Transport Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

Unfortunately, we don't have systemic statistics, so I would be a bit hesitant to paint them with a broad brush. Surely, the fact that they are trying to fight the one-person-one-fare rule on international itineraries is a concern.

In another case I have been privy to, they took a passenger with disabilities to the Federal Court of Appeal in an attempt to overturn the Canadian Transportation Agency's decision, so they are being very combative in the cases I have seen when it comes to the rights of passengers with disabilities.

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

Turning briefly to Ms. Semaan from CATSA, you mentioned the fact that disabilities present differently; many of them are invisible. I'm thinking about my own experience as an air traveller and going through security screening at airports. No one has ever asked me if I have a disability or require any special accommodations.

How do CATSA's contractors identify a need for certain accommodations for people with disabilities when they present themselves at a security screening?

When I go to a security screening, it seems that these days it's a yelling-based system. I have people barking at me to pull out any containers of liquids I have and put down my laptop. You know, there's a lot of chaos and yelling in some airports at some times. No one has ever stopped to ask if there are special accommodations that are needed. What is the procedure for that?

[Nada Semaan]

Well, if somebody presents themselves and says, “I need some help,” by all mean.... There's also a family special needs line that they can access specifically.

I'm really happy to announce that we are basically moving to a new contract with all of our contractors. In that new contract, we're creating a new role for what we call a "facilitator". It will be somebody whose sole job is to provide bilingual service that will help facilitate all passengers through the process, but primarily persons with disabilities and the elderly. This is a new job that will not be a screener. They will just do that.

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

So, currently, the onus is on passengers to request special accommodations?

Perhaps we could get a quick answer, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Perhaps you can wait to ask that question in the next round, only because you've already gone over. Otherwise, I would have given you that time.

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

You're always very generous, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you.

I do want to confirm, Mr. Bachrach, that we've already reached out to Mr. Lepofsky to ensure that he will appear before the committee at another date that works for him. I just wanted to confirm that with you.

We'll begin the second round of questioning with Mr. Muys.

Mr. Muys, you have six minutes, sir.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

Dr. Lukacs, you were here, of course, a little over a year ago when we had that disastrous travel season. You talked then, as you have today, about inadequate enforcement being one part of the problem.

As you mentioned in your opening remarks, when the media lens is there, we see different reactions from when it's not. A year ago we were having a discussion about backlogs at CTA. Today they're far worse than they were back then, so I would submit that as the media lens looked elsewhere, that problem has ballooned.

Could you maybe make a comment on that parallel and also describe the tools that are available now that just aren't being adequately enforced?

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

Unfortunately, when we're talking about air passenger rights, the government has been sabotaging its own policy. Parliament last summer passed legislation allowing for an increase in the maximum amount of fines—administrative monetary penalties—to $250,000 as the cap, per instance, per violation of the APPR, yet the government has not amended the regulations to reflect the same.

Similarly, Parliament mandated a cost-recovery fee to cover taxpayers' expenses for adjudicating complaints that the airlines themselves caused. The consultation hasn't taken place about that, and the government has not put in place what Parliament expressly mandated.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

There's just a lack of will in enforcement, then, not necessarily a lack of tools.

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

There's a significant lack of will.

In terms of how many resources are needed for enforcement, that's also a question. The rules need to be simplified and made more clear to make enforcement easier. The fewer data points you need to have a guilty verdict, so to speak, on a violation, the faster an enforcement action can take place and the less effort it takes to defend an enforcement action if the airline challenges it in court.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I'm curious, since you raised the one-person-one fare, or one-fare-one-person, issue with regard to domestic versus international flights, what percentage or range of the instances, in your opinion, are international versus domestic—at least that we're aware of.

[Dr. Gábor Lukács]

Unfortunately, we don't have statistics on this. That's part and parcel of the problem. It's a whole larger set of problems. It's not just about disability-related issues, although those issues are prominent. If you look at the U.S. DOT statistics, it's a treasure trove of statistics. It makes every mathematician and statistician salivate, looking at how much data they have and how much research you can do on that.

We don't have anything like that in Canada. While Statistics Canada has some data, they're not allowed to release that data because of legal restrictions.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

Let me segue from that to questions of our friends from CATSA who are here.

I guess if I were cynical, I would ask if the new quarterly report on complaints is a reaction to the stories that we've seen, or an ongoing commitment.

To the point about lack of statistics, or at least lack of visibility of statistics, if there is going to be a quarterly report, what is the annual number of incidents, how many of those were resolved by the airlines and how many of those by CATSA? How many had to go to the CTA and be elevated?

What are the stats on that?

[Nada Semaan]

I can start.

Our quarterly report is to look at trends internally to see if there's anything.... We act on every single complaint as we get it. For example, for the last three quarters of last year, we had 51.5 million passengers who came through our checkpoints. We received 56 accessibility complaints, representing 0.0001% of accessibility.

Don't get me wrong, every complaint is important.

Rather than going into the details, I'll have my director who is responsible for complaints talk a little bit mope about the process. However, we call them immediately.

Rhoda, I don't know if you want add more?

[Rhoda Boyd]

We had 56 complaints, as Nada mentioned. We had, I believe, one that came in through the CTA.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Muys.

Next up we have Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, sir.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all of our witnesses today.

What we are talking about today is a real concern to all of us as MPs as we hear from some of our constituents about the challenges of flying, particularly those with disabilities.

When you fly, there seems to be very little accommodation in a lot of cases, unlike what you find, for example, when taking a train like VIA, where there are accommodations for people with disabilities in wheelchairs. We don't see that in many of the airlines.

I want to talk about the Auditor General's report, and there were three areas that were outlined for improvement. Specifically, the report highlighted three areas for improvement for CATSA. One was to meet the web accessibility standards. The second was the timelines of accessibility training and further consultations with persons with disabilities related to that training. The final one was to develop and implement a strategy to better analyze complaint data.

Can you as a group share with this committee if there's been any improvements in one or all of these areas that were identified?

[Nada Semaan]

I'm happy to report that there's been progress in all three of those areas.

I'll talk to web accessibility. The system that we need it for has been updated; it's fully functional. We've been moving all of our forms and everything to make them fully accessible. The plan is that by the end of March, in a month from now, everything will be fully accessible. We have already put up the really important things like what you can bring, liquids and wait times. Those are things that passengers need. Those are fully accessible now. What we are still working on, which becomes a bit more difficult, are things like our corporate plans, because there's so much in there to make them accessible. That is what we're working on now.

In terms of training, the Auditor General said that there were a couple of things. One was making sure that we can train fast, as soon as people come in, not only decision-makers but all screening officers. Regarding screening officers, when I came in, I guess, last April before a previous committee, we had 100%, and we still have 100% of screening officers fully trained. At this point in time, you're not allowed on the floor until you've had your full training on accessibility.

Then, for all of the decision-makers and management, as soon as you're hired, you're basically given a very short time frame to do all of your accessibility training. There are also refresher courses every year. Our system can monitor and measure to make sure, such that if you didn't do it, I can tell, and we send you an email to say that you have to do it. I am happy to say that I can tell you that right now I have 100% of decision-makers, managers and screening officers fully trained.

In terms of the training, one piece of advice from the Auditor General was that we work with persons with disabilities on the training. We've done quite a bit work on that. Some of the training that we've done, and new training as well, is on screening passengers with vision loss, passengers with reduced mobility and accessibility awareness. We had all kinds of people with different types of disabilities come in and talk about their lived experience, and they are part of the training. They say, “This is what I experienced. This is how you can improve it.” That's helped us quite a bit not only to improve but also to teach people what they need to do from their own perspective, which has been very helpful.

In terms of complaints data, we've done all the work now in assessing how we can manage it better. We're working with our systems to see what's in the realm of the possible, and working internally to make sure that it works for everybody. Our next step is to work with persons with disabilities to make sure, if we report on it, that it makes sense to them. Then, after that, we'll be implementing it. The target date is September 2024, and we're on target for that as well.

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

It's great to hear that CATSA has done all this work and is moving forward on recommendations from the Auditor General's report and so on.

When you fly to, as Mr. Strahl said, small regional airports, and I refer to places like Gander, for example.... For me, for the past year and a half, two years, flying to the east coast is a nightmare. Most days it's requires leaving at 5:30 in the morning and I get into Gander late on Friday. It's gotten to the point where I now spend more weekends in Ottawa rather than spend the entire weekend in an aircraft or in airports.

From what I see with some of these aircraft, I wonder how we are treating people with disabilities because there are no accommodations for people in wheelchairs. There are no accommodations for anybody to be able to bring their wheelchair on board the aircraft and so on.

I wonder why it is that, with all these things that we're doing, we haven't really focused on modernizing and retrofitting aircraft to provide more comfortable accommodations for people with major disabilities.

Do you want to comment on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Make it a very short answer, please.

[Nada Semaan]

I can't speak to the aircraft, but what we are trying to do is to work with all of our suppliers in terms of.... For example, we're trying to get walkthrough full-body scanners. They don't exist in the industry right now where they can be certified by the TSA or ECAC, but once we can get those, they will be on our plans.

As soon as we can get anybody to certify that, they will do their job. That's a priority for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Barsalou‑Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lukács, I'll start by referring to cases that have received media coverage.

A Radio‑Canada article dated November 9, 2023, discusses a WestJet flight and the case of Ms. Gilliard, who claims that staff almost dropped her spouse while trying to transfer him to his seat. Another Radio‑Canada article dated August 2, 2022, reports that staff from a different airline, Air Transat, dropped a passenger in the aisle while transferring him to his seat. An article published in La Presse on February 5, 2024, talks about a third airline, Air Canada...

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Sorry, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval. The interpretation isn't working. We'll stop for a bit, but I'll give you two and a half minutes again.