Transport Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mrs. Kusie.

I do have questions and hands up.

We have Mr. Bittle, Mr. Rogers and Ms. Jaczek.

Mr. Bittle, you have the floor.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I'd actually like to start with a point of order. I didn't want to interrupt Mrs. Kusie. I do have some comments afterwards, if that's okay, Mr. Chair.

My point of order raises whether this is even within our mandate as a committee. It seems like a copy and paste from the natural resources committee or the environment committee. It doesn't even mention the ministers of transport and infrastructure, or even discuss it in any remote way in terms of how this reflects back to transportation.

That's my first point: whether this is even within our mandate as a committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

For lack of a better word, the definition of mandate with respect to this motion, I think it is, to some extent.... I don't think it's to the full extent, as it is more appropriate in other committees, but to some extent it is, as we do touch on infrastructure, communities, and of course, literally, transport, so it will be allowed to stand, and therefore debated and voted upon.

Mr. Bittle, do you want the floor?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Yes, please.

I'd like to express my disappointment—and my apologies to the witnesses as well—because I did receive a notice of meeting for the next meeting, and there is committee business scheduled. We have an hour of committee business at the next meeting, and we're using this time to discuss this motion. I'd like to hear from the Bloc and the NDP in terms of how they'd like to proceed.

I don't think this is the right committee for this job. The Conservative Party said—and we agreed, and so did the Bloc and the NDP, I don't want to take away anything from them—that a study of the air sector during COVID-19 was the most pressing issue that we could discuss. This debate is taking away from that time, and we have a motion that doesn't mention transportation, does not discuss the issues with respect to transportation and infrastructure.

In speaking with my colleagues on natural resources, it's just a copy-and-paste from that committee. We've taken out one line from natural resources to insert “the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities”.

I won't go on too much longer. I would like to hear from the Bloc and the NDP in terms of where they'd like to go. Hopefully, we can move this forward as quickly as possible and hear from the witnesses. I would like to hear from them, because the air sector and COVID-19 are pressing issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

I'm now going to move on to Mr. Rogers, then I have Mr. Masse, Mr. Barsalou-Duval and Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have a very simple comment. Mr. Bittle covered all the key points that I was thinking about. This is not an ideal moment with all these witnesses sitting here waiting for us to be able to ask questions after their presentations. We do have committee business scheduled for Thursday, so I'm not sure why we're even talking about this today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Masse, go ahead.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Bachrach will speak for us.

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

I appreciate the reasons that Mrs. Kusie wishes to have our committee look at this, but I tend to agree with Mr. Bittle.

I did pull up the mandate of the transportation, infrastructure and communities committee on the House of Commons website. I don't see very much relevance there. It speaks specifically to “federal programs and policies for air, rail, road and marine transportation”, “federal infrastructure funding such as the Gas Tax Fund and Investing in Canada Plan Bilateral Agreements”, and Crown corporations.

It doesn't speak to pipelines. There's probably another committee that would be better suited to investigating these matters. With all respect to my colleague, I'll be voting against the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, please go ahead.

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

I will take a few seconds, since I have been called up.

I just want to say that it would be preferable for this topic to be discussed in the appropriate committee. As far as I know, this is a matter of foreign affairs. According to my understanding, there is apparently a blockade in the United States.

It would be important for us to maximize the time we have to discuss today's topic. Witnesses are here, and I would not want to take time away from them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Are there any further questions or comments?

We'll move to the vote, Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

The question is on the motion of Mrs. Kusie with regard to Keystone XL.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Thank you, members. We'll now move on.

Mrs. Kusie, you have the floor.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you to the chair and to the clerk for allowing that to come forward.

I apologize to the witnesses who are here today.

I'll start with Porter Airlines, please, because I have had very interesting conversations with you before, Mr. Deluce.

Previously, the opinion of your airline, in my conversations with you, has been different from that of the other major airlines—and I will include you as a major airline—in that the other airlines were advocating strongly, in a sense, to have things such as rapid testing implemented on arrival, and it really seemed as though for several months you accepted the position of the government, as you saw, that this is just a brief period of time to get through, when really, we're seeing now that it's not. It's being extended indefinitely into the future, even beyond the vaccine, as we're hearing this week.

I'm wondering how your ideas and strategy have changed, given that something that should have been finite with the tools that are available to us and that were available to this government—rapid testing, testing on arrival, and vaccines, which, as we all know, are being so poorly distributed by this government. How has this changed, given the complete uncertainty and the uncertainty as to when this will pass in terms of a return to normal, frankly, for Canadians in the airline sector, as well?

[Robert Deluce]

That's a very good question.

None of us could have predicted back in March, when things came to a fairly rapid halt, just how long it would take to play out, and none of us could have imagined we'd be sitting here today talking about still not being back to any level of normal activity for months and in fact years. There was no way of knowing just what the right approach was.

We were supportive of some of the measures being taken. We thought a bit naively that suspending service until June was prudent. A lot of others only suspended for a few weeks. We thought June would leave time for things to sort out, and we'll remain ready and able, and we are in that position today where we are prepared to come back once the proper health conditions are in place and once those travel restrictions are removed.

We've always been a supporter of rapid testing. I think increasingly, as that is now coming into use more on a pilot project basis in both Calgary and Toronto, it's been proven, as it has been in other jurisdictions, to be an effective way of getting some activity going in terms of removing some of those restrictions that in fact cause some dampening of travel in the first place. I think as the vaccine is disseminated and as rapid testing is deployed, that will be very positive, and we support that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Mrs. Kusie, go ahead.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Marshall, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on being the only other parent I've ever seen to complete the Lego Death Star with their family. I proudly include myself with you, so congratulations on that.

[Hillary Marshall]

Thanks to COVID, of course.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yes, thanks to COVID, exactly. I could go on about the Batwing. It's very impressive indeed.

I wanted to talk to you about what we're seeing this week with American airlines—and I don't mean the brand, I mean American air carriers—still being able to carry Canadians to sun destinations when Canadian carriers have been.... The minister said “voluntarily” in question period, which in my opinion is not accurate. I think they were told or given or promised something, as they have been for several months now.

We've seen leakage before with Canadians going to, say, Buffalo or Washington to get flights overseas, but we're seeing a new level here of unfairness and complete disregard in the government's position in regard to Canadian carriers' loss of market share. Can you comment on that, please?

[Hillary Marshall]

I guess I'll start off by saying that COVID has created an incredibly difficult situation as we're all trying to balance our business interests with the need to protect public health. From that perspective, I can understand why decisions are being made.

These aren't decisions that are made by the airport, but of course transporter traffic is important to our airport. We are a global hub, and we are the fourth- or fifth-highest point of entry into the United States internationally.

We have to be mindful that we're going to recover eventually and that we need to protect our competitiveness, so we need to keep our minds open to what routes—albeit protecting public health—are going to allow us to get back to recovery and to be competitive with those U.S. airports.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Marshall and Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

We're now going to move on to Mr. Sidhu.

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

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here with us today.

My first question is for you, Ms. Marshall. You mentioned that in 2019 you welcomed 50 million passengers at Pearson airport and you noted the job losses in various industries connected with Pearson airport. I know that this includes many taxi and limo drivers, and many security, maintenance and other positions.

I've heard from so many in my riding. Many are understandably very concerned. However, I'd also like to note that many remain optimistic that things will turn around in due time.

Ms. Marshall, how long do you anticipate it will take for demand to recover to pre-pandemic levels once the Canadian population has largely been vaccinated?