Mr. Speaker, air transport is essential to the lives of many Canadians. This government is keenly attentive to the situations that Canadians face when they travel by air.
Canada has a system in place to protect air passengers under the Canada Transportation Act, and this government has undertaken a number of actions to both improve and reinforce it. Our main objective is to provide consumer protection to passengers without unduly increasing costs for users or carriers.
All carriers operating in Canada must have terms and conditions of carriage that they respect and make easily available to passengers. The air transport regulations outline the issues that must be addressed in these terms and conditions, including cancelled and late flights, lost and damaged baggage, and denied boarding due to overbooking. The Canadian Transportation Agency is mandated to assess passengers' complaints by considering whether carriers have acted in accordance with their terms and conditions of carriage as well as whether these terms and conditions are reasonable.
A number of recent agency decisions have resulted in improved passenger protection. For example, in June 2012, the agency issued five different decisions in favour of passengers that addressed the reasonableness of the terms and conditions of carriage for Air Transat, WestJet, and Air Canada regarding the overbooking, cancellation, delay, and rerouting of flights. Other decisions in June and August of this year further reinforced carriers' obligations with regard to denied boarding due to overbooking.
In addition, in December 2012, our government brought into force new measures to ensure that airfare advertising reveals the full price of an air ticket, inclusive of taxes and charges for flights within or originating in Canada.
Canadian families work hard to make ends meet, and every dollar counts. When Canadians make decisions about how to spend their money, they must be assured of a voice, a choice, and fair treatment. While our government provides that voice, the NDP wants to implement a $20-billion job-killing carbon tax, which would ruin the airline industry. The NDP's $20-billion carbon tax would raise the price of airline tickets and would be an additional burden on hard-working Canadians.
In conclusion, our government closely follows air traveller consumer protection issues, and we will take whatever measures are required to ensure that consumers are treated fairly. We will continue to monitor this situation closely. However, we will not undertake initiatives such as those put forward by the NDP, which would result in higher costs for travellers.