Transport committee  The CTA is subject to the same access to information rules as any other organization. We have a policy of transparency, and so we try to come forward. I will commit to certainly providing the committee with those documents that it's appropriate to provide, but we are a quasi-judicial tribunal, an independent regulator, and certain material is privileged.

Transport committee  I want to give a very clear response to this question. The non-binding statement on vouchers was issued in order to protect passengers from ending up with nothing at all as a result of this situation, in part because of the legislative gap that I spoke about earlier. Nothing in that non-binding statement in any way affected or affects the rights of anybody who brings a complaint before us.

Transport committee  I'm sorry; could you repeat the question?

Transport committee  The reason is simple: we did it to reduce the risk of air passengers ending up without any compensation. As I said, the legislation refers to this great variability in the conditions of service of different airlines; that's what creates this risk for air passengers. The objective of our Statement on Vouchers was to reduce this risk.

Transport committee  For me, the question would be whether all employees work hard and come together to deal with complaints. If it were employees of the Canadian Transportation Agency, the answer would be yes. Everybody is rallying to deal with complaints. As I said, we've managed to handle 6,000 complaints since—

Transport committee  Yes, that's fine.

Transport committee  All statements, guidelines and guidance material are written by the organization and, as head of the organization, I am always involved, of course.

Transport committee  We have communicated with the office of the Minister of Transportation throughout the crisis. Indeed, coordination is important in a crisis like this. It's a question of transparency. The purpose of these communications wasn't to obtain permissions or receive instructions, but to ensure that we don't create confusion in this time of crisis.

Transport committee  With regard to the statement on vouchers, like all guidance material posted by the CTA—and we post a great deal of non-binding guidance material, policy statements and information—there are many people who participate in its preparation, in its drafting and in its review, so it's a large number of employees who contributed to that.

Transport committee  Ultimately, every statement like this is an expression of the organization's guidance. As I emphasized earlier, the statement on vouchers, like these other documents, was non-binding in nature, and it's an expression of guidance or a suggestion to the travelling public by the institution.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I'm not sure about that email. I haven't seen the email. It's not in front of me. The office of the Minister of Transport would not have been privy to the internal decision-making processes at the CTA, and I would simply reiterate that every statement—non-binding—that's made by the CTA, every guidance document is a reflection of institutional guidance and of course is reviewed by senior members of the organization.

Transport committee  I thank the honourable member for his question. I can't really answer that question, for one simple reason: as a quasi-judicial tribunal, we might have to deal with this issue. It's a matter of interpretation of the situation, the facts and the legislation. In order to maintain our impartiality, it's important to wait for the decision-making process before answering this important question.

Transport committee  If this question is for me, I would say that travel agents aren't under federal jurisdiction. From what we've read in the media, they fall under provincial jurisdiction.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's true that these distinctions can be important. Some Canadians have purchased refundable tickets, while others have purchased non-refundable tickets. The provisions for a force majeure may be relevant to this discussion. That said, all of these issues must be dealt with in a quasi-judicial process of formal decision-making.

Transport committee  Once again, I think this question should be directed more to my colleagues at Transport Canada, but I'll give a bit of an answer anyway. We know that this crisis is unprecedented, but we don't know exactly what the consequences might have been in the situation you describe. Our role is simply to determine what the obligations of airlines are and what the rights of air passengers are under the law.