Transport committee  Yes, we're not prohibiting overbooking.

Transport committee  We're in fact telling them, “If you overbook and if a passenger is unable to take that flight, then you have to compensate that passenger for the ticket that passenger has purchased because he's not being allowed to fly, and on top of that you also have to compensate him for his out-of-pocket or other expenses”, and those would be detailed in the regulations.

Transport committee  Somebody's going to pay.

Transport committee  Indeed, we do. I'll say that before this bill was put together, the minister authorized two airlines because he has an exemption authority now under the act. Enerjet and Jetlines have filed an application to have greater foreign ownership and he approved that. Interestingly enough, one of them, Jetlines, just announced today that they're planning on starting up their service from Hamilton and Waterloo airports in Ontario starting in the summer of 2018.

Transport committee  We looked across the globe at what other countries are doing. This is a very strategic sector for Canada. Much like telecommunications and others, it is a network sector, and we want to have a strong and vibrant airline industry in Canada. When we looked across the globe, most countries now are in the 49% range.

Transport committee  Yes, we did consider extending. Some of the provisions that were in the act have in fact been carried forward, such as level of service, arbitration, and penalties when they don't meet their obligations. We have let one sunset provision go, which was the government's prescribing the volumes of grain that had to be carried.

Transport committee  As you may know, it's the Minister of Public Safety who has responsibility for the security elements of the issue you're raising of children on no-fly lists, so I would have to defer that question to Public Safety and Minister Goodale.

Transport committee  I would have to check whether there have been any studies done on that recently that could be shared. We can take that back and get back to you. On rail, cabotage exists today. The rail lines are taking things back and forth, so cabotage on rail is really not an issue. It's more on the trucking and on the air side.

Transport committee  Part of the list that I mentioned, or the first element, was that the air carriers will have to make very clear in their tariff what their obligations are in exchange for a ticket being sold, right? That will have to be very clear and understandable, and it will be the basis upon which then passengers can complain to the agency if something hasn't been done.

Transport committee  Yes, it will apply to passengers coming into, leaving, or within Canada.

Transport committee  It will definitely be compensatory. In fact, what we envisage is that the penalty will go to the traveller, not as we do sometimes where the government charges the airline for the infraction. And it would be compensatory in terms of directly.... If their flight is bumped and they lose their ticket, it would cover that, but it would also cover the inconvenience faced by the passenger.

Transport committee  Cabotage is something we've examined repeatedly. The issues behind cabotage go beyond transportation. They deal with the ability of workers from one country to work in another country, and thus would implicate the immigration departments of those countries in terms of their allowing that to happen.

Transport committee  As I mentioned, to include that in this act, we would need to have a whole bunch of other issues resolved, such as the labour issue of having people able to work here—and actually, for example, under NAFTA, the U.S. authority to do that. I understand that some of those discussions are going on.

Transport committee  That's a very good question. Yes, there are multiple parties involved in the air experience. As I mentioned in my remarks, one of the elements that is in the bill is giving us the authority to collect information from all of those who are involved in the air traveller experience—the airline, the airport, everybody else who works at the airport, the Canadian air security agency, all of that chain—to look at where things are working, where they are not working, and what kinds of issues are coming up, so that we can report to Canadians on how well those are working.

Transport committee  I'm going to ask my colleague, Sara Wiebe, and perhaps Mark Schaan, to answer some of those questions based on the experience to date and what we're proposing as different going forward.