Transport Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[Tom Oommen]

Yes, Chair, that is absolutely the case.

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

When a passenger gives up or takes their case to small claims court—that is, takes their case out of the process—how does the CTA list that on its website? I looked at the list, and there's no category for people who gave up.

Where do you put those people if they withdraw, if they don't pursue their case, or if they take their case to small claims court because they're frustrated by the lack of resolution?

[Tom Oommen]

Complainants are free to pursue different means for resolution of their case. If they don't close it with us, then we continue to pursue the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach, and Mr. Oommen.

Next we have Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to everyone participating here today.

My first couple of questions come from of a CTV news report today. The Minister of Transport, Mr. Alghabra, had a presser at Ottawa airport. He said that he was referencing a bit of a summit they held last week. He said that talks included “standards for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and other government agencies.” The article goes on to say, “The wait time, as of Monday, to review air travel complaints made to the [CTA] can be more than 18 months.”

Does the CTA have a service standard for responding? We heard that the airlines have 30 days to provide information and that it's taking 18 months for the CTA to review complaints.

What is the service standard, and when can we expect it to be met?

[Michelle Greenshields]

As mentioned, we currently have communicated that it can take up to 18 months to have a case processed at the CTA. This is based on general average service times for different cases.

There are a variety of factors that contribute to how long a case takes to process. Some cases can be processed quite quickly in the early phases of facilitation where it's quite clear whether the airline has met its tariff or complied with the APPR, or if they have not. Other cases require a little bit further information to dig—

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't have a whole lot of time.

I understand there are different reasons for different lengths. Obviously, prior to having 30,000 backlog complaints, there would have been as service standard. Members of Parliament, for example, have information on service standards that they relay to their constituents, whether it concerns immigration or how long it takes to get a passport, etc. There is an ideal service standard.

Without getting into why some might take longer, what is that service standard when you don't have 30,000 backlog complaints? When APPR was first introduced, what was the service standard? Has it ever been met, and how do you plan to get back to it?

[Michelle Greenshields]

Our plan is to get back to the service standard. Our standards are really based on trying to go through a comprehensive review process of our complaint processes. We're examining elements such as our service processes and trying to find ways to streamline decisions to reduce the administrative burden and find those efficiencies. For example, we were able to streamline the intake of complaints and reduce failures of the applications from 50% of applications to 10% .

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

You do have a plan to get back to the service standard, but I'm still looking for what that number is. Is it 60 days or 90 days a year? What is the service standard that you're trying to get back to?

[Tom Oommen]

Chair, I would mention that our service standards are actually in our annual report and can be looked up. I don't have that off the top of my head.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay. I'll look for that there.

Some of the witnesses we heard from in the first panel mentioned that because there are CBSA, CATSA and Nav Canada issues that can come up in the air passenger experience, if the airlines had an issue with those or if those government or affiliated agencies had been the cause of the delay that forced the airline to pay out to the passengers, the airline could simply go back to those other parties and try to collect payment. They could go back and get a remedy from them.

Do the APPR allow for airlines to recover costs from government agencies that may have caused the delays that have resulted in them to having to pay out to passengers?

Mr. Hutton, that might go to you.

[Craig Hutton]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

With regard to the operational issues that may occur as a result of airport operations or instructions from traffic control, these kinds of issues are deemed to be outside a carrier's control, generally speaking. There isn't any provision to be able to recoup anything from those service providers who may have instigated a particular delay or instance of a problem where it resulted in a complaint from a passenger.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Okay.

As I said, that article mentioned government agencies other than the CTA that the minister was looking to have standards for.

Can you tell this committee which agencies the minister is referring to where he would like to increase the service standard or the transparency around their operations?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, Mr. Strahl, I'm going to have to ask the witness to provide that as a written-form submission as you are out of time for your line of questioning.

Thank you very much for that.

Next, we have Mr. Badawey.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank Mr. Strahl for his line of questioning because that was somewhat the line of questioning I was going to go down. With that said, I'm going to allow Ms. Greenshields to elaborate a bit more.

I heard from Mr. Oommen that the CTA, according to legislation.... I heard the words “administrative tribunal” and “adjudicate”. With that said, does the agency annually review or measure your performance?

Mr. Strahl did ask the question, but I want you to get a bit deeper into the weeds on this.

[Michelle Greenshields]

I'll speak to it generally.

The agency does review our performance through the annual report. We have a number of factors that we publish. A core set of data is shared and posted on our website. We also continue to monitor operational data on a regular basis to ensure we have an understanding of our workloads coming in and our processing.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I'm asking these questions deliberately because we really want to ensure that you guys have the mechanism and the tools to do what people expect you to do.

Whether it's rail, marine, air or road, we do receive, as MPs, a lot of complaints about the CTA, period. Let's try to fix that by ensuring that you folks have those tools to actually do your job.

Based on the findings of the review, I'm assuming that improvements are made internally. You were starting to get to that answer with Mr. Strahl. Or, do the improvements require legislative changes or amendments?

[Michelle Greenshields]

At this point we've made a number of improvements, as I mentioned before, related to our process. We have seen some positive outcomes as a result of the improvements we have made. Some of our improvements are related to processing efficiency where we found deficiencies in the intake of information. We also have some other processing improvements, such as the batching we mentioned, which allows us to be able to more effectively handle the complaint volumes.

We also have improvements in adjudication where we've come forward with shortened decisions. We've reduced the time to issue an adjudication decision from 144 days to 40 days in total, so we do have some progress.

We also have some usability efficiencies going forward. We are trying to be increasingly transparent on our case status updates. We have put information online to help passengers understand where they are in our process in terms of the backlog in total and also to understand our process and where they're at, to help them navigate.

We're also working at posting soon the number of complaints or the volume of complaints per 100 flights for each airline to provide further information on the performance of the air industry.

We've undertaken and we've kicked off a more detailed review of our processes. This is going to be looking at not only how to improve our processes, but also the opportunities that elements like automation could provide us—particularly in the early parts of our process—so that we could, for example, automate some of the review of complaints to be able to find further efficiencies and allocate our resources towards the more complex part of our processes.

Because the volumes have increased so substantially, we need to really move to an operational organization. One that used to resolve 1,000 complaints is now resolving 30,000 complaints, so we do require a reset to do that.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Greenshields.

I only have a certain amount of time here, so I'm going to jump into the next question.

How recently has the CTA recommended legislative changes to enhance your performance?

[Tom Oommen]

Chair, every year the agency in its annual report is required to provide an assessment of the act. In our last annual report, you'll see recommended changes to the act.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

I'm going to switch over to Mr. Hutton now.

Mr. Hutton, I have a question to you with respect to the CTA mandate. Who ensures that the CTA mandate is adhered to over and above establishing or updating legislation versus forcing individuals to have to pursue complaints through the courts?

[Craig Hutton]

In terms of the mandate, Mr. Chair, that's a reporting accountability both to the minister and to Parliament.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

If there are changes that have to be made, what prompts those changes?

[Craig Hutton]

A number of factors can prompt changes. They include discussions with stakeholders, as was referenced earlier. A summit that the minister hosted last week with industry partners, including consumer groups, is one way of looking at how improvements can be made, which also include tools that the agency may or may not have to improve the efficiency of the overall national transportation system. In addition, as was mentioned, we collaborate closely with the agency on operational needs they may have, including where there may be opportunities for some improvement in terms of legislation and authorities that the agency could use to enhance their effectiveness.

As well, as in the past, there's been a statutory review of the Transportation Act, and out of that review often come recommendations pertaining to the role and mandate of the agency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey.

Thank you, Mr. Hutton.

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