Transport Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2022

[John Gradek]

Yes, the situation continues in the airline industry as well as in customer service in general, where there are close to a millions vacancies. In Canada, the airline companies are pursuing their efforts to hire more staff, but they're having a hard time, and there are several reasons for this.

First, the employees they're after have many jobs available to them. Second, the total compensation of these positions doesn't really compare with that of other available jobs in the area. People can choose to work for an airline or for another company in a transport-adjacent sector. The salaries aren't competitive compared to what's available on the market.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

You're saying they have many options available to them. Do you have any recommendations?

[John Gradek]

Airlines are federally regulated, so the federal government has a say in matters of compensation through the regulations that apply to these companies.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

I'll move on to my final question, which relates to one of the major issues we had to deal with over the summer, namely, baggage handling. Clearly, the system didn't work as well as it should have. On the issue of baggage handling, everyone seems to point fingers at everyone else.

Do you have any recommendations on ways to improve the system? Should the government get more involved in baggage handling?

[John Gradek]

The government's involvement in baggage handling is not the solution. Rather, the airlines themselves should look at the means available to them to address baggage handling issues. There are a number of technologies that airlines and airports could adopt to improve the situation.

The major issues that occurred over the summer were related to the labour shortage, the staff's lack of baggage handling experience and the belief that the situation would improve over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gradek and Mr. Iacono.

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

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for welcoming me to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I will ask my questions to the mayor of Mirabel.

Mr. Charbonneau, you talked about this large airport easement that dates back some 40 years and that hinders the economic development of the city of Mirabel. At one time, this easement was useful and was put in place for a valid reason. However, can we assume that the evolution and decrease in the flow of activity at Mirabel Airport have rendered it useless over time?

[Patrick Charbonneau]

This is absolutely the case, just as the terminal building, which has also become completely useless. It was built through a land lease granted to Aéroports de Montréal. It has been demolished in particular to reduce its maintenance costs and stop paying municipal taxes.

Some of the restrictions related to the easement have thus become unnecessary, but continue to prevent development. We are being deprived of property tax revenues and the land cannot be used, which we find unfair and inequitable. If the easement was used today as it was meant to be, we could understand its value. However, today, it really serves no purpose.

We must move on and try to improve. It is important to understand that Sainte-Scholastique was once the town's business centre. Doctors, notaries and great professionals had offices there. However, today, it is no longer the case. We would really like to revive those good old days by revitalizing the area.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

Since you mentioned Sainte-Scholastique, I would like to talk about the Synergie Mirabel project. A seniors' residence would house between 40 and 60 people who are losing their autonomy. It would be built in the middle of the village, next to several buildings, some of which belong to the federal government, like the post office. They have been trying for six years to get the project approved, but Transport Canada's administrative procedures make it extremely difficult. Neither the officials nor the government are to blame. The problem is the easement itself.

Do you think an upstream action would be useful, in order to review the whole easement matter, so that we no longer have to deal with such administrative wait times and are no longer forced to have projects approved piecemeal?

[Patrick Charbonneau]

I completely agree.

This project is a concrete example of the problem of easements and the unacceptable situations that can arise from them. The fact that the closure of the airport did not result in a complete review of the need for the zoning and easement makes no sense.

The citizens and the town of Mirabel can no longer be held under federal control without explanation or justification. The red tape is driving people out of the town. They go live somewhere else, since we are not able to provide our residents with local services.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I know that there are other construction and development problems due to the easement, in Sainte-Monique and elsewhere, but I continue with the same example, because it is quite telling.

When I go to Sainte-Scholastique, where the developers want to build the residence, in a location which was supposed to be part of the airport site a certain point in the past, I don't hear any noise and I don't see any planes flying by. Even the journalists who have been there have not been able to see any airport-related security risk nor any other risk. There are even buildings already on the other side of the street, a few feet away.

Do you find the situation is a bit strange? Do you think Mirabel is the only town in Canada affected by such a strange situation?

[Patrick Charbonneau]

It is difficult to say whether our situation is unique in Canada. One thing is certain: we are really affected by the easement on our territory.

I insist on the fact that we are witnessing the devitalization of our sectors, because we are not able to develop in the white areas. I'm not talking about agricultural areas, but white areas within our urban perimeter. These zones are supposed to be developed in accordance with the Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan for Greater Montreal.

Unfortunately, because of the problem we are discussing, we are not able to achieve our goals and we are experiencing, once again, the out-migration of our residents. They want to stay in Mirabel, where they were born. Unfortunately, due to the lack of available land, they have to leave.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

In our jargon, white areas are residential areas. Normally, under similar circumstances, any other municipality would be allowed to build housing.

The Sainte-Monique sector is central to Mirabel. Am I right when I say that we want to build houses on empty lots in already developed neighbourhoods and that we end up being told by the notary that the lots are part of the airport easement, and we cannot build there even if there is no airport?

[Patrick Charbonneau]

It is indeed nonsense. As you are saying, they are white areas on which it is possible to build and develop. We are part of the Montreal metropolitan area, which requires us to provide an adequate supply of housing in accordance with the thresholds being set for us.

It makes no difference whatsoever if a house is built between two existing houses as long as we follow the same rules and same heights. Unfortunately, since the easement covers the territory we want to develop, we cannot achieve our goals.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

So you feel that if the easement is cancelled, the residents would be secure, and the noise from aircraft would not exceed what is allowed by the regulations.

[Patrick Charbonneau]

Since we have a freight-only airport, there has been a very large drop in traffic. The noise pollution and other problems that might have arisen under the old vision of the airport no longer exist. Passenger flights have been moved somewhere else. For us, the easement has become unacceptable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Charbonneau and Mr. Garon.

Next, we have Mr. Bachrach, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll begin perhaps with Mr. Lawford.

I found your presentation very interesting. I believe you touched on the fact that over time we've seen several aspects of air transport and airports privatized, or moved into bodies that are at arm's length from government. In your opinion, has that served the travelling public well, that shift toward greater privatization?

[John Lawford]

We haven't done an in-depth study on this, but our general position at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre is that public services delivered directly from government are often more efficient. They have no profit motivation, and they are ready to step up when there are challenges like COVID-19 where there's a social reason for delivering the service.

Also, smaller airports have unique challenges—very similar to the telecommunications system—where the return on flights, if you will, is lower. Therefore, some government support, doing it through the airport.... Whether it's NavCan, or whatever CATSA used to be prior to that...would have been better served if it had been done by the federal government through the airport, with less involvement.

I hear Mr. Gradek saying that investment in the larger airports might be necessary from the private sector. I'm not sure. I think it's a matter of priorities for the government.

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

Thank you for that.

We hear from the airports that they feel like the user-pay model is not appropriate. They're not calling for changes like the ones you're suggesting, changes to the level of privatization to increase government involvement. What they're calling for, in my view, is keeping the current governance model but increasing the public subsidy so that those companies are able to benefit from it. What's your response to that proposal?

[John Lawford]

That's often the case once things have gone private, so to speak. When business gets tough, then subsidies and bailouts are demanded so that they can serve the public, but that's a very inefficient, indirect way of funding something that is a public necessity. It would be more sensible to just cut out the middleman, but I'm not sure what level of deregulation and privatization we have and how we could design a road map to go back to public ownership and control. That would take a bit of time.

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

You mentioned small airports, just a moment ago. This is a particular interest of mine, since all of the airports in northwest B.C. are small—quite small, in fact. Communities, especially remote communities, depend heavily on those airports as a primary travel connection to the rest of the world.

Should the government play a more proactive role in ensuring that rural communities have a basic level of air service?

[John Lawford]

Yes, absolutely. That, to me, is very similar to the trouble we have now with many of these areas being cut off from bus services, as you know, being cut off from train service, or where the train has not been brought to them. In that kind of environment, we pretty much have to get around Canada by air.

To me, it's an essential service to travel; it's not just telecommunications. Absolutely, yes, there should be more involvement.

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

Building on that, if we look back to the way that Greyhound operated in Canada, my understanding of their arrangement was that they were given access through the regulator to high-profit routes in exchange for taking on lower-profit or no-profit routes that were important because of people's need for basic transportation.

Do you feel a model like that would be important in the air sector as well, given that now we don't have bus transportation throughout much of the country?

[John Lawford]

That's one way to do it. You could also have a regulatory board that has rates capped. Whether the cross-subsidization, as you're saying, is the way to do it, or whether there are subsidies to support those routes, having someone look at it in that way, through that lens, would really help.