Transport Committee on Sept. 28th, 2022

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Boudreau. I would just ask that you put yourself in the situation of the passenger when they're waiting two days and you're using words like “growing pains” and “hiccups”. It takes them away from medical appointments. It takes them away from family events. It's significant in terms of individual passengers.

I'd like to move over to you, Mr. Massé, and ask if you can comment. Your airport was ranked second worst, with 47.8% flights being delayed. Again, we heard testimony in June that it was because of the mask mandate, vaccine mandate, mandatory tracing and the ArriveCAN app. Do you agree?

[Martin Massé]

Well, did it play a part? Probably it did. But all of this started with an electrical thunderstorm that put us in a complete ground stop for hours. From there on, it just completely.... We were never able to gain back on the platform what was delayed from this event.

During that incident, our management team spent the night doing their best to inform passengers. From then on, the entire network couldn't make up the delays caused by this total shutdown of the platform, which went on for hours. As Mr. Boudreau mentioned, added to this were the unexpected labour shortages experienced by some of the partners' employees, and the lack of investment during the pandemic.

We would in fact have wanted to make some investments during the pandemic. However, the manner in which the airport authorities operate financially means that there is unfortunately no revenue when there are no users. By…

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I'm going to interrupt you, Mr. Massé, only because I have half a minute left.

Have you seen the airport come back to prepandemic levels yet? If not, and I assume not, would it have been nice to have these mandates lifted at perhaps the beginning of the tourist season?

[Martin Massé]

We definitely would have liked a loosening of restrictions as soon as possible, and that's what we asked for. However, it has to be admitted that our platform was unfortunately unable to measure up to the experience we would have liked to provide. Realistically, it would have been difficult to handle more passengers during this crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Massé and Mr. Jeneroux.

Next we have Ms. Koutrakis.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for appearing here this afternoon before us and for your important testimony.

My questions are directed to any of the airport authority representatives here today.

Even though we had a bumpy summer, I think the bigger picture was missed. After about two years of being more or less shut down, air travel came roaring back, and most people were able to get where they were going.

Do you think the critics fully understood how challenging it was to resume operations that quickly?

[Trevor Boudreau]

If Martin and Carmelle are okay with it, maybe I'll start the answer.

I see a couple of nods. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Indeed, we saw the largest increase in passenger volumes in our 90-year history here at YVR in the span of a number of months. We grew from something like 40,000 passengers a day in February to passengers in May, June, July and August that tipped 65,000 to 70,000 passengers a day. That was a huge volume increase at a time when we were struggling as an ecosystem here at YVR with some staffing shortages and travel measures.

Again, I think it was Mr. Bachrach—or another MP, I'm sorry—who asked what we would say to workers. We say a big “thank you” to everybody who stepped up. Our partners stepped up as quickly as they possibly could.

We had returned before the summer to our prepandemic staffing levels and, indeed, have repatriated almost 100 plus jobs into our airport authority for our guest experience program, but we also saw a tremendous number of people come and volunteer on the floor. When we had our difficult day on the Sunday in August, we had over 500 volunteers come from home that day to help passengers get through just as quickly as possible, to support them, to help them get where they were going, to help them talk to their airlines, to understand a little more and to help ease their concerns, their frustrations and indeed their fear that they might miss a medical appointment or an important family gathering.

That's what I would say.

I will yield my time to Carmelle and Martin.

[Carmelle Hunka]

I think I will jump in and just provide one additional piece of context with respect to the rapid return.

Similar to the issues that are being faced with respect to passport offices, we at the airports are also facing these issues with respect to our pass offices and the ability of new employees and new or returning staff members to receive their restricted access identity cards, the RAICs. The time to process those has increased, and that has put additional pressure on the system.

It's another item that I think has impacted the staffing issues that have been faced at airports at all levels, whether that's with CATSA or with our airport employees.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Massé, Do you have any comments?

[Martin Massé]

I'm in total agreement with what both my colleagues just mentioned.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Okay. That's great.

My next question is, what updates can you provide on the state of labour shortages in the air sector today and how do you think the Christmas holiday season and next summer will go?

Because we're limited in time, that's for anyone, any of the airport authorities. Again, I would think that you would be the best people to provide some responses in that regard.

[Trevor Boudreau]

Go ahead, Carmelle.

[Carmelle Hunka]

I can provide a little bit of additional perspective. We definitely are seeing stabilization of some of the labour shortage issues that some of our partners were seeing. At the Calgary airport, we are going to be back up to full staffing at U.S. Customs and Border Protection starting November 1, which was a big issue for us. That was one of the challenges.

We do know that Nav Canada is still dealing with staffing issues and is utilizing overtime to help create the appropriate staffing in the tower, so that continues to be a concern for us.

Certainly we have been fairly consistent. Our biggest challenge is at the Calgary airport, quite honestly, with respect to, I would say, some of the lower skilled types of labour we need. The ground handlers on the ramp were originally getting paid $16 or $17 an hour. Then they would move to the next ground-handling company for $18, and then the next one for $19, so we had a lot of movement.

We're starting to see that stabilize as I believe those organizations have really determined what the appropriate rate is, but wage rates do continue to escalate with inflation, and those continue to present a challenge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Koutrakis.

We'll continue with Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Massé, the study we are now conducting is about reducing administrative formalities and costs at rural and urban airports in Canada. The idea is to cut costs for passengers. Some of these costs are billed to you, but you do the billing on others.

ADM also manages Mirabel and other sites. As this came about under your administration, you are no doubt aware that there was a very significant increase in fees charged for landings and touch-and-go landings by piston engine aircraft at the Mirabel site, where approximately 33% of francophone pilots were trained.

What impact did that have on flight schools at Mirabel?

[Martin Massé]

Thank you very much for your question. I'll have to be careful with my comments, because this might well result in legal action.

Indeed, we made significant progress with respect to the landing and takeoff fees at Mirabel International Airport. It's a world-class infrastructure that requires that high level of management, along with fees of that magnitude. Canadian airport authorities follow the user-pay model, which is why we had to do some catching up.

In view of the kinds of tenants we have, security is always extremely important to us. Mirabel handles National Defence aircraft, the Airbus A220 and cargo aircraft. There are also smaller aircraft, which can sometimes lead to incidents in our security management systems. The important thing is to administer the platform completely securely.

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

According to the flight schools, fees went from $540 to $38,000 a year to operate an aircraft, and that's just for touch-and-go landings.

On the one hand, I have trouble understanding why costs increased so dramatically in such a short time. On the other, knowing that one third of francophone pilots were trained there and that there is now a shortage of pilots, has it never occurred to you that these measures might have had something to do with it?

[Martin Massé]

As with any other industry, the flight schools can adapt. Unlike a car racing track, where you inevitably end up back at the start line, in aviation, you can take off from one airport and land at another.

Of course, if the response is not to change the business model and to continue with touch-and-go landings at a given international airport that is becoming increasingly busy, then it would be easy to prorate things to arrive at the amount you mentioned. On the other hand…

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, there's no time left, Mr. Massé. Thank you very much.

Next we have Mr. Bachrach.

The floor is yours. You have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll pick up where I left off. If you could give me those 20 seconds, boy, that would be generous.

Mr. Boudreau, you mentioned living wages. I was at YVR and talked to some of the screening officers there around the height of the challenges that we were seeing during the pandemic. What they told me is that being a screening officer at an airport used to be a great job. There's a lot of training and a lot of certification, but it was well paid and well respected. Through contracting out, the quality of those jobs has really gone downhill. Now they are paid a salary that is comparable to other jobs at the airport that don't require you to be in the public eye all the time and to be surveilled. They're having checked bags thrown at them, working short-handed, missing breaks and all of these things. I think you would appreciate that they were under some pretty stressful work conditions. I'd also note that they don't work for the airport directly.

Are we paying screening officers enough? Does the contracting out model threaten those living wages?

Given that Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities in Canada, what is a living wage for an airport worker these days?

[Trevor Boudreau]

Here in metro Vancouver, the living wage is $20.52 an hour, which encapsulates both your wages and your benefits. Our living wage policy ensures that, at the very least, all direct airport employees, as well as the service providers we directly contract, are paid a living wage.

On your question around security screeners, I agree with you. No doubt that is a very difficult job. The frontline security screeners provide a critical function in our airport system here in Canada. They do a tremendous job.

Through the summer, when they were challenged, we were there to support them by ensuring that new employees could get their RAICs in less than 14 days and get on the floor so that they could be trained just as soon as possible. They are highly trained and highly skilled workers. It requires some time to get them onto the floor and working at their full potential, but we're doing our part to support them.

When they were challenged by staffing, which created long lines at the airport, we were there to support them in getting folks ready for the screening process, making sure that they didn't have extra liquids in their bags, and making sure that they took out their liquids and were prepared for the process. We tried to make it as smooth as possible.

We encouraged our travellers to be sensitive to the screeners, because they do such an important job here at the airport.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Boudreau.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach.

Next we have Mr. Muys.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses today for their testimony.

I would like to ask some further questions of Mr. McKenna.

You talked about the inefficiencies of government services and, almost, how the aviation sector is treated as a cash cow by the government. We appreciate your 10 recommendations. I think those will be helpful as we consider your testimony and the testimony of others in writing this report.

I want to zero in, because this report is about reducing both red tape and costs. There's a massive cost impact that you can see coming down the track that's going to impact, I would think, the aviation sector and airports. That is the tripling of the carbon tax that's being proposed.

I don't know if you have any comment on that, or if you could talk about the economic impact of that on airports and the aviation sector.

[John McKenna]

The air transport industry has come a long way as far as reducing its carbon footprint is concerned, through the improvement of engines, the materials used and so on. However, we are faced with a carbon tax. We are faced with excise taxes. We are faced with all kinds of taxes. Now the government wants us to go to alternate fuels within a few years. We expect that this is probably going to cost or add another 20% to our fuel costs in the short term. All these added costs are certainly not helping our recovery at all.

Yes, the carbon tax came along and it's increasing every year. It has a very significant impact on the cost of travel. Of course, government taxes over and above that on fuel taxes, regardless of the carbon tax, are very important. We have not seen any consideration on the government's part to maybe hold off on these increases until we've fully recovered.

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

Yes, 20% at a time when you're trying to recover is certainly significant.

Along those lines, in terms of cost and economic impact, do you have a dollar figure or a GDP impact, perhaps, of some of the other things that have been experienced, which are the flight delays, the cancellations of flights and the impacts those will have on travel and the travel industry? Can you talk a bit about that in terms of the economic impact and also cost competitiveness?