Transport Committee on June 16th, 2020

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I was inspired by my Conservative colleague's questions. He asked you if you had met often with airline representatives over the past few months and I am reassured to see that you are in constant communication with them.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, have you had the opportunity to discuss the issue of cancelled flights with groups such as Air Passenger Rights, Option consommateurs or other consumer protection organizations?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval, for your question.

I'm very aware of the fact that travel credits rather than refunds have been offered, partly because I get a lot of information, especially from social media, and also because you ask me a lot of questions about it. I'm very well aware of the situation and it's complex.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Minister, I understand that you have not had the opportunity to meet with these organizations, but it might be a good thing if you did. It might give you some ideas on how to better defend passenger rights.

In supplementary estimates (A), there is no additional amount for the Canadian Transportation Agency, or CTA, and yet there is $32 million under proposed authorities.

Does the agency have enough money to enforce the act so that travellers will eventually be reimbursed for a cancelled flight?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you for the question.

We have increased the agency's budget over last year. We felt that there would be more requests related to passenger rights and other issues, such as accessibility, for which the agency is largely responsible. The number of requests received by the agency is indeed higher than anticipated, which justifies the increase in its budget for this year.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

You'll understand if I'm a little disappointed. The Canadian Transportation Agency, the organization that is supposed to defend travellers and passengers, is giving the airlines permission not to reimburse their customers. It has even given them the right to not deal with any complaints about flights cancelled because of COVID-19 before October 28.

At this time, the agency has 14,000 outstanding complaints. By the time the agency starts processing these complaints, it will be so far behind schedule that it will take more than two years to clear the backlog. What's worse is that you didn't even bother to respond when you were asked about this by journalist Mélanie Marquis from La Presse. It was your press secretary who did, and she said this: “It is within the CTA's jurisdiction to investigate complaints about its regulations as it sees fit.”

I wonder if you're interested in this problem and if you're ever going to deal with it.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

First of all, I'm very interested because I hear about it every day. Second, I'd like to correct your description of the role of the Canadian Transportation Agency. It is a quasi-judicial body responsible for ensuring that complaints are properly dealt with, including by the airlines, and that decisions are made according to the rules. It's not just about standing up for consumers, it's also about making the right decisions about who is right and who should be compensated.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Are the travel credits offered by airlines legal tender in Canada? For example, can you pay your taxes with travel credits?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

The interpretation of the rules concerning credits and refunds is contained in the airline fares. These fares do not always say that a refund must be provided. You need to read them to find out if a credit or refund is offered. I encourage people to do that.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

My question was more about whether the travel credits are legal tender. I'm not asking you whether, according to your interpretation, airlines are entitled to give travel credits, but whether they can be used to pay your taxes, for example. Is it a currency? I guess not.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

That's a good question. I don't have the answer, but I will get back to you on that.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

All right.

WestJet announced that it would be reimbursing some of its customers. But it is not bankrupt. Yet you've often claimed that airlines will go bankrupt if they reimburse their customers for a cancelled flight.

Air Canada, which had $6 billion in cash at the beginning of the crisis, now has $9.7 billion, according to analysts. Its liquidities have increased and it is not at all on the verge of bankruptcy. Air Transat, for its part, has said that it would be prepared to reimburse its customers if there was government assistance.

Is the government going to offer any assistance? If so, will it be conditional on passengers being reimbursed for cancelled flights?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I'm going to give you an overview of the airline situation. You have to consider all of them, not just the ones you mentioned. At the moment, many airlines are not operating at all or very little. So they have almost no revenue at the moment. It's quite serious for some of them.

As I have often said, I expect airlines to do everything in their power to compensate their passengers in the best possible way when circumstances permit. This is an obligation that is incumbent upon the airlines. In light of the current situation, we have some programs in place, such as the wage subsidy for airlines, and some of them are using it.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you. I believe you've answered my question.

I wish I'd known, actually...

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for appearing today. I would like to pick up where my colleague left off on the issue of refunds for passengers who purchased tickets that they were not able to use.

Maybe I'll start by just asking you very bluntly whether you are considering forcing the airlines to provide full refunds to passengers who are not able to use their tickets.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

We are following the situation, as I said to the previous MP. I'm encouraging the airlines to provide the best possible compensation to their passengers when circumstances permit. Some of these airlines are not in a position to do this at this time. It's important for consumers to also be aware of what the tariffs actually say. Those are the contracts of their ticket purchase. It's not as clear-cut as many people may think.

In the best of all worlds, we would like to make sure that all passengers are happy, but as you know, the airlines have been hammered by this pandemic. Some of them are not operating at all, and some of them are operating at below 10% and yet are still facing serious fixed costs.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I would offer that many Canadian families are hurting financially as well and that the cost of an airline ticket can be quite steep.

Other authorities around the world have taken different approaches. On April 3, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an enforcement notice. I'll just read for you the one sentence that stood out to me: “The obligation of airlines to provide refunds, including the ticket price and any optional fee charged for services a passenger is unable to use, does not cease when the flight disruptions are outside of the carrier's control...”.

We've seen similar decisions in the European Union and the U.K. What does it say to you that Canada's consumer protections are so out of step with what these other countries are doing? After this situation is over, is improving these consumer protections for air travellers a priority of your government?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

There's no question that this pandemic was something that was never anticipated when we were looking at putting in place the passenger protection rights—it was a totally unexpected situation—and it is something that we will be looking at so that we can know in the future how to deal with this in a clear manner.

I would say to you that's it often brought up that Europe and the United States have taken a different approach. I would ask you to look more closely at individual countries and airlines. I think you'll find that the reality is not quite the way that you presented it. It's a complex situation, and European and American airlines are suffering as much as Canadian airlines.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I imagine for the consumers who are out thousands of dollars the situation to them is quite stark and quite simple. I would offer that.

My next question concerns rule 40 of the CTA's code of conduct, which states, “Members shall not publicly express an opinion about any past, current, or potential cases or any other issue related to the work of the Agency...”.

Assuming that the statement on vouchers from March 25 came from the members of the CTA, do you have any concern that rule 40 was breached?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I believe that the CTA made a further statement of clarification after that. I don't have that. Perhaps I can turn to my deputy minister on that, but if we don't have it with us, I know that the CTA did provide additional clarification after its initial remarks about the suitability of vouchers, although it was non-binding.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

In the interests of time, Minister, perhaps I can move on to my next question. This involves temperature checks on board airplanes. Your department recently announced that temperature checks would be required for all passengers boarding airplanes. I had those checks myself on my way here to Ottawa to attend this meeting in person.

The IATA recently presented a proposal in which it calls for an end to physical distancing on airplanes. Its argument is that these temperature checks are sufficient. That is something that has been contradicted by Dr. Theresa Tam, who says they're not effective at all at identifying who is infected. Can you commit to maintaining the social-distancing requirements on airplanes?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I agree with Dr. Tam that the most important measure is physical distancing. Canada, with all of the regulations and interim orders that are in place, is going to make sure that we continue to make that the number one thing. Measuring temperature, doing screening, asking [Technical difficulty—Editor] additional layers to safety.

Temperature measurements are important. They don't catch everybody, because there are asymptomatic people. There may be the odd person who has a fever occasionally who will be rejected and they just have a simple cold, but they are an additional measure that will catch some people and add to the safety. In fact, IATA recommends that as a—

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Minister, different airlines are using different temperatures as their threshold. Has your department come to a temperature benchmark to adopt across all Canadian flights?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

It is CATSA that is going to be purchasing the temperature scanners and temperature guns, and we will be working with them. Those instruments specify the threshold. The same applies to the other equipment that is purchased by the airlines themselves; there is a recommended threshold above which the reading or interpretation of having a fever is applied.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

Mr. Baldinelli.