Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
My name is John Lawford. I'm the executive director and general counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. PIAC is a national non-profit and registered charity, and we provide legal and research services on behalf of consumer interests, in particular vulnerable consumer interests, concerning the provision of important public services. PIAC has been active in the field of air passenger protection and policy for over 20 years.
The air passenger protection regulations are just fine. Removing them or amending them would not ease airport delays or reduce traveller frustration. They are not unfair and they are not overreach vis-à-vis the airlines. The APPRs are hard-won redress and fairness for the flying public. Modern air transportation regulatory schemes throughout the world have such rules, including, as we've heard, the EU and the U.K. The APPRs are Canada's answer.
There is currently a problem with the backlog of consumer APPR complaints at the Canadian Transportation Agency. We estimate there are somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 that are at least a year old. This backlog is due in part to bad timing. The APPRs were proclaimed, as you heard, in force just ahead of COVID-19.
However, it has always been PIAC's position that the APPRs were going to generate a backlog. The CTA's facilitation, mediation and adjudication streams within a quasi-judicial formal framework are a ridiculous approach to dealing with high-volume, low-value consumer redress for such routine, and unfortunately now chronic, issues as flight delays and cancellations.
A better model is a dedicated administrative complaints agency with a regulatory overseer for systemic issues. This administrative model is currently in place for telecommunications and broadcasting, through the CCTS, and for banking and investments, through the OBSI. The government should not abandon the APPRs but should remove them from the formalistic tariff-based adjudication process and transition to a CCTS-like model.
We also note that consumer baggage complaints cannot be solved by changing or improving the APPRs, because they effectively say nothing about baggage. That's due to the Carriage by Air Act and the Montreal Convention, which stipulate that compensation for lost baggage or delayed baggage must be contained in the airlines' own domestic tariffs on baggage. This means that consumer frustration with baggage can only be solved with a directive for the airlines to meet a minimum standard in their tariffs from the minister or the CTA.
PIAC also wishes to underline that the present APPRs are under attack by the airlines, first by WestJet arguing that all crew shortages are safety cases, and more recently by Air Canada questioning whether crew training is out of their control in appeals from the CTA to the Federal Court of Appeal. We note that in the EU, under their passenger protection regime, staffing shortages generally must be planned for and compensation must be paid except in very unusual circumstances, with the implicit message from the regulator to the airlines not to schedule flights for which they cannot manage their labour supply.
Second, major Canadian as well as U.S. and European carriers, along with IATA, are challenging the entire APPRs, for international flights and domestic ones as well—I was just rereading some of the pleadings—at the Federal Court of Appeal, saying they conflict with the Montreal and Chicago conventions. This committee can and should, by contrast, express its support for the APPRs despite growing pains and challenges. Consumers need the APPRs as a counterweight to airline power. This committee should recommend future amendments to the APPRs and any other law or treaty to fill any gaps that these airline court challenges reveal.
Lastly, we note that the major airlines fired or retired workers during COVID-19. They made their own labour shortage despite taking large CEWS amounts that were intended to keep staff on the payroll. Most airlines also took some or all of the money offered as bailouts—not WestJet of course, and Air Canada only for consumer refunds—but were not required to rehire or be ready to restart at the start of this summer. This money only supported their balance sheets while COVID requirements faded away.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.