Evidence of meeting #49 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was passengers.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis.
Thank you, Mr. Hayman.
Next, we go to Mr. Iacono.
You have the floor for five minutes.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
My first question is for John Lawford.
The Minister of Transport has said that he intends to update the Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), simplify the process, and shift the burden of proof from consumers to the airlines.
Do you have any specific recommendations as to how he could introduce these new measures?
1:55 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I brought up a few immediate changes that are a little technical to eliminate some of the hassle for passengers. To a larger extent, I feel we need a new bill to amend the Canada Transportation Act, because there are loopholes.
We need to introduce a more effective system, like the existing regime in the European Union. To do that, I believe we need a new bill.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
In the meantime, you can send your comments to the clerk on what types of changes you would like to make.
My next question is for Mr. Jack or Mr. Kerr.
Under the current regulations, we've heard a lot of testimony that financial incentives work in the airlines' favour when they let cases go to the Canadian Transportation Agency rather than refunding or compensating passengers who feel their rights have been violated.
Do you agree with that statement?
If so, what might be effective ways to change these incentives?
1:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Association
We certainly think the incentives today are skewed.
We talked in our opening remarks—and I think some of our colleagues here have talked as well—about needing potentially higher AMPs, fines if you will, so that the carriers are aware of that and they prioritize more highly taking care of their customers—let's put it that way—and processing complaints within their systems. Some of this is within the business operations of these companies, and they need to do a cost-benefit analysis. I think, right now, doing a cost-benefit analysis would suggest to them that they wouldn't have to invest as much in this as we would all like to see so that we end up with a system....
Ultimately what we all want here is a system where there would be no be complaints to the CTA because every carrier would feel incented to take care of their passengers properly before they have to complain to a government body. That's clearly not where we're at right now when we look at that backlog.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
My question is for the two witnesses before me.
What means other than monetary penalties would lead to greater accountability?
2 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
I'm happy to answer your question.
Our view is that it is not a single-solution problem. One needs to have pillars that, together, result in the solution to the problem.
On the one hand, we need to have much simpler eligibility criteria so there will not be a backlog, so that it will take just a few minutes or less than half an hour to determine, in any case, whether compensation is owed.
For those outliers, on which the airline is not conforming to the law, there should be sufficiently strong penalties that create a disincentive for disobeying the law and that make it cheaper for the airline to comply with the law than to actually engage in a fight and disobey the law and flout the law.
One or the other may result in some improvement, but only by doing both at the same time will the problem be solved.
2 p.m.
Liberal
2 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I think we are in agreement on those comments.
I would add just one comment with respect to telecommunications complaints. If you can't resolve complaints with the providers, you have the option of referring them to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS), and it will treat them like their own complaints and refer them to the providers. With that system, if there's no response within 30 days, consumers are given everything they asked for in the complaint they filed.
We could use the same method, but we don't have that regime in place for air travel.
2 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Iacono.
Thank you very much, Mr. Lawford.
Next, we go to Mr. Barsalou-Duval.
You have the floor for two and a half minutes.
2 p.m.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I was excited and smiling from ear to ear when I learned that the Minister of Transportation planned to review passenger rights. It's good news. I hope it will produce results.
However, if I remember correctly, the last time anything was reviewed in terms of passenger rights was during the pandemic. At that time, people said that we should never find ourselves in a situation like that again, where passengers don't get refunds for their tickets when flights are cancelled. It took a long time to meet that commitment. It was a very awkward situation. In the end, the government refunded travellers, not the airlines. Later, to fill in the gaps, the government said it would now be mandatory to offer passengers an alternative flight within 48 hours, otherwise passengers can demand a refund when a flight is cancelled.
Do you find that a 48‑hour period before you can get a refund or getting a flight 47 or 46 hours, or 36 hours later, is a reasonable timeframe?
Mr. Lawford, you can answer my question.
2 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
No, it's not reasonable.
If I may, I will ask Mr. Lukács to answer this question, because he has much more experience in this area.
2 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
Thank you.
In terms of the refund issue, the current APPR is actually a step backwards compared to what has been declared by consumer protection law for the past 20 years, and it is also inconsistent with provincial consumer protection laws. There's a very obvious no-brainer standard that, if a flight is cancelled for any reason, the bare minimum a passenger can do is seek a refund, even if the airline offers them an alternate flight in three or six or nine hours. It doesn't matter. They had a booking for a given flight. That flight is no longer operating and, therefore, the passenger has to get their money back.
2 p.m.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
I'd like to give the CAA representative the opportunity to answer my last question as well. However, I'd also like to have time to ask another question, so I'll ask it at the same time.
I learned that the large carrier category and the small carrier category are currently subject to different penalties and regulations. I was really surprised to learn that carriers like Air Transat, Sunwing and Flair Airlines are not subject to the large carrier rules.
Do you think that makes sense? If not, what would you recommend in terms of legislative changes to have things make sense?
2 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Association
No, that's not normal and it needs to change. I won't get into the long story, but it's sort of a COVID effect. The way the government set this up was about how many passengers you had flown over the last couple of years. They then took an average and determined who was big and who was little. That doesn't work in a world where nobody flew any airline for pretty much two years, so we need a new way of determining that. We would agree with you that carriers such as Sunwing and Transat should absolutely be included with the others.
The small category was originally intended just for truly small carriers. Let's take Air Creebec for example. It would be unreasonable to put the same burden on them as on a multi-million or multi-billion dollar corporation.
As for the other question, I think Jason can help with that.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Unfortunately, we don't have time to expand on that. Perhaps we can in the next round.
Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.
Next, we go to Mr. Boulerice.
You have the floor for two and a half minutes.
2:05 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Lukács.
We witnessed some truly absurd situations during the holiday season, with airlines unable to operate their flights because they were short-staffed. It had nothing to do with weather conditions like a snowstorm or freezing rain. They didn't have enough pilots or flight attendants to provide service.
Do you think that it makes sense for airlines to sell airline tickets when they don't have enough staff to be able to provide flights?
2:05 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
Thank you for the question.
In my view, it is absolutely abnormal for any merchant, any service provider, to offer services or goods that they don't have the resources to deliver.
This is a matter that should also be looked under the Competition Act, rather than simply in terms of air passenger rights. It is obvious that this type of cancellation and some delays caused by crew shortages are within the carrier's full control, and they have to compensate passengers accordingly.
2:05 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
As you said earlier, compensation should be paid automatically. It's not the consumer's responsibility to do all the paperwork, which is a bit cumbersome. That should be the airlines' responsibility.
We had disruptions during the holiday season. We had disruptions at airports last summer. Spring break is coming up. What can the federal government do right now to keep these horror stories from happening at airports in the coming weeks?
2:05 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
I support the recommendation of Mr. Lawford about the short-term solution. The minister has some powers under subsection 86.11(2) to direct the agency to make regulations.
The cabinet, under section 40 of the Canada Transportation Act, also can promptly amend the air passenger protection regulations to at least fix some of the definitions, to fix the small carrier versus large carrier problem and lower the threshold maybe to 100,000 or 50,000 passengers per year between small and large carriers, and to deal with the baggage issues. These would be only stopgap measures. Ultimately, it should be Parliament that is fixing the problem. These are just short-term measures to solve the problems.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Boulerice.
Mr. Muys, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I welcome back to the committee a couple of the witnesses who were here on November 21.
As you articulated, Mr. Lawford, “December happened”, so obviously we're back. We've had a few meetings now on this topic, given what happened in December. We heard this morning from Via Rail, of course, on the fact that they did not hear from the minister until the 11th of January. We heard that he had not contacted airports, and we heard that the airlines were slow in hearing as well.
You've talked about some really urgent things. I'm glad that you articulated them in your testimony and that you've offered to provide more written comments. You talked about ministerial direction. You talked about cabinet powers and, of course, eventually, parliamentary changes to the CTA.
You've also raised the fact that March is coming. Here we are at the end of January. There's really a sense of urgency here to act on this. I noted with some interest that yesterday the minister said, “Mark my words”, and that there are changes coming this spring. Well, “this spring” is after March.
What is the reaction to that, and how can we expedite this?
2:05 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Forgive me if I don't know what power this committee has to make the minister move. I'm presuming that you can rush out a report as quickly as possible. That would be appreciated and, ideally, yes, the technical recommendations I'm making—and they're not that technical—would be something that could get under his nose.
We're trying to get people a right to compensation for delayed baggage, not just lost baggage. We're trying to get people home when there are weather incidents, whether they're on a sun carrier or Air Canada, because there's really no difference. If that's painful to those carriers temporarily, I think that, given the emergency situation and the performance in December, it's very reasonable. That's what I would be looking for.
Again, I'm happy to provide you with the other ones, but in the longer term you're right. The act, at the least, has to make clear that the burden is always on the airlines and, ideally, the way I'm recommending it, also take these categories out of the system, but that's a longer lift.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Muys Conservative Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON
In your view, some of these changes could happen quickly, given that March is coming.
2:10 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Absolutely, yes. As long as you can get cabinet and the minister on the same page.