Transport Committee on Jan. 26th, 2021

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I believe Mr. Wayland and Ms. Daviau indicated that they were unable to get a meeting with the then ministerto present this plan, but they were able to meet with the parliamentary staff of the minister.

Can you tell us what the parliamentary staff said when you presented the plan for a subsidy for Nav Canada?

[Debi Daviau]

They said, “Thank you very much, and we'll relay this information to the minister.”

Unfortunately, there was no outward support of the plan or even an understanding of the urgency of putting a plan in place. These cuts are happening as we speak, and across the entire industry, and time is not our friend here. In many parts of this industry, you simply can't flick the switch and put it back on once you've taken these steps to make mass reductions across the industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mr. Wayland, did you want to comment on that?

[Matt Wayland]

Yes.

Certainly, that is the case. We've had meetings with the minister's staff. I've had several myself. I did relay the information as well to meetings at the PMO in trying to push it up the chain. We did have some discussions on it, but again, we're still here discussing it today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses today for your presentations and for taking all the questions from the committee.

In Atlantic Canada, we have some major challenges, of course, and in rural Canada as well. The challenges seem to be compounded in terms of travel. We have major issues with the closure of routes to places such as Gander and Deer Lake in Labrador, in parts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and in other parts of Atlantic Canada.

That seems to be compounded by the Atlantic bubble, which has worked really well to protect the residents of the Atlantic provinces. We've been able to really control the spread of the virus and protect the lives of the people who live in Atlantic Canada. Many people believe that we've done a fantastic job of that.

Of course, the problem with it is that it's a catch-22 situation when it comes to travelling and airlines and airports. We have major issues with people such as rotational workers, for instance, who need to go to their jobs in other parts of Canada and fly back to Atlantic Canada. It's compounding their problems. Getting back and forth and getting home is creating all kinds of problems for these people. We have a situation where we're doing a great job of protecting health, but of course the airline industry has borne the brunt of that.

In our fall economic statement, we announced over a billion dollars in support for small and medium-sized airports. I know that there are ongoing negotiations with the airport and airline industry, and we're equally anxious to see something done that will salvage the airline industry.

I guess, depending on the demands.... Mr. Dias, you made reference to compensating Canadians. Do you think support for the air sector should be conditional on airlines restoring services to regional routes?

I'll put that question to Mr. Perry and then to Mr. Dias.

[Capt Tim Perry]

I think it is a clear benefit and a clear requirement to have connectivity across the country. That's in everybody's interests. As for how that deal is structured, clearly the government is in some conversations with airlines. I think better outcomes would come about if labour organizations were part of that.

You've mentioned people travelling around the country and elsewhere for the purposes of work. I think it's clear that this connectivity across the country is important. I think it should be part of the discussion, and I think we should be part of the discussion so that we can bring our voice to that conversation.

[Jerry Dias]

I believe it would be political suicide for the Liberals to give money to Air Canada and others that still owe their customers money. There's no question that this would have to be a part of the deal, in my opinion, because there would be screams from customers, and understandably so, if Air Canada were to receive billions of dollars and not repay. I think that just has to be part of the deal.

Number two, we can't have it both ways. We can't say that as a result of provincial jurisdictions, where we're going to create the Atlantic bubble or we're going to have rules based on safety, and where the government's regulations, rules, restrictions, which are done for all the right reasons.... I'm not second-guessing, but you can't have a situation where there are regulations enforced and rules put forward by governments that in essence are destroying the industry and then say to the industry, “Well, you're on your own.” We can't have it both ways.

We understand the preoccupation with safety. There's nobody here who disagrees with that, but what we're saying is that if the government is going to put in place restrictions that are going to lead to the economic carnage of the industry, my gosh, then, you would think that they would put up their hands and say, “Listen, we understand, and we're all in this together.” Just like this pandemic, we're all in this together, regardless of industry and regardless of profits, and the only way we're going to get out of this is by doing it together. That means we're going to need to have a strong economy as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

We're now going to move on to the third round. We're going to start for five minutes.

Mr. Shipley for the CPC, you have the floor.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today. I took some quotes as I was listening intently.

We're all in a very tough state here. The airline industry is in a very tough position. I have mentioned many times that my riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is sometimes referred to as “Terminal 4”, because I have so many employees in my area from Pearson airport who travel up and down Highway 400. I'm hearing about this daily.

Some of the comments I heard today were quite shocking. I will repeat a couple of them.

Mr. Lesosky, your exact quote was that “government needs to work with us, not against us”.

Mr. Perry, your quote was that there was no “proper consultation” on safety by the government.

Mr. Rauenbusch said that the “crisis” has been “made worse by” the government.

Obviously, the pandemic is bad enough in itself, so perhaps we can start with Mr. Lesosky, and he can expand on what he means by saying that the “government needs to work with us, not against us”, as a good starting point.

[Wesley Lesosky]

I think that can happen in a multitude of ways. I think I primarily said it with regard to the work refusals and just the government not listening through that process. I think the queues are another thing that I've reiterated today as well: to ensure that our members are protected in that sort of realm. Number three, of course, is just with regard to some form of assistance to the aviation sector as a whole, to ensure that it is there, it is sustainable and there are jobs to go back to. I think I've reiterated it quite a bit, but I think those are the three main points I'd definitely move forward again

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Perry, on your comment about no “proper consultation” on safety by the government, would you like to expand on that just a little more one more time?

[Capt Tim Perry]

I think consultation has been an issue for us all along, since the beginning. All of these policy announcements, travel announcements and the lack of announcements for funding have just a tremendous impact on us.

On safety, any time you have a safety-sensitive industry—and there is no more safety-sensitive industry than aviation—where training and efficiency are at issue, you really need to be talking to the people who are the experts, and we share that with Nav Canada employees and pilots. Actually, basically all aviation employees share that issue, so consultation is of the utmost importance when safety is involved. Frankly, we're the experts, as are all the other members of this panel.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I'll just go to my last quote. Mr. Rauenbusch mentioned that this crisis has been “made worse” by the government.

Can you expand on that, Mr. Rauenbusch, please?

[Christopher Rauenbusch]

What I was getting at with that statement was really quite simply the length of time that this is taking. I know that some of the previous questions alluded to that. We're now going on 11 months since this pandemic began in Canada, and airlines aren't going to last forever. That's where I was going with that comment.

As you know, we're 11 months in and we're now being convened to have this discussion. I just want to reiterate that I wouldn't imagine that there's one witness before you today who hasn't spent a significant amount of time trying to reach out and communicate with government officials around the severity of this situation. For it to have dragged on this long is just extremely frustrating and, to be very honest, very frightening to our members, who may not have an industry to go back to. That was the gist of that comment.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you.

I'm not sure exactly who to direct my last question to, Chair. Perhaps it should be one of those three gentlemen who spend more time at the airports than some of the others do.

I had a call just before our meeting, so I didn't have a lot of time to do my own research on this. I was speaking with a member of an association down there who works at Pearson and who was telling me there's actually a Pearson COVID log, which was news to me. He was indicating that some of the highest COVID percentages or results, of people being entered into the COVID log, were coming from the actual passenger screening, the security screening. They were having a fairly high COVID result at the airport.

That must be a little alarming for all of you people who have to go through the airport and work with these.... Rapid testing is one thing. It really doesn't do much good if you get a rapid test and then you're actually getting the COVID virus from someone who's screening you at the airport.

Have you heard about this Pearson COVID log and can anybody comment at all on the numbers that are being kept on that, particularly with the passenger security-screening people? Does anybody know about that at Pearson?

[Capt Tim Perry]

I'm unfamiliar with the log although I can say that we've submitted multiple recommendations about how passengers and airports should be oriented, and how these processes should be addressed. There's good information out there from ICAO, IATA and other organizations, and we've forwarded much of it to the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Perry.

Mr. Sidhu, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being with us today.

I have spoken to many of the constituents in my riding who've been able to access the wage subsidy through their employers or to access the simplified EI program as many of them are employed or were employed in one way or another by the transportation sector.

I've also had a chance to speak to friends in other countries who say the CERB, EI or wage subsidy types of support are not available in their countries. You know, these are very important programs that we have, and lots of Canadians, millions of workers, in fact, have benefited across the country through this very challenging time.

Mr. Dias, my question is to you. Are you supportive of the Government of Canada's broader measures to support Canadians through this pandemic, measures such as the Canada recovery benefit and the simplified EI program?

[Jerry Dias]

Well, there's no question. In the beginning everybody was scrambling to put money in people's pockets. So many of the initiatives, of course, were positive.

But what we're talking about is how to do it better. What did we learn from it? You talked about EI. The reality is we know that the EI system here in Canada is broken. When the pandemic hit, we were completely unprepared.

Now it's not a question of just reverting back to the old ways of doing things. What have we learned? We've learned that workers deserve at least a floor as it relates to EI. More people need to qualify. You can imagine that more people are qualifying based on the government's initiatives during the pandemic than normally ever have, because we know that only about 38% of Canadians ever qualify for employment insurance.

We know that the social security system here in Canada is broken, so it's time to fix it. Have there been some initiatives that I have supported? The answer is yes. Have some programs been wildly ineffective? The answer is yes.

I give the various governments credit for coming together and mainly leaving the politics at the door. This has been a challenging time for everyone. We have come together more as a nation, and we will come together better if we leave the politics out, but the question now is what we are going to do next.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you for your insights, Mr. Dias.

Mr. Rauenbusch, what role did the wage subsidy play in keeping your members employed?

[Christopher Rauenbusch]

In a similar answer, yes, the wage subsidy was actually effective for the membership that I serve. The employer did offer it as an option for all furloughed cabin crew members across our three airlines, and we had very significant uptake on it. If this pandemic does continue well into this year, the trailing off of the percentage amount may be less effective, but overall the CEWS has been helpful to my members.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you.

My other question was answered by a previous witness, so I'll leave it at that. I think our time has run out.

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

I would like to take the floor, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Yes, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.