Transport Committee on April 20th, 2023

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

I have one more question, Mr. Minister.

With the increase in the carbon tax, the increase in the surcharge for security and the increase in airport improvement fees, has your government done any analysis on the impact that these increased fees—vis-à-vis United States' airports—have had on leakage to the United States? What impact will these increasing fees imposed by your government have on driving passengers to the United States to take flights because of the cost structure in Canada?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, we're constantly assessing the competitiveness and the health of our aviation sector. It is important to me and to our government, and to Transport Canada, that we maintain competitive, healthy and safe transportation, including in the aviation sector.

My colleague is conflating different things at the same time. He knows that airport authorities have the authority to set their own fees. In fact, I can quote a former minister. Chuck Strahl, as a former minister of transport, had many quotes about the independence of airports and their authority to set fees.

If he needs any briefings, I'd be happy to either provide him with those briefings or direct him to someone he knows very well who can provide him with those briefings.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Finally, for her first round today, we have Ms. Koutrakis.

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

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing before our committee again this year. It's always an honour to have you before us to answer these important questions.

I'd like to go back to one of the questions that my colleague Mr. Strahl asked earlier, and it's with regard to the large number of complaints at the CTA. During the pandemic, the airlines were predicting that it would take five years to get back to pre-COVID levels. The traffic volumes bounced back much more quickly.

Unsurprisingly, this produced a lot of problems with air travel systems and generated, as my colleague said, a large number of complaints to the CTA. I would argue that's actually a sign of a successful rebound, and I'm wondering if you would agree with that statement.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Koutrakis, for the question, for the work you do as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and for your participation in this committee.

Let me just say that, indeed, a lot of the briefings I was given during the pandemic predicted the air sector would not recover for five to six years. The good news, I guess, is that we're seeing recovery happen at a much faster rate. However, it is true that this fast recovery has created many challenges, combined with labour shortages and people's desire to travel. We saw, in fact, a 300% increase in the last year alone. In 2023, we're close to reaching 2019 levels. Indeed, that is promising for the sector and for Canadians.

Having said that, yes, it has generated many frustrating challenges and problems. Our government has been working with airlines, airports and other stakeholders to address these bottlenecks, including strengthening the bill of rights that will ensure passengers' rights are protected. We're working on improving information sharing and accountability in the sector. We are learning from the lessons we saw, including finding ways to improve resources and efficiency within the Canadian Transportation Agency in dealing with complaints.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

I also want to address some comments in the question from my honourable colleague Mr. Muys.

He was commenting earlier about delays. Delays are more complicated than just looking at local weather in Toronto that day. For instance, tornados and extreme weather in the U.S. Midwest can and do affect operation schedules in Toronto. Would you agree with that?

We recently went through an ice storm. I was affected. I didn't have electricity for one week. I can't imagine that did not affect the schedules of flights.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Ms. Koutrakis, absolutely. I know that sometimes passengers are standing in an airport with what appears to be a clear sky, yet so many flights are being delayed. People are frustrated and wondering why these delays are being caused. Now, I don't want to defend all of these delays. Some of them may be because of labour shortages, but others are caused by bad weather situations in other regions, which have a cascading effect on the airport where they're at.

Delays have always been a part of the aviation sector because of weather or uncontrolled circumstances. What we at Transport Canada are trying to do is to make sure we reduce the number and causes of delays outside of weather—those that are within the control of the sector. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure that airlines are held accountable for the delays for which they are responsible and that we protect passengers' rights.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

That's actually a great segue into my next question.

I was wondering whether you were in a position.... I know you've spoken about this at committee and during media scrums. Are you able to provide us with an update on where those considerations are at, and how we're going to be amending the passenger rights?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Ms. Koutrakis, I made a commitment to Canadians, after the lessons learned from last summer's challenges, that we will improve and strengthen the passengers' bill of rights. I was happy to see budget 2023 refer to it. Stay tuned. Soon we will be announcing what these measures will look like. However, I am committed, as I said to this committee and to Canadians, that, before the end of this session, we will see the passengers' bill of rights strengthened before we rise for the summer.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Ms. Koutrakis.

Thank you, Minister.

That concludes the line of questioning for the first hour of today's meeting.

On behalf of all members, I would like to thank you once again for appearing before committee today and answering all of our questions.

I will suspend for two minutes as we invite department officials to join us.

We'll see you back here in two minutes.

Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

We will resume with our witness testimony from department officials.

I'd like to welcome you here once again.

We'll begin our line of questioning today, in the second round, with Mr. Muys.

Mr. Muys, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to raise an issue I have heard about from people in cottage country in Ontario, which is a few hours from my constituency, maybe a few hours southwest of here. There has been a Transport Canada regulatory change that is causing some significant concern. This is the issue as I understand it. There are floating cottages, which are a concern to municipalities and residents in this part of central Ontario, as well as other parts of Canada. There are companies now popping up to build these things.

Previously Transport Canada had regulations and standards for float homes, but now something has changed and Transport Canada is determining that these are small vessels, which means they do not have to comply with local bylaws or houseboat regulations. There are, obviously, environmental concerns with grey water and maybe even potentially black water that's being deposited into the lakes without the appropriate care.

In fact they don't even float. They are jacked up on poles from the lake bed, so they certainly don't fit into what I would determine to be the definition of a vessel that can actually move. I'm not sure if you're aware of this issue or if you have seen these structures at all in person. I have a photo that someone has sent me and it doesn't look a lot like a vessel. It's certainly not about to move anywhere.

Again, are you aware of this? What can be done to change this because it seems to me they have been misclassified and this is causing quite a concern?.

[Arun Thangaraj, Deputy Minister, Department of Transport]

Yes. We are aware of the issue and we are working with municipalities.

I will turn to my colleague, Nicholas Robinson, to provide some details.

[Nicholas Robinson, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport]

Thank you, Deputy.

As the deputy mentioned, this has been brought to our attention, not only in the municipalities of Ontario but in other regions across the country.

With regard to the rules and regulations on specific lakes or waterways within provinces and territories, we're working with those municipalities to determine the extent of the problem and to find ways and solutions to prevent any sort of untoward or unknown discharge that would affect the waterways or interruptions in the way those waterways can be navigated.

We are continuing to work with those municipalities to address that issue.

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

Okay, but this is an issue of misclassification. They are not small vessels.

Would you be willing to review that decision and maybe hold a briefing for MPs in areas that are affected by this? I know one of my colleagues sent a letter to the minister and has had no response. That was five months ago.

[Nicholas Robinson]

On the specific action we would take as part of our working with municipalities and other governments on this issue, we are looking at the classification of vessels, but I can't say that we would change course on the classification of vessels at this time while we look to find a specific solution for the issue.

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

Okay, so there's no action.

Moving on, we had Via Rail here at this committee back in January, when we had emergency meetings with regard to the chaos that we saw in travel in Canada at Christmastime. In particular, we had questions around the unfortunate incident where there was a Via train stuck between Toronto and Ottawa for 18 hours. That was quite problematic.

I like taking the train. I like taking that route. I'm skeptical about the notion of high-frequency rail because I have taken high speed in other countries and it's a much better option. That aside, even in this same corridor recently we have had a number of incidents again.

Last weekend I think there were a couple of incidents. One was unfortunately I think a situation of a trespasser fatality, a mechanical issue. Again, there were a lot of delays with Via Rail in this Toronto to Ottawa corridor. Have you had any discussions with Via about this situation? It seems to be an ongoing problem. What's being done to improve it?

[Arun Thangaraj]

After the incidents that occurred over last Christmas, we spent a lot of time working with Via Rail and their officials on a number of things. One is the response that's required. That includes informing us, working with the host railway company and informing passengers, as well as ensuring that, for example, there's adequate food and water on board.

As you noted, I think it was last week or early in April with the ice storm that we did see a train that was impacted by a fallen branch. What we noted there was that a lot of those measures that were identified, including communication with us and communication with the passengers and CN, were put into place and worked effectively.

After that we're doing an after-action review with Via Rail to say what worked well and what didn't. What I can tell you is that what we have seen is that they are communicating better, they are monitoring social media better and they are providing timely information.

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

In the few seconds I have left, I note that in an article in the Toronto Star last weekend, the headline was this: “Hundreds of so-called 'trespassers' have been run over on Canada's railways. The Transportation Safety Board has only investigated two”. That, I think, was the cause of delay this past weekend.

Do you have any comments on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Unfortunately, we are at the six-minute mark.

We don't have time for a response, unfortunately, Mr. Muys.

We'll go on to Ms. Koutrakis.

Ms. Koutrakis, the floor is yours. You have six minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all our colleagues and experts from Transport Canada who are here this afternoon.

Transport Canada launched a call for proposals to support greater indigenous participation in the oceans protection plan. Can you elaborate on this initiative and how the indigenous participation will help protect our oceans and coastlines?

[Arun Thangaraj]

Thank you for the question.

The work we do with indigenous peoples in that local community engagement is critical to a number of our programs but most notably the oceans protection program.

That program has a number of components that are focused on engagement. We provide long-term funding for capacity building to enable effective participation and engagement, and that includes ensuring there's funding for technical expertise for those communities, as well as a community participation fund program, which is a $2-million-a-year grant program designed to provide short-term funding to indigenous communities and organizations to take part in developing and improving our marine transportation system.

Late last month, the minister invited organizations to apply for funding for indigenous marine coordinator positions, which increase our partners' capacity to participate in the development and implementation of that plan. Core to that as well is the enhanced maritime situational awareness. That is a tool that has been codeveloped with indigenous communities. Again, I think it's an example of that ongoing partnership that has led to the success of the program.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I was lucky in the second week of the constituency break from Parliament, when I and six colleagues were able to travel to Saskatchewan. We saw that partnership between the government and the indigenous communities. They were very grateful for that. I'm very pleased to bring back that feedback.

Also, when I was out in Saskatchewan, we met with quite a few smaller farmers. They were very grateful to see that budget 2023 had some funding for the extended interswitching. The supply chain task force recommended extended interswitching as a way to introduce more competition in the rail sector, which would benefit agricultural producers in particular.

How would it do so and how do we know the traffic would not be scooped up by American rail carriers? That seems to be something that may be important for some of our colleagues to know.

[Arun Thangaraj]

Thank you very much for that question.

As you noted, the supply chain task force did identify interswitching as a measure that would enhance competitiveness in the rail sector. What interswitching does is allow a shipper to access, through a regulated rate, an alternative carrier for their goods at a nearby exchange.

What the provisions are designed to do within a specific geography—and that's in the Prairies for a specific time period of 18 months—is enable shippers that are within 160 kilometres of that interchange to leverage an alternative railway to secure better rates or service offerings. What that pilot will enable us to do is gather data on the benefits and the outcomes of it in terms of competitiveness, rates, cycle times and the impact on the supply chain.