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 minist

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 consume

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

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 charg

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

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 l

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 particula

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 com

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

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 o

Industry committee  It's tempting to want to leave it with the CRTC, because they are the natural regulator in this area. I don't believe they have the statutory authority at the moment. Perhaps the committee could consider that. However, the difficulty is that most of the funding comes through the

Industry committee  If you were to take a look at the U.S. legislation, you'd see that it requires that funding be up to a certain standard. All Canadians would have roughly the same access to advanced telecommunications. That's the way the U.S. law is structured. It has a joint federal-state boar

Industry committee  Our frustration at the moment is that some pieces are run out of the CRTC and some out of ISED. I'm making it up a bit on the fly, Mr. Masse, to be honest, because we don't have a national broadband plan that has tapped a particular agency to do this. Whoever it is, or whichever