Transport Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank my colleague for his service on the committee. He's a returning member. He's a veteran of this committee, and I've always appreciated his input and his feedback.

As you all know, the transportation sector, or I should say, the aviation sector in particular has been one of the hardest-hit sectors in Canada's economy. Because of COVID-19, there have been public health restrictions. There has been reluctance to travel on the part of the public and there have been a lot of reductions in volume that have severely impacted the financial viability of airports, airlines and those who work in those sectors.

Our government has been there from day one. As I said in my opening remarks, we have made a total of $11 billion available to the aviation sector. That consisted of a variety of programs. Some of them were investments in our airports for their infrastructure or for their biosecurity infrastructure. Some of the programs came in rent relief or wage subsidy. We've also offered relief and support to airlines. We've offered support to travellers who needed refunds because of cancelled flights or their own cancellations as they were responding to public health advice. We are talking about a total of $11 billion.

Now, obviously, the air sector continues to feel the impact of the omicron wave, and I shouldn't forget that we have created a working group with the airline sector, including airports, airline operators and unions, to talk about how we can together safely restart aviation and travel. I was really delighted to be part of the announcement we made on Tuesday that brought terrific news for those who work in the sector, for those who work in tourism and for those who want to travel.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Minister. I was delighted too, because the tourism sector and the travelling public have had many challenges.

Later this session, the committee is planning to study labour shortages in the transportation sector. What have you heard about this particular issue, in consultation with industry people, labour groups and some of your officials?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Indeed we are facing an acute labour shortage across our economy, and it is particularly pronounced in the transportation sector. This topic was brought up at the national supply chain summit two and a half weeks ago. As well, it has been brought up at every discussion I've had with industry leaders, with union representatives, with business operators and with my colleagues, other members of Parliament.

Thus, I welcome the input of this committee as to what policies the federal government can introduce to help alleviate labour shortages. There's work ongoing by my colleagues at Transport Canada to figure out what else we can do in order to do so. We already have some policies. If I may, I'll run through them very quickly.

There's immigration, making sure that we attract the rights types of skills and the right number of immigrants. There's day care, making sure women are able to participate in higher percentages in the labour force. There's a tax credit for seniors who are thinking about retirement, to maybe incentivize them to stay in the workforce.

That does not mean we couldn't look at other measures, and I look forward to the committee's input.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I know I went over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Minister.

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

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, you've been asked about this before, but not too long ago, our committee asked for the correspondence between Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency on the issue of cancelled trips. In the correspondence we received, some names had been crossed out. Now, among those names was the name of the chief of staff of the Minister of Transport at the time.

Do you find this normal?

Why would the name of the chief of staff of the Minister of Transport be crossed out?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Committee members know that ministers, indeed politicians, don't get involved in where the redactions occur. Redactions are done based on decisions made by our public service to protect privacy or sensitive information. I can assure you that there was no political interference in deciding what was redacted and what wasn't. Those decisions were made independently.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

I understand what you are saying, but you will understand that I am very skeptical. The fact that this was a deputy minister or a chief of staff is not one of the reasons that could justify removing a name from a document. I don't understand why someone made the decision to remove the name of a chief of staff, who is an official, and not someone from the private sector.

In addition, this was a very sensitive meeting. It was held just before the message on travel credits was issued by the Transportation Agency. The companies based their decision not to refund consumers on this message. The minister's chief of staff was present at this meeting, but his name was withheld from the emails. I, for one, am uncomfortable with this.

Doesn't the fact that the minister's chief of staff was present at this meeting make you uncomfortable?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

As I explained in a previous answer, meetings with federal Crown agencies, independent bodies, happen all the time between government officials, or even politicians and ministers, to make sure public policy is understood and upheld by those agencies. They ultimately make decisions on their own.

Let me take a moment to say that our government was there for passengers who were seeking refunds. Our government offered refunds to all Canadian travellers who were impacted by COVID-19 so that they were able to get those refunds. Now we're working—

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Minister. Unfortunately, the time is up for that round.

The next two and a half minutes go to you, Mr. Bachrach. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, Greyhound provided an interconnected national bus service that connected Canadians from coast to coast, across provinces. You've expressed in the past that bus transport is solely a provincial jurisdiction.

Do you feel the provinces can be counted on to recreate a national passenger bus transportation system that is interconnected and allows Canadians across the country to get to where they need to go?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I know my colleague has been advocating for this issue for a while. Let me start out by saying that I empathize with him, with his constituents and with Canadians across the country who are feeling the impact of the lack of an intercity bus service. That is why I've written to my provincial colleagues to ensure that we work together. I've offered the federal government's presence and support to have a national discussion about what can be done about intercity buses.

I'm glad, and I hope my colleague agrees with me, that it is under provincial jurisdiction. I understand the desire to see a role for the federal government. My commitment is to acknowledge that there's a need for this service, first of all. Many community members feel its absence. I want to respect the jurisdiction of provinces while at the same time offering support.

Next week, we'll have a conversation at the federal-provincial council of ministers' meeting. I'm looking forward to a discussion with my counterparts on this and many other issues.

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

Minister, people across this country are calling on you to articulate a vision for passenger bus transportation that replaces the service that Greyhound provided for decades. This is a service that needs to connect people across provinces, not just within provinces.

The risk here is that we end up with a fragmented system where people aren't able to get across the country by bus, because there are simply too many different operators and there isn't the consistency that was once offered.

What leadership role is the minister willing to play to ensure that there's a national conversation about connecting Canadians by passenger bus? What leadership is he willing to offer?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, first let's talk about leadership by ensuring that members of Parliament help Canadians and work with Canadians on how the various jurisdictions work and how the various levels of governments can work together.

My responsibility is to uphold federal government responsibility, and when it comes to leadership on this issue, as I just stated gladly, I wrote last year to my provincial counterparts on this issue to rally provincial ministers to work with the federal government to come up with a solution can work together on. I'm looking forward to input from the provincial governments on what they feel they need to work together on to address this issue.

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

Is the minister's vision an interconnected national system that replaces what Canadians enjoyed under Greyhound? Is that the vision you would bring to that table and communicate to the provinces?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Our federal government is highly committed to public transportation. That's why we've committed $15 billion, the largest amount in history, to work in partnership with the provinces on supporting public transit and public transportation. Yes, we have a vision, and we've offered significant investment to provinces to address these issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach and Minister Alghabra.

Once again, on behalf of the entire committee, I want to thank you for your time before committee today. I know that you have a hard stop right now, so thank you once again.

Instead of suspending, members, if you're okay, we'll just segue directly into the questioning of the departmental officials.

Minister, you can now log off, if you wish.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, let me say thank you to you and my colleagues for their questions and this important exchange of ideas. I will also say how grateful I am that officials will stay. I'm sure they'll give you much better answers than I could.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Okay, colleagues, we're going to go into the questioning of our witnesses.

Let's jump into it. I want to make sure that you all have the time to ask the questions you would like to ask of department officials. In this round, we will start off with Mr. Muys.

You have five minutes. The floor is yours.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Are we out of order? I can defer to my colleague Ms. Gladu. I think she was supposed to be next in the room. Let me toss it back to her.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the department officials. I'll ask you the question I really wanted to ask the minister.

I have been speaking to the minister about the charter rights of Canadians, because they have the right to freely enter and leave Canada, and all of the travel mandates are violating those rights. He indicated to me that they had the right to do that temporarily because of the pandemic, but on January 21 of this year, the World Health Organization issued new recommendations to end existing COVID-19-related travel mandates, saying that they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to the economic and social stress experienced by citizens.

With that in mind, I wondered if the department officials can indicate when these mandates will be lifted and the violation of the charter rights of Canadians will cease.

[Arun Thangaraj, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Transport]

As the minister said, as we look at the border measures and the posture there, we are mindful of and informed by the public health situation and the data that is required. We conduct our own analysis, and we're informed by the data importation and the public health situation domestically and internationally.

All of those measures are rigorously reviewed from a legal and public health standpoint before they are either made or determined to continue. They are regularly reviewed and, again, yesterday they were adapted and the minister announced those adjustments. All of those adjustments are informed by public health considerations.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, and public health officials are calling for these restrictions to be lifted. As you know, 90% of Canadians are vaccinated, but they can still get and transmit COVID. I have had all my jabs and I've had COVID. I know that the Prime Minister is in the same situation. When you have 90% of people who can get it and transmit it freely moving back and forth across the border, it doesn't really make any sense for 10% to be restricted. I hope to see those lifted as soon as possible.

Now, let's move to a discussion about rail safety. We had testimony from those who are involved in the investigations of the incidents and accidents related to rail safety. Some 21 incidents and accidents have happened in the last two years that still don't have a report of what went wrong and what kinds of corrective actions should be taken. I wonder if the department is looking at the resourcing that's applied to those, to make sure that we have an adequate resource.

[Arun Thangaraj]

Rail safety is a key priority for us. I think that every year we conduct about 35,000 oversight activities, and we have increased the number of staff we have by about 42%.

I will pass it over to Aaron to provide a bit more context on some of those activities, the measures we have to ensure we have safety and some of the funding commitments that have recently been made to bolster rail safety, as well as an update on some of the investigations.

[Aaron McCrorie, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

I should point out, if I understood the question properly, that it's actually the Transportation Safety Board that does the investigations into accidents. We certainly follow up and do our own analysis of the accident. An example would be that when we find something wrong with how a train is being managed, we'll take immediate action in advance of the findings of the Transportation Safety Board.

An example is that when we saw a train unattended in Lanigan, we took immediate action to issue an order to require CP Rail to properly secure those trains and to develop processes and procedures to secure them. We issued an administrative monetary penalty, because it had failed to properly follow the rules.

As Arun suggested—