Transport Committee on Jan. 12th, 2023

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

You stated it was 48 hours. When did it start?

[Deborah Flint]

It started the evening of the 24th.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

And your first call was on the 29th.

[Deborah Flint]

I did speak to the deputy minister on the 29th.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Okay.

[Deborah Flint]

We stood up our emergency operations centres, which includes all of the various leaders of the agencies and our partners, so there was real-time operational communication, of course.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Would you consider any of the equipment that was involved to be obsolete? We heard from other airports about their obsolete equipment and infrastructure.

[Deborah Flint]

I've talked about the airline and the sensitivity with regard to people loading baggage correctly. In 2023 I want to have an airport that has the most modern infrastructure and that does not require people to do perfect loading in order for the system to be resilient. This is my call, if you will, for modernization and investment in the infrastructure of the airports. We have some very modern—

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Do machines load better than people?

[Deborah Flint]

It always involves both. There are the mechanics of a moving conveyance, the machine, but you need the people to manage the system. That includes technologists as well as people who are handling the bags themselves. I believe we can develop one of the most modern systems—reliable, resilient to weather, resilient to many conditions—here in Canada. We are intent on doing that here at Pearson.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Is this something that you've already spoken about with Mr. Alghabra or his team?

[Deborah Flint]

Both at the air sector summit and in additional conversations, we have spoken about our plan for infrastructure. We are having concerted briefings over the next several weeks on our new strategic plan, which is one about building infrastructure and new resiliency and the airport of the future here at Pearson.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Do you have the budget for it right now?

[Deborah Flint]

Well, our call for investing rent, where we have paid over $3 billion in rent over the course of the lifespan of GTAA.... Out of the $6 billion that Canadian airports have paid in rent to the government, being able to take some of that rent, if not all, and reinvest it into important, resilient or sustainable infrastructure at airports, would help the system. Certainly, we are going to invest, regardless, in the future of Pearson, but the entire ecosystem gets better when the policies and the actions support the infrastructure of a very sensitive and complicated air sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Dr. Lewis and Ms. Flint.

Ms. Diab, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I come from the Halifax West riding in Nova Scotia. We have a great airport with a great team on the ground there doing fabulous things. I just want to thank you on behalf of Canadians. I want to thank you personally for being here as witnesses but also thank all your staff who work at all of our airports across the country and also the staff with the airlines. As you mentioned, it takes a village, really, to get this going.

The more and more I talk to people.... In fact, I was telling somebody last night that I was flying up to Ottawa for a transportation committee trying to understand what's happened over the last couple of months here in Canada and so on. They said to me, “Yes. You're an MP. That must affect you more, because you fly a lot.”

As my colleague across the way just said, I think many of us now who are flying, whether for work or pleasure, are scared, quite frankly, and nervous about flying because of weather or mechanical issues or other things. But I will say this: We've been very lucky. Thank you for all your service. We've had no deaths that I'm aware of, and really no physical injuries. Of course, there are people who have been traumatized, but I just want to say thank you to everybody in the ecosystem who is really there to ensure that Canadians are kept safe, because that is the most important thing.

I do have a question.

I'll start with the Aéroports de Montréal representatives.

Even though we have an international airport in Halifax, a lot of our connections come from either Montreal or Toronto.

You've talked about lessons from the experiences that we've been living the last few months.

Could you tell us what you have done to improve the passenger experience?

[Philippe Rainville]

Investments have been made to improve fluidity. We have a new version of ArriveCAN that allows people to make their declaration before they leave or to fill it in the plane. Also, on the American side, it is possible to do the declaration in advance. So there have been some technology-assisted improvements.

One of the things we learned was how to improve the way we issue permits to people who need to go airside. We had to speed up the issuance of permits, which is done in conjunction with Transport Canada.

On our end, we had to devote more resources to helping people get their permits and deal with Transport Canada. The processing has also been accelerated. When you absolutely have to get people into the system quickly, it's not easy because of the permits you have to have to go to the air side. This has been greatly improved.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

All right. Thank you, Mr. Rainville.

Are your relationships with Transport Canada and the airlines good, or not? Can you tell us about that?

[Philippe Rainville]

The situation was difficult last summer, there's no denying it. Rather than pointing fingers or looking for blame, we immediately started working together. Everyone must understand that, in the end, it is the passenger who pays the price. We had to start working together immediately.

No quarter is given or taken. We are tough on each other, because everyone has to take responsibility. This has allowed us to build a closer bond since the events of last summer.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Rainville.

For Toronto we've heard about staffing today being different, and the resiliency in the complements. What is it like at your airport in terms of staffing? How would you classify that since the pandemic?

[Deborah Flint]

Is that for Pearson?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Yes.

[Deborah Flint]

Okay. Thank you.

At GTAA, which manages the airport, we are 1,500 employees out of the typical 50,000 employees across the airport ecosystem. We have the majority of our staff back. We did an accelerated staffing hire over the summer once we were in a condition where we were not losing money and borrowing money, as we had over the last several years during COVID. Similarly, we restarted our reinvestments in maintenance and asset infrastructure.

Staffing is different today across the ecosystem. There is more attrition and there are more new employees. That is affecting the system. I do believe we need to plan to be more resilient as a result of that. One of our strategic pillars is to create—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Ms. Flint. Unfortunately, I have to cut you off there. We're out of time.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My first question will be fairly brief and it will be the same for each of the airport representatives. Since December 23, have you had the opportunity to speak directly to the Minister of Transport? You can simply answer yes or no.