Transport Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I appreciate that Canada is leading the global air travel world in this space, with the one-person, one-fare policy. It is not the case in other places. This is something that is unique to Canada.

I will recognize that inter-jurisdictional issues and business competition issues add complexity to this, but from a purely accessibility perspective, I would suggest that, at a minimum, if a carrier requires a person with a disability to travel with a caregiver, then that person with the disability should not be financially disadvantaged by that requirement of an airline.

It is difficult to balance all of the challenges here, but yes, people with disabilities are often faced with additional costs. The costs of their equipment alone are different from what someone else would deal with. The cost of travel is definitely often more than for others.

Certainly, if the requirement to have a caregiver attend is the requirement of the airline, then it should be at their cost.

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

Thank you.

On this subject, it would be interesting to hear the point of view of Ms. Pégeot, from the Canadian Transportation Agency. It would give us a better understanding of the agency's position.

[France Pégeot]

Yes, of course. Thank you very much.

I'll come back to what Ms. Cadieux just said. Canada is indeed, to our knowledge, the only country that imposes a fare. Internationally, air transport is governed by a series of bilateral agreements between countries. This is essentially what allows Canadian aircraft to fly into other airports. It's really the framework within which international air transport evolves.

There's a provision in these agreements that says we're not to regulate ticket prices—essentially, that airlines are to follow the laws of the marketplace and have the freedom to set their ticket prices. An organization like the agency can't intervene in this. If we were to make the “one person, one fare” policy mandatory, it's highly likely that some countries would reject it. Following consultations with Transport Canada and Global Affairs Canada, the decision was made not to regulate in this sense. In this context, the agency has decided not to deal with the complaints submitted to it.

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

Thank you.

For my part, I find this situation sad nonetheless. I wonder whether the interpretation of international practices must necessarily define the end result, or whether it's possible for action to be taken. I'm thinking of air passenger regulations, for example, which are not the same from one country to another. In my opinion, with a little courage, it would be possible to put policies in place. At least, that's my point of view.

This brings me to another question for the Canadian Transportation Agency.

What is the agency's role when it comes to ensuring that people with reduced mobility have access to the services they need at airports? They sometimes have trouble getting assistance from competent people to help them board the plane and stow their equipment. Is it up to the airport or the airline to provide these services?

What is the Transportation Agency's role in overseeing all this? Do you only have a complaints-handling role, or do you put rules in place? Do you monitor this? Are there people who make sure these services are available?

[France Pégeot]

First, I'd like to complete my previous answer.

I assure you that we are working internationally, in particular with the International Civil Aviation Organization, to encourage other countries to take measures like ours.

As for your last question, essentially, the regulations prescribe that between the time the person with a disability arrives at the airport and the time they check in, it's the airport's responsibility to provide the services. Between check-in and boarding, it's the responsibility of the airlines.

We respond to complaints when they are submitted to us. In some cases—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Ms. Pégeot. Unfortunately, time has run out.

[France Pégeot]

I understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Next we have Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses. This is an important study and you've already contributed to it in a big way.

I will also start with Ms. Cadieux.

Thank you for being here to share your personal perspective, and your professional one.

I'm not sure if you had a chance to either read or watch the committee's previous meeting on this topic. I know it's not viewed as highly rated entertainment by many Canadians.

One thing we heard from the airlines when they testified on this topic was that the high-profile cases we see in the media represent a very small fraction of the total number of flights taken by people with disabilities. I raise this because, to me, it stands in stark contrast to the message you've shared with us today, which is this: as long as we see these stories in the media and as long as people with disabilities are experiencing trouble on flights, we have a problem that we need to fix.

What do you make of that testimony by the airlines?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

Thank you. It's nice to see you.

You spoke at the last meeting about a number of distressing examples that have happened. The responses certainly express care, but I think they lack the required urgency. The defensive insistence on returning to language about 99% of passengers travelling without incident unfortunately minimizes the 1% who are experiencing debilitating and dehumanizing situations.

The data is a challenge and that's one of the reasons why I pointed to it in my report across all areas of accessibility. The challenge that I know exists in the data is this: When we talk about any person with a disability who might travel.... It's a very wide range of situations. Somebody might need assistance through the airport but not on the plane. Somebody needs to be manually transferred. Someone has an allergy. I'm sure many people travel without incident. However, I had three incidents last year alone where there were issues. I know there were 16 more faced by people I know very personally in my very small circle that happened within a six-month period last year. Many more reached out to my office after my incident. Certainly, I don't know all the people who have travelled. However, if that alone is the situation, it concerns me. I don't know anyone with a disability, personally, who hasn't had an issue travelling.

That data matters. That's why I talked about the need for much more discrete data. How many people with disabilities travelled? How many people travelled with manual wheelchairs? How many people travelled with power wheelchairs? How many people with one of those filed a complaint? How many of those people who didn't file a complaint had damage to their chair that was fixed but wasn't captured in the complaints? The complexity is there.

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

On the topic of data—and this seems to be a very important point for the committee's inquiry—it seems that right now Canada is relying on data self-reported by airlines. Some airlines are willing to share data and some aren't. We know from Ms. Hogan's recent report that when the office looked at CATSA there was an extraordinarily high percentage of complaints that had been miscategorized.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't know what percentage of complaints at the airlines are miscategorized, because there is no transparency of data.

Is that something that should be remedied?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I believe better data is needed everywhere. Certainly I understand that's difficult. Data is always interesting from that perspective. If you don't ask the right questions, you don't get the right results. I think it is important that we have the data, because I think it's clear. They do a lot of things right. If they're doing a lot of things right then those aren't areas in which we need to fix things. But where are those pain points?

We're going to find those only if we have much more specific data.

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

The United States has a different system. In the United States, the airlines are required to report the data according to specifications outlined in the regulations. They report that data to the FAA. It's publicly transparent, so people can see where there's improvement and where problems remain.

Should Canada not take a lesson from our American neighbours in this regard?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

I think we often do things differently for good reason. I think it's important that in whatever we do we are clear about whether or not we're comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I think it's necessary for us to move towards having more data available. I think we can do an even better job than the United States does at working to ensure we're getting the information we want and need from the data to ultimately change for the better the experiences of people with disabilities.

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

On this specific point around data, who leads internationally? Whom should we be looking to?

[Stephanie Cadieux]

From my outreach and from what I've been hearing so far, I don't know that anybody has it right yet. The reason I say so is that I spoke at the IATA conference in October, where it was clear was that airlines and the air sector know that accessibility is an issue everywhere. It's now on the agenda, and that's the first step. That's really important, as is our being here at this committee. The fact that we're talking about it is a good first step. I think we have an opportunity to lead in terms of how we respond.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach and Ms. Cadieux.

Next we have Mr. Muys.

Mr. Muys, the floor is yours for five minutes. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for taking time for this important study.

I have some questions for the Auditor General, but first I want to ask a question of the CTA as a follow-up to the line of questioning by Mr. Barsalou-Duval. We had a discussion at the last meeting about this policy of one person, one fare. I would challenge the answer you gave, because to me this seems like a no-brainer. There's a very clear discrepancy. These are Canadian airports, Canadian airspace and Canadian laws, and yet this double standard still persists wherein internationally we're not applying that policy. That seems like a very easy thing to remedy. Perhaps what's missing is the will of the CTA and the government to actually do it.

[France Pégeot]

Thank you for your question.

As I've mentioned, there are international agreements that govern all the air transportation that is happening. That would constitute a problem with those agreements. If we were to—

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

As a result, with international conventions like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Canada is a signatory, we're not following through.

[France Pégeot]

For sure.

That's why we work a lot with ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, internationally. We're supporting the development of a compendium that highlights best practices across various countries with respect to people with disabilities. We certainly talk about one person, one fare when we go to international forums to encourage other countries to take such measures. Those countries have not even taken this measure domestically, within their own country.

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

My time is limited, so I'll switch gears now and go to the Auditor General.

You indicated that in your study of transport, air transport wasn't the primary or singular focus of the issues that you were studying. I'm wondering if the lack of significant fines has caused bad behaviour to persist. Did you look at the level of fines being levied by the CTA and whether they were at the appropriate level or at the level that would change behaviour? Was that part of your study at all?

[Karen Hogan]

I guess to explain my mandate a little, I cannot audit private corporations, and airlines are exactly that. While they are federally regulated, I can only look at federal entities. In our audit of the transportation authority, we did not look at fines levied. We looked at the oversight and inspection of the regulations.

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

It was not the fines levied by the federal regulator.

[Karen Hogan]

No. We did not cover that.