with the flight rights provisions. They did not follow through the last time, so why would we believe they would do so now?

We've heard criticisms that fares may rise as a result of Bill C-310. I ask you, did the fares rise as a result of Air Canada's president earning $26 million in 2007? If the airlines follow the rules in Bill C-310, they won't pay a cent.

The news media have tried to find out how much Air Canada has paid out to passengers in Europe as a result of the European legislation enacted in February 2005, and so far no one has been able to find out. How much did Air Canada pay under the previous European legislation in 1991, which dealt with denied boarding only? This information is important to know when determining the financial impact on the airline. Did Air Canada stop flying in Europe because of this legislation? Absolutely not.

Bill C-310 does not require an air carrier to pay compensation to a passenger with respect to a flight delayed or cancelled due to weather. A flight that is cancelled due to weather falls within the exemption that is provided for in the bill. We've taken the exclusion from the EU law and put it verbatim into the bill, giving the airlines the extraordinary circumstance exclusion that they've used in Europe for the last four years, and they're very familiar with it.

If the air carrier can prove that the cancellation was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken, then the air carrier is not required to pay compensation to the passengers. This is the standard that has been adopted by the European Union. Cancellation due to weather clearly falls within this exemption and would not be covered by the bill.

All an air carrier is required to do in the case of cancellation due to weather is reimburse the passenger, which is reasonable; reroute the passenger; cover meals and refreshments in relation to the waiting, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that; provide hotel accommodation if a stay of one or more nights is required; provide ground transportation between the airport and the place of accommodation; and provide a total of two telephone calls, fax calls, or e-mails. There's nothing here that is unreasonable for an air carrier to do.

The EU commissioned a study about two years ago, after the rules were in effect, and while the airlines have been aggressive in Europe in using the extraordinary circumstances argument to avoid paying compensation, all stakeholders agreed that the extraordinary circumstances exclusion was still a good and fair balance between the customer's right to compensation and fairness toward the airline.

There is a very comprehensive Steer Davies Gleave report, which I have here. It's probably 100-plus pages long. It studied this whole area and came to the conclusion that the extraordinary circumstances exclusion was the best vehicle to use in this circumstance.

The reason for extraordinary circumstances is to ensure that the bill is able to survive court challenges. In Europe it survived two. The bill covers denied boarding due to overbooked flights and encourages trying to get people off the flight by agreement, not by forcing them off the plane.

I was on a Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis several years ago. The airline had overbooked by six people, and volunteers to deplane were offered free passes. Everybody was happy with that result, and I'm sure they are still talking about it to this day. In Canada, for example, WestJet and Air North, Yukon's airline, do not overbook, so they will pay nothing.

The point is that happy customers are what the airlines need. If airlines have to deny boarding to customers involuntarily, then why should they not be paying the compensation of $500, $800, or $1,200, based on the length of the trip? The same compensation applies to cancelled flights. Europe has been doing this for four years, and Bill C-310 was inspired by the EU legislation, which has been in effect since February 17, 2005. Air Canada operates in Europe and under that legislation. The review panel notes that the EU airlines try to use the exemption as often as possible to avoid paying compensation to passengers. The airlines fought the EU legislation in court and lost. This legislation is sound and is backed up by the courts.

If MPs think that the penalties of the bill are too high, then they can propose amendments reducing penalties to a more appropriate level. In most cases, we accepted the compensation levels in the EU law. The original EU legislation from 1991—there was a bill in effect before 2005—dealt with denied boarding only. The compensation levels were only one half of what they are in Europe today. The 2005 rewrite to the EU legislation doubled the compensation and expanded the scope of the regulation to include cancellations, flight delays, and charter flights. The review panel that I spoke to you about said, just two years later, that the penalties were just fine the way they were; they were not too high and not too low.

Mr. Chairman, why should passengers not have a right to cancel and get a refund after a five-hour delay? Last year there were flights to Mexico that were cancelled through no fault of the people, and they were denied the right to get their money back. We say that if they're going to a cancel a flight, you have a right to a refund after a five-hour delay—not that many people will take them up on the option. Why should passengers not get a meal voucher after a two-hour delay? Why should passengers not get a $100 payment if the airline misplaces their baggage and doesn't notify them within an hour after finding it? Will $100 bankrupt the airlines? Or will it cause them to smarten up and stop misplacing the baggage in the first place, not notifying the passenger when the baggage is found?

Why should customers not expect better service? Why should passengers not be informed of flight changes, delays, and cancellations? Why should the new rules not be posted at the airline counters to inform customers of their rights and the process to file for compensation? Why should the public not expect all-in-one pricing, so that they know the total cost of the flight before they click the “buy” button?

While the intention of the legislation is for voluntary payment directly from the airline to the passengers, because EU carriers have fought the law so hard in Europe, it has taken the small claims court system to get settlements for passengers. There is no lawyer required. Passengers in Canada can still complain to the Canadian Transportation Agency, but as in Europe, the transportation agencies are not the ones that are getting the payments; it's the small claims courts that are getting people settlements. In fact, recently a large number of British Airways passengers received their settlements through small claims courts.

Mr. Chairman, Bill C-310 is fair to customers and to the airlines. The airlines who follow the rules will not pay a cent. Airlines that claim extraordinary circumstances too often will risk getting even tougher rules in the future. Bill C-310 applies to all Canadian air carriers and all air carrier operations that take place in Canada, rather than to the flight rights only, which cover only four carriers and have no specified penalties.

Why should an Air Canada customer receive better treatment in Europe than in Canada?

The airlines are suggesting that Bill C-310 is not flexible enough on tarmac delays.

Well, Mr. Chairman, paragraph 6(1)(d) on page 5 of the bill says: an opportunity to disembark from the aircraft if it is possible to do so without causing any undue risk to the health or safety of the passengers or any other person or to the safe operation of the aircraft or any other aircraft.

All the airlines have to do is keep fresh air and lights working, make sure the toilets are working, make sure food and water are provided, and allow for disembarkation if it's possible to do so without risk to the health or safety of the passengers. If they're unable to do these things, why should they not compensate passengers? If the $500 amount is too high, then bring in an amendment to lower it.

We need a law, but enforcement is a big issue. It's really up to the passengers themselves. They cannot take action if there's no law to protect them, but if there is a law, those passengers who are alert will take action.

I've answered the question many times about what it will cost the airlines, and the truth is it will cost the airlines nothing if they simply follow the rules.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Maloway.

I'm just going to advise committee members, because I know there are going to be a lot of questions, that I'm going to keep the timelines very tight.

Go ahead, Mr. Byrne, for Mr. Volpe.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to join with you on what I and my colleagues in the House of Commons obviously think is a very serious issue.

As Mr. Maloway pointed out in his earlier words to us, his legislation today follows on a motion that was unanimously passed in the House of Commons calling on the Government of Canada to bring forward this kind of legislation.

While I think it's important to say that we all appreciate that you're open to amendments, there will probably be an intense lobby effort to try to convince parliamentarians that the essence of this bill is wrong, that it's not going to do justice either to passengers or to the industry. While it may be easy to dwell on certain aspects of this, I think it is abundantly clear that the overall thrust of having consumer protection in the airline industry in the 21st century is an absolute must. That is the overriding preoccupation here.

Joe Volpe and I were talking about this issue as I was forming my motion just a little over a year ago. We noted the situation that had faced the Cubana air passengers. There were domestic passengers as well. It wasn't just international passengers coming into Canada from Havana in this particular instance; other passengers were flying domestically as well.

Despite what some have suggested, there are basically no rules governing or providing for protections to airline passengers once they get past security and have their boarding passes. In fact, we noted that in the Cubana situation, after the passengers had spent 12 hours on board the aircraft here at Ottawa International Airport and after their five-hour flight before that, apparently the only way the RCMP duty officer at the time could actually render assistance to a passenger on board who had called 9-1-1 was to invoke the potential of the Criminal Code in dealing with forcible confinement. He had no tools available to him through the Aeronautics Act or through aviation regulation to allow for assistance to get those passengers off after they had spent 17 hours on that plane. That really tells the tale of the state of consumer protection in the airline industry in Canada.

You mentioned something about the European Union. We all know that the European Union has pretty strong and effective consumer protection for airline passengers. In fact, it invoked it across the entire 26-member European Union as a common market. Air Canada, WestJet, Air Transat, and other Canadian air carriers currently fly into the European Union. Could you clarify whether those Canadian carriers are actually subject to the European Union airline passenger bill of rights? I think I know the answer, but it would be good to get it on record.

Second, Canada recently signed an open skies agreement with the European Union. Not only was it an open skies agreement, but we also agreed to create greater barrier-free access to European air carriers in Canada and to Canadian air carriers operating in Europe. We also agreed, as part of that, to harmonize regulatory safety standards.

This is an interesting situation. We're harmonizing the market systems of airline carriers in Europe, but we're also prepared to harmonize our safety systems. Why don't you think we're prepared to harmonize consumer protections? The European Union has a legislated consumer protection regime that every European base carrier airline has to operate under, even when they're outside European airspace. Canada is obliged to operate that...when they leave European airspace, leave the European aerodrome.

Why do you think we left that particular provision out?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Byrne, in actual fact, yes, Canadian carriers who fly into Europe do fall under the European rules. I had a letter just last week from a gentleman from Newfoundland who was on a flight from Rome. He was two hours late leaving Rome, so they gave him a meal voucher. By the time he got to Toronto to connect to his Newfoundland flight, he was three hours late. He said Air Canada simply dumped him. When he asked for a meal voucher, they said, “No, you get a meal voucher after a two-hour delay in Europe, but it's a four-hour delay in Canada. As for the hotel, forget about it; you're on your own.” He thought it right to write me a letter about this whole issue.

The airline can give us statistics. I hope members of the committee do ask the airline representatives for information on how much they have paid in penalties from 1991 onward for denied boarding only, and then from 2005 onward on how much they have paid in penalties and compensation for denied boarding and cancelled flights. That would be very important to know, because I honestly don't know. It seems to me that if they were paying a lot of penalties, they would either have to change their way of operating in Europe or else quit flying there. I haven't see any evidence yet that Air Canada is going to quit flying to Europe.

I might point out to you as well that in terms of the Steer Davies Gleave report that was done two years after the 2005 European regulations, it was very difficult to get information from the airlines. They requested information of the very type that I'm telling you about right now, and they couldn't get information. The committee may wish to have a representative from this body that did an independent analysis of the European regulation. They're totally unbiased. The person is very willing to cooperate with you and will not take a view one way or the other on the regulation.

At the end of the day, they recommended that the European rules should stay with the extraordinary circumstances. I'm sure the airlines will be asking you to have a clear definition of what that means. At the end of the day, on balance, this organization recommended that they should stick with what is working right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Maloway, for your presentation.

You stated at the outset that your bill had obtained the support of the Bloc Québécois. You know, because of the speech that I made in the House of Commons, that we are in favour of having your bill studied by the committee to try to improve it. Earlier, our Liberal colleague spoke of the Air Cubana situation, where several Quebeckers were stuck on board the aircraft on the tarmac at Ottawa International Airport. As you know, this situation was due to weather conditions. I wrote directly to the airline company, which in turn wrote directly to the airport authority and Transport Canada, and at this time, no one has accepted responsibility for this incident.

When you introduced your bill, it was supposed to solve this problem, according to what we had heard. Of course, clause 6 of the bill deals with the rights of passengers on the ground at an aerodrome, but it only targets air carriers. I must tell you that, in Air Cubana's case, I am far from convinced that it was the fault of the airline company. I would say that it was the airport authority that did not do its job. Your bill focuses on making airline companies accountable, but in Canada, as you know, airport authorities control air traffic, decide on what happens and assign space, and the bill contains no measures to make them accountable for all of this.

So I understand why air carriers complained that it is always up to them to pay for everything, when in Canada, many of the requirements and control measures are administered by a non-governmental organization. We must keep in mind that airport authorities, which are responsible for de-icing in airports and providing access rights, are overseen by boards of directors made up of people from the sector.

In this regard, I find that ADM in Montreal, is problematic. In the past, appointed directors were allowed to raise airport improvement fees as they saw fit; now they can borrow money as they see fit as well, but they have no sense of responsibility with regard to the problems that they sometimes cause. Does your bill deal with the accountability of airport authorities?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With regard to the Cubana flight, that was actually detailed in a CBC program last night, but there's been considerable coverage of the Cubana situation going back two years now. That is a terrible example of people being confined on a runway for something like 15 hours. Yes, it does point to the fact that there is more than just one body involved here, but I would suggest that shouldn't stop us from passing an air passenger bill of rights mandating that the airlines have to let people off the airplanes within one hour, under penalty, because when a law like this becomes the law, then the airports and customs people have to adjust their practices.

In the United States right now we have similar types of legislation before both houses. What's happening concurrently with that is people like Jim Crites, who's head of the airport authority in Dallas-Forth Worth, are responding in their own way. He is making certain that his airport, and Atlanta, have purchased buses in order to get people off diverted flights in a very quick and efficient manner. They are now constructing buildings on the airport site to house people from diverted flights because it seems that diverted flights are increasing in number.

Just two weeks ago in Ottawa, Air Canada flight 32 was diverted from Beijing, China, to Toronto. Do you know that this plane was seven and a half hours late at the end of the day? It was diverted right here in Ottawa. When I checked into it, I found out they got here at eight o'clock at night, but those poor people were kept on that plane until at least eleven o'clock at night. This is after 15 hours or more from Beijing before they were actually let off that plane. Then they were taken into Toronto and they got there around two in the morning. These things are happening right now.

This is an Air Canada plane, the same airline that says they can let you off a plane within 90 minutes. They're clearly not doing it, because there's no penalty for them if they don't do it.

I agree with you, sir, it's a combination of responsibilities, but we have to proceed on the basis of this bill, and then perhaps a second bill for some other purpose.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Maloway, your bill will not solve the Cubana situation. That's what I wanted to say to you, that it will not solve such incidents. It may make airline companies accountable, and if so, then we will follow you in this debate.

The Bloc Québécois called on the government to introduce its own bill, because we wanted to solve the Cubana situation. We need a very in-depth analysis from Transport Canada to determine who is responsible for what. I have analyzed the Cubana situation. There were Quebeckers on board. I read the letters of all those involved. No one is claiming responsibility for anything. But at the end of the day, travellers were stuck on an aircraft for 17 hours. In my opinion, the airport authority had a share of the responsibility. The government should have introduced a bill. We'll see.

My problem is that your bill does not solve the Cubana situation. I can't amend it. As you know, it is a private member's bill. The penalties can always be adjusted if we feel they are too harsh or not harsh enough, but I cannot make any amendments to the bill. If I included the airport authorities, it would be ruled out of order by the House of Commons law clerk. That's what I want you to understand. You must not believe that this will solve a problem like the Cubana incident. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that your bill will not solve the Cubana situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Perhaps you can respond to that later. The time has expired.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming forward here.

Of course, most members of Parliament are some of the more familiar passengers on many of these flights across Canada, so I guess in some respects you're talking to an audience that understands the issues very well. That is something that might help this bill move along in a good fashion because of the degree that parliamentarians are subjected to, in many cases, delays and to these types of occurrences.

You talked about this flight from Beijing to Toronto. What would have been the end result for the passengers if this bill were in place?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If the bill were in place and the passengers were diverted to the airport here in Ottawa, they would be receiving compensation for the length of time they were held on that airplane beyond one hour. So the theory would be that the airport and the airline would get the people off the plane within the hour so they wouldn't be paying compensation.

Let me just explain something. Maybe this will answer Mr. Laframboise's previous question.

In the insurance business we have a principle known as subrogation, and the bottom line here is that if a car driver drives into your fence at your house, your insurance company pays the claim. They're happy to do it. But a few months later, what they do is they subrogate against the guilty party. They find out who ran into your fence and they go after the insurance company that represents the car driver.

All I'm saying should have happened in Vancouver last year, as an example, is that the airline should have simply paid the bills, whatever was necessary, as WestJet did, to take care of those customers and to get them on their way, and then worry about who's going to pay afterward. An insurance company would simply subrogate against who they saw as the guilty party, which would be the airport that didn't clean the runway, right? When the airline was asked about that, this is what the airline council said: we don't want to hamper our great relations with the airport, so we're prepared to let the passengers suffer and let them try to find hotels in the middle of a snowstorm, because we don't want to hamper our good relationship with the airport that forgot to plow the right runway.

I'm saying that you take care of your passengers first and then you subrogate after that and chase the responsible parties. That's how it works in the insurance business and that's how it could work here too.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I would just like to bring up an incident that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. I was flying out of Calgary to Yellowknife on Jazz, and the Yellowknife airport was having problems with fog. The regulations are such that fog doesn't actually stop the plane from landing. What it stops the plane from doing is taxiing.

So the airport was shut down in Yellowknife. We boarded the plane in Calgary. There were 20 of us on a jet. We sat in the plane for about an hour and a half until about 2:30 in the afternoon, after the pilot came on at two o'clock and said they were waiting for another report on the condition of the airport.

At 2:30 they cancelled the flight. We all got off and waited until eight o'clock at night and then flew into Yellowknife.

Well, when I was in Yellowknife I had a chance to talk to the airport manager. At 2 p.m. that day, the airport was open. They had come up with temporary provisions for taxiing service, and that allowed the airport to open regardless of the condition of the fog.

My question to you is how would you sort all of this out when it comes to show liability? To my mind, the question becomes whether the airline was interested in cancelling the flight because there weren't enough passengers on board. What went on there? How would you get to the bottom of that? What structure would you use to understand the different relationships that were going on with that flight?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

That one is actually fairly simple. In the European Union, we have the extraordinary circumstances exclusion, which is part of this bill. When there are circumstances beyond the control of the airline, such as the weather, that is the basis upon which they will deny paying the claim. They'll simply say that the flight is being cancelled because of weather. That's the end of it. And if you want to argue the point, then you will do that.

As a matter of fact, that has been done. In Winnipeg last year, we did have a case where--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Would it be necessary for a passenger to take that to court, to understand the relationship between the various elements that went on?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Absolutely.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

In this case, the passenger knew that it wasn't a weather situation, that it was a mechanical issue, and the airline coded it a certain way. It was an American carrier. The passenger took them to small claims court and he won. As a matter of fact, the judge dressed down the airline for hiding the true rules there.

You see, this is what airlines often do when they have two flights that are a couple of hours apart and only a few people on one flight: they'll cancel the first one and make you wait for an extra two hours so that they can fill up the second flight.

This is the kind of thing we're trying to catch here. We're not trying to make airplanes fly in bad weather or anything like that. We're trying to deal with operational issues where airlines take advantage of people every day. We want to make certain that this doesn't happen any more.

Let's take overbooking as a good example. I think most people would understand that issue very clearly. Let's say you buy a ticket to go to a hockey game, or a ticket to a rock concert, and when you show up you're told, “Sorry, but we sold your seat”. Can you imagine that happening? Well, that's what actually happens every day in the airline business. WestJet doesn't do that, but Air Canada does. It means that for the ticket they sold at a lower price a couple of months ago, they've now found somebody who will pay five times the price for it. They're happy to give you your $200 back because they just got a guy who's paying them $1,000.

We say that when you do things like that, you should be paying the customer compensation. Let me tell you that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop you there.

We'll move on to Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Maloway. It's good to have you here today.

I think you definitely are speaking for a lot of individuals. As Mr. Bevington stated, many of us around this table are travellers. We're on airplanes a lot.

I'm interested in what kind of expertise...or what prompted you to bring this bill forward. You seem to have quite a bit of information regarding airlines and their strategy and why they are doing what they're doing. I'm just wondering where you got that information.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you for the question.

I was actually elected in the provincial legislature in 1986, and I was the consumer critic at the time. I've done a lot of work in a whole range of areas. One area is lemon law in this country.

A lot of people are not aware of the organization called CAMVAP, which provides a lemon law equivalent right across Canada. If you buy a new car in this country and it turns out to be a lemon, you're allowed to take it back to the dealership to be fixed. If they can't fix it within four attempts, they will have to either give you another car or buy the car back.

Interestingly enough, I've purchased a couple of cars over that period of time, and although CAMVAP has been around for about 15 years now, when I've asked the dealership and the salespeople about it, they haven't been aware of it.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

No, sorry, I'll re-ask the question. I'm referring specifically to airlines. You were talking about what airlines do with rebooking and about their strategy to bump individuals and actually make them wait longer. I'm just interested in your expertise there.

I do have a few other questions, so just make that short, if you don't mind, and then I can go on to another question.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Once again, the whole airline industry is just another part of the area I've been involved with for a large number of years.

I know that there's an increasing number of diverted flights. We never used to see the amount of diverted flights that we have now. Especially with the advent of terrorism, we're seeing increasing potential here. We have to start looking at getting our airports equipped with holding areas for people to stay when their flights are diverted so that they're not inconvenienced. We have to come up with ways of getting people off planes, whether it be by buses or ramps, as is being used in--

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

So some of your experiences have brought you to this place with this expertise.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Yes, that's right.