Industry committee  I'll answer in English if you don't mind. The Shaw family, of course, is at that stage where they may want to cash out, and they're going to have a seat on the board. It's also, unfortunately, showing the difficulty of mounting a full attack and being a fourth player in Canada.

Industry committee  Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has advocated for consumers for over 40 years in communications law and policy. This committee cannot stop Rogers from acquiring Shaw. Mergers are controlled by the Competition Act. The CRTC approves broadcasting distribution deals and ISED approves wireless spectrum transfers.

Transport committee  As I think Maître De Bellefeuille said, they would likely be unsecured creditors at the very bottom of the heap. If the company were to come to an arrangement to hand out, let's say, 17¢ on the dollar, they would get their portion after secured creditors took that 17¢, and I'm sure their complaint would be larger than that.

Transport committee  That's the million-dollar question. Certainly I believe that Air Canada is large enough and strong enough, and probably WestJet as well, to weather at least another year of this. Other smaller airlines, such as Air Transat, may be in a different position. I think it's the minister's job to monitor that situation closely and to come up with new policy, if needed.

Transport committee  Yes, I suppose that the CTA thought it was a reasonable response in the panic moment. However, that was a policy statement they should have known was going to affect consumers' will and understanding of the situation. My concern with it is that it implied, at least at a consumer understanding level, that refunds would not be forthcoming and that consumers should just sit tight and be happy with their two-year vouchers.

Transport committee  I have some thoughts about bailouts in particular rather than conditions around the tickets. We've advocated for bailout money to make sure that none of that goes to shareholders, with no dividends or extras paid out of that money, and no share buybacks, executive compensation or bonuses, to try to keep all the labour that they presently have so that there are no layoffs when they are receiving bailout monies, and, of course, for consumer refunds in this particular situation.

Transport committee  That's a good question. I don't have a study for you. I can say that in similar situations, telecommunications monthly bills, for example, have to go up by 50¢ to cover subsidies for, say, rural telephone service. It's probably along that kind of line. You'd get a 50¢ or $1 charge, something like that, per airline ticket.

Transport committee  If I may, Mr. Chair.

Transport committee  Thank you. I would just add that, were a court or the CTA, via a sweeping decision, to come to that conclusion, our constituents would not be happy, and we would be supporting a bill like Bill C-249 to change the law. Thank you.

Transport committee  The return to normality, once the pandemic is controlled, will be slower if consumers believe that in similar situations, totally outside their control, they will lose money. The thing about a service such as airlines is that the value of it often fades or is actually impossible to capitalize on.

Transport committee  A huge advantage to such a refund “jubilee” is that cash refunds will simply and significantly reduce the huge backlog of complaints at the Canadian Transportation Agency. Unsurprisingly, the majority of complaints since March concern refunds. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I look forward to any questions from the committee.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Honourable members, my name is John Lawford. I'm the executive director and general counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, which is a non-profit and registered charity. We provide legal and research services on behalf of consumers, and in particular vulnerable consumers concerning important public services such as airlines, in a field we've been working for over 20 years.

Industry committee  Yes, I take your point about trying to change the structure. Trying to build the train while you're on the track, if you will, which is where we are, is difficult. Where do you locate that? It could be the ISED minister who has an extra coordination function. I believe this committee could recommend a legislative change to the Telecommunications Act to make a legal basis for setting up a plan to get somebody in place to coordinate all of this.

Industry committee  With regard to the subsidies that we're discussing, those have all been suggested but not implemented. There have been government programs trying to get $10 Internet to Canadians of modest means; this would be voluntary from the companies. That is a good idea, but the difficulty is that it's voluntary, so some companies are not participating.

Industry committee  Sure. The reason it's fragmented is that it doesn't all come out at once. We've had a number of programs, such as connect to innovate, connecting Canadians, the universal broadband fund and the Canada Infrastructure Bank funding, bump up at different times. The other main part of the process that makes it uncoordinated is that it is application driven.