Evidence of meeting #35 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Our answer is the same.
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
From what I understand, you feel you've been taken hostage in a way. You have to comply with regulations, you submit to them, and you encourage the members here to vote for the bill. You believe we don't really have a choice, that Canada can only acquiesce to the Americans, set aside its sovereignty and the protection of its citizens and put itself in the service of the Americans.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Allow me to speak in English.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I'm intrigued by the sovereignty issue, because in the EU, the French don't feel less French, the Germans don't feel less German, and the Dutch don't feel less Dutch just because they have free transportation--
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
They exchange information. We provide them with information, but they don't provide us with any. It's not the same thing.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
If we are going to get to a modern set of transportation policies and regulations, we're going to have to acknowledge that the world we live in isn't perfect and people are making voluntary choices to travel. As long as airlines are appropriately disclaiming or giving disclosure and providing the consumer with the ability to opt in or opt out, then those are unfortunately the choices we make to travel in the modern world.
As to why we have set this border between us and the United States, it's terribly unfortunate, and it's something that may take decades for us to unwind.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, I want to share my time with Mr. Mayes.
Thank you very much for being here.
Gentlemen, I really do want to talk about the economic impacts on Canada. In any of the border cities, and I'll use Plattsburgh and Buffalo and Seattle as examples, we've already seen seepage from those major areas into American jurisdictions to purchase flights into American airspace voluntarily. So Canadians are already providing this information when they go across the border to purchase an American flight. Correct?
First of all, gentlemen, how many people are employed in the airline industry in Canada? Do you have any estimate of what kind of numbers we have there?
Board of Directors Member, National Airlines Council of Canada
Directly by our membership, we're in the 35,000 to 40,000 range.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
So 35,000 jobs at a minimum, and that doesn't include all the spinoff jobs that go along with repair and products that are necessary, and maybe food.
Board of Directors Member, National Airlines Council of Canada
No, that's directly in the airlines--all of our catering, ground support in the case of Westjet, all the support around airports, employees at airports, that type of thing.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Okay, so 35,000. And what about in the tourism industry?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
According to Statistics Canada, over three-quarters of a million direct jobs, and if you load in the indirect jobs, it's 1.6 million Canadians.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Do you have any estimate of what kind of reduction in employment we will see if we don't pass this piece of legislation?
Board of Directors Member, National Airlines Council of Canada
Well, what you would see, from an operating perspective and a financial perspective, is that it just would not make sense to fly to the vast majority of those destinations below the U.S. border. For a variety of reasons, carriers would have to look at rescheduling and what they are going to do with that aircraft, and so on.
The opportunity for the U.S. airports is fantastic. In terms of some of the jurisdictions you were mentioning, to date the Plattsburgh airport, just south of Montreal, has received $100 million U.S. from the federal and state governments to change the airport. They are targeting Canadians aggressively. They have publicly stated that they are going to do nothing but grow and grow. I don't know many airports in Canada that are publicly stating that they're going to do nothing but grow and grow.
On the west coast, to compete directly with Vancouver, Bellingham just had a new runway put in for $28 million, of which 95% was paid by the FAA. We know that the U.S. carriers are looking at that border region as their market share.
Spirit just announced new flights out of Buffalo, and so on. It's right in the press release that they're going after Canadians.
If we have to back off those flights—even if we could try to serve the move, your flight would now be four hours longer—we will do a tremendous job of furthering the economic development of U.S. border airports and U.S. carriers.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
As I said, if they're spending $100 million in Plattsburgh to do that, to lure Canadians to come down there to use American airlines, Canadians are already voluntarily providing the information, because it's required now to fly within American airspace.
Board of Directors Member, National Airlines Council of Canada
Well, the irony would be that we would be cutting back all the service. They would be increasing their service, and yes, Canadians would be voluntarily going to those places.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to direct my first question to Mrs. Des Rosiers.
I would say that there are approximately a billion passengers in the U.S. I know that there are about 100 million in Canada. I'd say that there have to be a billion in the U.S., and you said that there were a million people on the no-fly list.
Do you know the incidence of problems with that, when people have been misidentified and there have been issues? What are the chances? Is it one in a million, two in a million, or five in a million that somebody will actually run into a problem?
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Well, certainly I think part of the problem is that once they get into trouble, the process....
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
No, I want to know the numbers. I know that there's going to be a process they have to go through, and likely it's cumbersome and it's a challenge, but I want to know the numbers.
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I don't have the numbers, because we don't know fully who is on the list and who is not on the list. But we can get you the numbers, because it's in litigation in the U.S., I think.
