Transport committee  I will repeat what I said earlier. We now have the capacity to make 15,000 rulings per year thanks to internal efforts to improve the process. Before the pandemic, our capacity was 5,000 rulings per year using the same resources. We have increased our efficiency and our ability to make rulings on complaints tremendously.

Transport committee  I cannot give you a specific answer. That being said, if the backlog is 25,000 complaints and we can handle 15,000 in a year with our current resources, that gives an indication of the time it might take.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I think there's always room to improve. As I said, we've made efforts within the agency to improve how we handle complaints based upon improvements in our processes. I would like to note—and I know this was brought up a bit earlier—that 97% of our complaints are handled at the first, informal stages of complaint handling through facilitation and mediation.

Transport committee  Chair, the issue of interline agreements comes up in certain cases because passengers have an issue with how the interline arrangements were operated in a particular case. In those particular cases, the agency decides the issue based on the facts of the particular case.

Transport committee  Chair, orders of the agency to compensate passengers are normally followed by airlines, unless the decisions of the agency are appealed, in which case there's an appeal process and the appeal process follows its due course. At the end of the day, airlines are required to follow the orders of the agency.

Transport committee  Chair, I don't really have any comments on mandatory interline agreements. What I can say is that the terms and conditions associated with interline agreements are in airline tariffs. When there are complaints, we use the tariffs to determine whether they have been followed or not.

Transport committee  At the moment, our backlog is about 25,000 complaints. It was noted that over the summer the number of incoming complaints to the agency was high. Since then, the pace of complaints has slowed down somewhat, but I believe the current backlog is about 25,000 complaints.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I can't really comment on the government action writ large. As I mentioned, the agency is an independent agency and we implement the regulatory framework. I can say that over the course of the summer a number of decisions were issued by the agency that helped clarify and interpret the provisions of the air passenger protection regulations.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I can't really speculate on what would have happened if the mandate situation was lifted.

Transport committee  One important thing, Chair, is that the agency has become very efficient at processing complaints. Before the pandemic, in 2019, we were processing roughly 5,000 complaints a year. Through efficiencies, we've managed to increase that to 15,000 complaints on average in a year. We certainly increased our ability to handle complaints using the staff we have.

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair, for this opportunity to appear before the committee today. As you know, the Canadian Transportation Agency is an independent administrative agency created by an act of Parliament. The Canadian Transportation Agency is created by the Canada Transportation Act.

Transport committee  Perhaps an example would be most enlightening. There was a case, for example, where there was a rail yard that was doing loading and switching operations late at night. The agency heard the complaint. The order of the agency was that no further such operations would be done at nighttime.

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair. Yes I will mention that processes of either mediation or arbitration are confidential. On our website we have time frames, once a complete application is received, as to how long our processes take. For that we list, for example in the case of facilitation, that it's 20 business days for rail disputes, 20 business days for the resolution of a mediation process, and 30 to 65 days, depending on the type of arbitration....

Transport committee  Chair, we follow up on any agency orders that are issued following the filing of an application or a complaint. For example, if there's a noise and vibration order issued, then any subsequent complaints or any implication that a railway company is not following what they're supposed to be following will be investigated by one of our designated enforcement officers, subject to penalty if possible.

Transport committee  Chair, I don't think the agency has the type of performance data the member was asking for.