Evidence of meeting #44 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 aveos.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
Nothing prevents us from opening others elsewhere.
We could open somewhere else. What is important is that our aircraft are maintained and overhauled in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Mississauga.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Getting to the point Mr. Jean was talking about, say I set up a company in Quebec City, London, and Saskatoon and went out and offered a few more bucks to the mechanics and maintenance personnel. I set up this company in these three localities. Could you then move your contracts, after fulfilling your legal obligations, of course, when your contracts expire? Could you then, in the future, move your business to, say, Quebec City, London, and Saskatoon if that was better for Air Canada, if the company put in the proper bid and so forth? Would you be legally barred from doing that? Or could you do it anywhere in Canada, provided, of course, there was proper certification from Transport Canada and so on?
11:50 a.m.
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
We actually today have bases somewhere else besides Mississauga, Winnipeg, and Montreal.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
The issue is not whether it is in these three specific locales. The issue that concerns some personnel is whether the work will be taken outside of Canada. Is that your understanding of why you've been called here? I'm a little puzzled as to why this is all going on. You can say that you're a bit puzzled too, if that's the answer.
11:50 a.m.
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
The loss, again, speaks for itself. Our obligations are met. We give business. You saw the figures. These are the figures for Toronto, Mississauga, and Winnipeg. We're talking about three-quarters of a billion dollars a year. We provide the work.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
It must be really tough to find.... This is a highly skilled position. I couldn't just go up there with my mechanical skills. I was a farm boy, and I can do some level of mechanics. I don't know if I could ever get up to this level. These would be very difficult positions to fill just anywhere in the country. Is that not correct?
11:50 a.m.
Senior Director, Engines and Airframe Maintenance, Air Canada
That is correct.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
How many years, on average, does it take to train a full-fledged aircraft maintenance mechanic?
11:50 a.m.
Senior Director, Engines and Airframe Maintenance, Air Canada
To become an aircraft maintenance engineer, which Transport Canada requires us to have, with that type of qualification, takes about four years.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
Okay. Granted, experience is worth quite a bit in these positions for productivity and for the desirability of maintaining long-term employees. Would that not be correct as well?
11:55 a.m.
Senior Director, Engines and Airframe Maintenance, Air Canada
To gain employment, they need to have an aircraft maintenance engineering licence for the airframe side of the business.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
So it's going to be fairly difficult to just up and move away from where these clusters of highly skilled workers are.
11:55 a.m.
Senior Director, Engines and Airframe Maintenance, Air Canada
I can't answer that question.
11:55 a.m.
Senior Director, Engines and Airframe Maintenance, Air Canada
I do know where the people are available today.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
I understand that, but I think most business people, from what you've just answered, would say that it's fairly difficult.
Now, do you feel that under these articles of participation you're at a cost disadvantage relative to some of your Canadian competitors? Have you done any calculations as far as what the articles of continuance cause, as far as a cost disadvantage, to Canadian and I guess international competitors?
11:55 a.m.
Director, Government Relations, Air Canada
It would be very difficult to quantify, because we don't have access to the arrangements, commercially, that a carrier like WestJet, for instance, has to go out and sort of determine, on a going forward basis, where the lowest cost for them to do maintenance is.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
But you would know what your cost could be if you didn't have these obligations. You wouldn't directly use their numbers. You would use, theoretically, what you could get in the open market without these encumbrances.
11:55 a.m.
Director, Government Relations, Air Canada
That's making a long series of assumptions about the workforce and the capacity that would be available and the actual metrics. One of the fundamental limitations in moving maintenance work is that you're actually moving the aircraft a good distance. Our maintenance bases in Montreal and Toronto and Winnipeg line up very nicely.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
My point is that it would be difficult to meet at the best of times.
11:55 a.m.
Director, Government Relations, Air Canada
This goes to the Aeroman question, in El Salvador. It doesn't make a lot of sense to fly an aircraft to El Salvador to have it serviced. It's a fairly obvious calculation to make. In addition to any sort of bottom-line costs, you'd actually have to figure in the loss of productivity of the actual apparatus itself.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Monsieur Guimond for providing us with a backdrop to this discussion. There is a historical perspective, a lens that needs to be provided to this. Also, the spirit or the intent of Parliament obviously has to be examined.
To Mr. Jean, I welcome your references to the current financial performance of Air Canada and its contribution to Canadian society. Perhaps if we as a committee also went back and asked our analysts, Mr. Chair, through you, to provide the historical perspective of why it is that the Air Canada Public Participation Act was actually drafted and passed by Parliament, perhaps we'd get a view, then, if included in that analysis would be the amount of public money that was put into Air Canada to actually create the position so that it could be in the commercial environment that it is today.
I have to say to the witnesses, though, through you, Mr. Chair, that lambs are becoming lions on this issue as a result of some of the testimony we're hearing this morning. I am extremely intrigued that senior representatives, or anyone coming before a parliamentary committee from the company, would not be able to answer basic, raw questions on the Air Canada Public Participation Act related to the ongoing operations of three maintenance centres. It gives parliamentarians somewhat of a cue that something is up.
I am intrigued by the way the company has structured its business. You outsource to a private contractor, yet it's Air Canada that pays the salaries of the contractor's employees. You don't feel as though there's any obligation on the part of Aveos, it's all on Air Canada, yet you cannot tell us whether or not there is anything built into the contract between Air Canada and Aveos to maintain Air Canada's obligations.
If I were a shareholder listening to this testimony, I'd be asking myself a very serious question. If Aveos decides to pull its operations out of those three centres, would Air Canada still be obligated to fulfill its contract with Aveos and the hundreds of millions of dollars that are implied therein? Would it then also have to open up brand new maintenance centres in those three urban centres to be able to maintain its obligations under the act?
Noon
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
That's a hypothetical situation. Right now Aveos is there. The employees are assigned. They're Air Canada-assigned employees--that's why we pay the salary--until the determination by the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Then there will be a determination of what happens next. As well, there are contracts in both directions. Air Canada provides back office functions for Aveos. We provide them payroll support, assistance.
Noon
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
You have nothing in your contract, though. The fact that you can't answer the question, I have to admit, gives me a strong indication that there is nothing in the contract between Air Canada and Aveos to maintain those facilities in those three designated statutory centres. I'll just leave it there and pass over the questions to my colleague.
