moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-26, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 42 on page 7 the following:
“(2.1) Every licensee who contravenes subsection (2) is guilty of an offence and is liable (a) on summary conviction, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $25,000; or (b) on conviction on indictment, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more that $50,000.”
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-26, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing lines 46 to 48 on page 9 and lines 1 to 3 on page 10 with the following:
“subsection (1) or (2) on its own motion.”
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-26, in Clause 4, be amended by adding after line 3 on page 10 the following:
“(6.1) Where the Agency makes a finding, under subsection (1), that an increase in fare is unreasonable, the Agency may, in the case where the increase during the year is at least 1.25 times the inflation index for that year, order an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the increase in fare and make any ruling it considers appropriate in the circumstances.”
Mr. Speaker, it is with some disappointment that I am here at report stage dealing with amendments which I hoped would give some kind of clout to the piece of legislation before us.
It was quite apparent through numerous witnesses at committee and numerous comments by committee members that there was much fear out there with regard to having a monopoly carrier in Canada. There was a lot of concern from airline travellers, a good number of them members of parliament who sat around the committee table, and a good many who had horror stories and complaints about the way things were already being done since December 1999 and January of this year when the merger started to show the first signs of how things would be.
With all the talk among committee members and witnesses I was initially getting the impression that we would actually see the committee put some strong rules in place to control this monopoly carrier, to control prices throughout Canada and to provide service to communities. In spite of all that talk, all that huff and puff, we have before us a piece of legislation that is fairly lacking.
I hoped that by making some amendments we could at least have a bit of meat in the bill to give the Canadian Transportation Agency some chance at dealing with a monopoly carrier and to give the Competition Tribunal an opportunity to do something. We listened to these two bodies that appeared before us indicate that they did not have the rules in place to put the clamps on a monopoly carrier.
With regard to the amendments in Group No. 1, I have moved three amendments which I believe would certainly give the opportunity to provide that. I will take this opportunity to emphasize Motion No. 1 which reads:
Every licensee who contravenes subsection (2) is guilty of an offence and is liable (a) on summary conviction, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $25,000; or (b) on conviction on indictment, to the suspension of its licence for a period of up to five years and a fine of not more than $50,000.
This is not the exact similarity, but it was intended that this amendment would deal with the situation similar to the one involving InterCanadian in the last part of 1999 when it withdrew service in a matter of a day or so and a lot of travellers were left stranded.
I think everyone has recognized that in the case of InterCanadian there were some real serious financial problems. We have rules in place to address that, but a discussion took place about situations where a carrier just says to heck with it, does not abide by the rules that are in place, does not give the required time limits to withdraw service, and goes ahead and withdraws.
The bottom line was that we have rules which say the carrier should not do it, but there is no penalty to emphasize that it was not okay for the carrier to withdraw the service and start up somewhere else. There should be some kind of penalty in place. If a carrier has the means to continue the service and the means to give reasonable notice, it should do it. This amendment would give the legislation some clout.
We had numerous witnesses who appeared before us at committee saying that they wanted to know the rules when they got into the game. They did not want to go before the CTA and find out that it will do it this way or that way. They wanted to know upfront what the rules were. That was the indication for the first amendment.
The second amendment in Group No. 1 is in relation to the Canadian Transportation Agency having to wait to get a complaint before it could review a situation. When we have an agency such as the Canadian Transportation Agency and we want it to have the power to deal with issues, we should accept that maybe it could look at a situation and say that it is not right. It should be able to go in and investigate. It should not have to wait a period of three or four months until unsuspecting consumers get up in arms, ask that something be done about it, and realize they have to put in a complaint. We have a qualified group of people at the Canadian Transportation Agency. Let us give them the authority to intervene and investigate on its own initiative should it see the necessity to do so.
Motion No. 4 refers to when the agency may want to review the pricing. We heard a whole pile of complaints come across the committee table from all members about how terrible the price gouging was and about how terrible Air Canada was being already. What was the result of the committee? It wanted to give it six months and if it appeared there was a problem the committee would review it. Boy, did that ever put a lot of meat in the bill; let us give them six months and we will see how things happen.
I would suggest that we have some rules in place. Motion No. 4 reads in part:
Where the Agency makes a finding, under subsection (1), that an increase in fare is unreasonable, the Agency may, in the case where the increase during the year is at least 1.25 times the inflation index for that year, order an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the increase in fare and make any ruling it considers appropriate in the circumstances.
Again, it recognizes that the agency is qualified and should be able to review. It knows all the different fares involved in the airline industry.
Most passengers do not know the number of fares involved. They do not know what applies in certain instances but the agency does. We need to give the agency that opportunity. We need to give it something to go by. Again this reflects what the witnesses said, that they want to know the rules before going in. If they know the rules ahead of time, and they know that if the increases are above a certain point and there can be an investigation, at least it is going to put the clamps on those airlines which may decide to raise their prices to heaven knows what.
Those are the three motions in Group No. 1. I am not going to go on about it. Members know what has been happening; certainly the committee members know. Over the weekend the government should have had a little insight into the fact that the bill has not given any clout whatsoever to the Competition Bureau or to the CTA in regard to addressing the problems that are going to be. I would hope it would see fit to put some rules in place in the legislation so that we are not reviewing some whimsical idea of what we think may happen with Air Canada or any other monopoly carrier.