Madam Speaker, it is an honour to have the opportunity to rise in this virtual chamber to participate in tonight's debate.
I have the privilege of serving on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities with an outstanding group of MPs from all parties. Over the course of the past several months, the committee had the opportunity to hear from many representatives from the country's air travel sector. Yesterday the committee presented to the House its report, entitled “Emerging from the Crisis: A Study of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Air Transport Sector”. However, the committee witnesses were unanimous in their bleak assessment of the effects of the pandemic on air travel.
Few sectors have been hit harder by the pandemic than the air travel sector. Airlines, airports, independent travel advisers, air traffic controllers and small business owners who run the souvenir shops at the airports have all experienced job losses, cutbacks and hardship. However, unlike many sectors, restarting the air travel sector will not be like turning on a light switch. The air travel sector has faced many unique challenges during the pandemic, the effects of which will be felt for years to come.
For this evening's debate, I will focus my remarks on the difficult situation in which Canada's airports find themselves.
The air travel sector cannot function without financially viable airports. After all, the airplanes have to have some place to land and some place to take off from. When most of this country's airports were privatized in the 1990s, a fee structure was established with the airlines that was based on air traffic volumes. This country's airports could rely on a steady stream of revenues as long as there was also a steady stream of commercial airline flights. All of that came to a halt in the spring of 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
In my home city of Regina, the Regina International Airport went 10 days at the beginning of the pandemic without a single commercial passenger flight. For much of the pandemic, air travel levels were down as much as 90% compared to pre-pandemic levels. This lack of air travel means a lack of revenue for this country's airports.
As a result, airports had to lay off staff and dip into cash reserves. When the cash reserves ran out, they had to go to the bank and borrow. Today, this country's airports have debt loads that they have never seen before. How will they pay off this debt? It will be by passing the cost on to consumers as air travel resumes after the pandemic.
Now, some people may shrug their shoulders and say “So what? Airport debts and debt servicing fees get passed on to air travellers; that is life.” Maybe it would not be such a big deal if Canada were a closed country that lived in isolation, but we are not.
Air travel policies of the American government are bound to affect Canada and the rest of the world as well. It is worth noting that within weeks of the start of the pandemic, the U.S. Congress passed the CARES Act to provide $10 billion in financial relief to American airports. This means that American airports have had financial certainty throughout the pandemic and have not had to go deep into debt. It means that American airports will not have the financial burden of debt and debt servicing costs to pass on to their customers.
Even before the pandemic, flying out of a Canadian airport was significantly more expensive than flying out of an American one. This is because, historically, American governments have viewed airports as an infrastructure investment, while in Canada, most airports operate on Crown land and serve as a source of revenue for the federal government through ground lease payments.
As Canadian airports take on more and more debt and pass more and more debt and debt servicing costs on to passengers, American airports become relatively less expensive by comparison. This poses a real long-term problem for Canadian airports, especially those that are located within driving distance of the U.S. border. The Bellingham airport in the state of Washington is just a short drive across the border from Vancouver. The Niagara Falls airport is on the American side of the border, just a short drive down the highway from Hamilton and St. Catharines. The airport in Plattsburgh, New York, already advertises itself as “Montréal's U.S. Airport”.
All along the Canada-U.S. border, the story is the same. American airports will become more attractive options as Canadian airports struggle to find ways to pass their crippling debt loads on to Canadian travellers. These debt loads will have a ripple effect across the air travel sector as Canadian airlines, independent travel advisers and hotels lose business across the board.
What could the government do to help this country's struggling airports? I would say one thing the air travel sector really needs right now is a safe reopening plan. The quicker we could get Canadians flying again, the quicker airline and airport revenues will rebound, and all of the harmful effects of the pandemic that I have described could be minimized.
However, the biggest challenge facing the air travel sector is a lack of customers, caused by uncertainty in the marketplace. The pandemic has thrown many sectors of the economy into chaos, including restaurants, movie theatres and clothing stores. Most businesses are primarily governed by their provincial governments, and most provincial governments have already spelled out a safe reopening plan based on vaccination levels.
For example, in my home province of Saskatchewan, in just three more days restaurants will no longer have to limit the number of customers seated at a single table, although customers will only be able to order à la carte and buffets are not allowed yet. Just think of how much easier it will be for restaurant workers and owners and their customers to plan a major dinner party when there is a clearly spelled out reopening plan for restaurants.
Now, imagine if the federal government were to do the same thing for air travel. I am sure that after well over a year of this pandemic, many Canadians would really like to start making their summer travel plans. Airlines, travel advisers, tour operators and hotels would all like to start making bookings.
What are the rules? More importantly, what will the rules be next week and next month and in the coming months as vaccination levels continue to inch upwards?
If someone who is fully vaccinated flies down to the States and then flies back, how much longer will that person still have to go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine? How much longer will that person still have to go to the quarantine hotels? What about someone who is only partially vaccinated? What about a husband and wife who are fully vaccinated but whose children are too young to receive the vaccine?
That is just for international travel. What about travelling within Canada? Are we going to see a patchwork of different rules within Canada, whereby some provinces require quarantines and others do not? Will it be easier for Canadians to fly to the United States for their summer holidays than to other provinces within Canada?
These are all very reasonable and practical questions that Canadians are starting to ask. The absence of any answers and the absence of any safe reopening plan from the federal government is putting another summer travel season in jeopardy. The loss of another summer travel season would cause undue harm, not only to this country's airports but to our airlines, independent travel advisers, air traffic controllers, tour operators and so many Canadians who depend on a properly functioning air transport sector.
I call on the government to present, as soon as possible, a safe reopening plan for air travel.