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.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Next we have Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, sir.
January 26th, 2023 / 2:20 p.m.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Thank you, Chair.
First of all, welcome to all of our witnesses today. There have been very interesting suggestions and testimony for sure. I can understand some of the perspectives.
Flying back and forth between Newfoundland and Labrador and Ottawa is not an easy task, as you're never guaranteed to arrive as scheduled. You often encounter storms between Halifax and Ottawa, and there is no direct flight. Many of my fellow Newfoundlanders were stranded in Toronto at Pearson, having flown from western Canada with WestJet. Those from the south and warmer temperatures who were heading home for Christmas were stranded. In fact, I was getting emails from a couple hundred people who were trying to get back home for Christmas, who were told on December 21, 22 and 23 that there would be no flights going into Newfoundland until Boxing Day. We spent a lot of time dealing with these issues. Eventually most of them found a way through other airlines, Air Canada and others.
One astounding thing that happened during that period was that WestJet flew into St. John's. A good friend of mine sent me pictures of how he got on that flight to St. John's, travelling back to my riding, and he counted 64 empty seats. There were 200-plus Newfoundlanders stranded at the Toronto airport, yet the flight flew out of Toronto to St. John's. I was astounded at how these kinds of things happened. To me, there was certainly a flagrant disregard for passengers. Many of them also talked about their air passenger bill of rights and they weren't very well versed in terms of what their rights were.
The question I have is about how we can better educate and inform Canadian air travellers about their rights. They know they're there, but how do we help them?
2:25 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Association
It's a very good question.
If I could go back to your anecdote, I would point out that it highlights another issue with the regulator and with the system as it is set up, which is that you have to be a passenger on a plane to make a complaint. I can't imagine that any of the people who were lucky enough to have the actual seats would be complaining. It would be the empty seats complaining—wouldn't it?
There should be a way for the CTA to initiate investigations about matters when they are brought to their attention, whether or not somebody's actually on the plane. Yours is the perfect illustration of a case where the problem wasn't that. It was the people who didn't get into those seats.
In terms of public education, we try to do our part. I know these other groups do as well. We do media and we put things on our websites. The government does some work in this area. I think, though, we shouldn't put the cart before the horse. The system right now is very complicated. We've all made that point. It all needs to be simplified. We could get every single passenger in this country to go to the CTA website and start reading what's there. It's 60-odd pages, I believe. Their shortened version of these rules, in what they call plain English or French, is dozens and dozens of pages long, so good luck to you.
I think we need to start with the things we've been talking about around this table, so that we get to a point where you could understand that simply.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Some others may want to comment on this, but before you do.... If airlines, as some people suggest, start having to pay more fines and penalties, is it, as the assumptions some people make...? Is there any way to avoid these costs simply being passed on to consumers?
Mr. Lawford, I don't know if you want to comment on that or a previous question.
2:25 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Sure. You're raising the costs, and they may well be passed on.
Now we're on to the discussion of competition in this country, the airlines, the many efforts to try to bring new airlines online and all the challenges they face. Yes, I think it would increase prices and they would be passed down. On the other hand, maybe I would get where I'm going and maybe I would get compensation if I didn't get there, which is not a bad thing. That's putting the public interest ahead of corporate interest.
As long as they're not going out of business, I think it's a good thing.
2:25 p.m.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, Canadian Automobile Association
If I can just say, the point of higher AMPs is not to raise money for the government. It's to incent the airlines to do a better job in the first place. We shouldn't assume that there would be tens and hundreds of millions of fines against the carriers and that the cost would, in the end, if the system was working properly, be all that high. It would, as Mr. Lukács said, be for very egregious situations, which we can all hope would be quite rare.
2:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Jack.
Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers. That concludes the time, sir.
Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have two and a half minutes.
2:30 p.m.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
So far, we've talked a lot about the airlines. Of course, I am very interested in this issue, particularly with respect to passenger rights. However, Mr. Hayman is also with us, and I'd like to perhaps ask him a question or two.
So far, this morning and this afternoon, and maybe even a bit before that, we heard that there may be some interest in introducing rail passenger rights. We have regulations in place that give rights to passengers who travel by air, although they haven't been as successful as we'd like.
Mr. Hayman, first, I must confess that I'm very supportive of the idea of regulations protecting passengers. However, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject. Given what you're hearing about the situation in the airline industry, do you have any concerns about what a complete mess it is, how difficult it is to enforce regulations and how very often consumers ultimately get shortchanged?
Are you a little concerned about the same situation happening for rail transportation?
2:30 p.m.
President, Transport Action Atlantic
That's definitely a potential concern. I hope that if there is a movement to adopt passenger protection in regulations for rail passengers as well, similar to what's there for air passengers, the government would look first at the experience with the air passenger regulations and where those have succeeded, but also—as it has been quite clear today—where those have failed and where there are shortcomings and try to incorporate those kinds of considerations right from the outset. That's where, again, I say there are other models to look at. Look to the EU and see some other examples of how things could be structured.
I recognize that it is.... In a lot of ways, it could be a slightly different situation because you're dealing with a different kind of playing field. The airlines, obviously, operate in a different kind of environment and structure. On the passenger front, we're predominantly talking about a single Crown corporation, although there are other passenger operators in some parts of the country, and there would be benefit to having that in place.
You would need to think pretty carefully about how that applies, given the unique situation that's set up. I would also suggest—
2:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Hayman.
Unfortunately, Mr. Barsalou-Duval, your time is up.
Mr. Boulerice, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
2:30 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Lukács and Mr. Lawford.
In theory, in a capitalist system, the customer is king. However, if you look at the situation for airline passengers at airports, you get the impression that customers become livestock to be exploited and to help bring in the most profit.
In your view, how did we get to the point where it's more beneficial and profitable for an airline to eventually pay compensation than to provide the service consumers are entitled to and have paid for? It's truly pretty absurd.
2:30 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
The problem in Canada is that we don't have adequate competition when it comes to the airline industry. That relates to barriers to entry to market as well as limitations on foreign ownership when it comes to air travel services within Canada. What we are seeing is more a race to the bottom, as you have observed, than a meaningful competition in providing better service to passengers.
In order to have the trend change, one would need far more competition. Even then the negotiating power of a single passenger is very limited compared with airlines. That is why one needs to have some state regulatory intervention, in a wise way, to ensure it becomes more profitable for an airline to provide standards of treatment to passengers rather than disobey the law.
The role of good regulation is to set a level playing field for all competitors that they all have to meet as a bare minimum.
2:30 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Lawford, would you like to comment?
2:30 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
I would just say that the data Mr. Jack mentioned will also give us and consumers purchasing power that doesn't exist right now.
2:35 p.m.
NDP
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Hayman, do you feel that we should also have regulations to protect the rights of rail passengers, since we more or less have regulations for air passengers?
2:35 p.m.
President, Transport Action Atlantic
Yes, I definitely think there is a way it could be done. I think that there's also an incentive for that, partly to ensure that there's actually something that is enshrined there that has some more permanence to it or some greater legal underpinning, partly primarily because when we look at Via's policies, for example, there have been different standards over the years for how passenger compensation, alternative transportation, refunds and travel credits, and those sorts of things, are given.
That has changed over time with different management and different policies and whatnot. Having something that's actually a little more clearly laid out for the passenger to be able to understand would make a lot of sense, especially as we start looking at some of these rather concerning developments around the high frequency rail proposals and moving towards potentially contracting operations to a private operator. I think there would be even more of an incentive there to ensure those standards are enshrined in law.
2:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Hayman.
Thank you, Mr. Boulerice.
Next we have Mr. Strahl.
Mr. Strahl, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for you, Mr. Lawford. You mentioned this, and I think part of what we need in terms of data visibility would be the CTA as well. What is their service standard? Also, quite frankly, what is their plan to clear up their backlog of 33,000 cases?
You spoke of an option in your introductory remarks to create—I forget the words you used but—tranches or to group together cases that have similar circumstances and treat them as perhaps a single case or consider them together. Does the CTA have the power to do that on their own or would the minister or the cabinet have to give that specific direction?
2:35 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
No. I think that's well within the rules of the CTA. They have done it before. At the start of COVID, they had eight large questions they had to settle about the way they were going to handle COVID questions. There were some 3,000 complaints and they handled all of them, at least with regard to those issues, altogether.
The system I'm suggesting is done in telecom all the time. You pick one case that seems representative of many, and you say, here's how we adjudicated it, and then to anybody else, show cause that your case is different, in the expectation that the industry would then settle them all because the answer, except in very special situations, would be exactly the same. I think that's well within their rules.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Right. Certainly, we would welcome their taking that sort of action to get back on top of their caseload right now. It's unreasonable to have someone wait for days for a flight and then wait for months to have their issues resolved.
I think Mr. Rogers raised a valid concern, that we're here talking about air passenger rights. I think if there is a dramatic increase in costs...and we know that Canada does have a high-cost environment for air travel in terms of fees, the barriers to entry that Mr. Lukács mentioned and so on. Our fees and regulations are perhaps a deterrent for new entrants.
Leaving aside cost, is there a risk that airlines will abandon certain routes or certain destinations if they are troublesome in terms of having crew availability, or they're prone to sudden weather changes, etc.? I guess the worst thing we could do is eliminate an option for a passenger by unintentionally causing the airlines to abandon certain locations. Do you see that as a risk? Is there anything we could recommend to government that would prevent that perhaps unintended consequence of changing the APPR to benefit passengers?
2:35 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Who's answering that?
2:35 p.m.
Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Okay. I'll be very brief.
I would say that you might want to consider an obligation to serve on certain routes, especially rural routes. I don't believe that's necessarily imposed by the minister or the CTA at the moment. I think that would help.
I'll pass it over to Gábor.
2:40 p.m.
President, Air Passenger Rights
In terms of the cost aspect, insufficient competition also means that the ability of airlines to pass on costs is somewhat limited when you look at oligopolistic pricing. In terms of deterring airlines from certain routes, you know, operating an airline is not a charity. At the same time, they provide a service, and that service has to be reliable.
We also have to weigh the concerns of how much damage there is and how much it actually costs the economy when passengers don't get to their destinations on time and they get stranded. How much lost productivity does that mean? We should think in terms of how we can help the airlines become more reliable and what kinds of infrastructure grants and development funding can be provided to airlines to become efficient, rather than worry about them abandoning routes.
