44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/21/23 11:08:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always take great joy when the hon. member is speaking in this chamber. Some days bring more joy than others.
I know I am going to have a bad day when I hear someone on an airplane thanking me for my patience. It usually means I am either having a bad day or I am about to have a bad day, and it is a phrase that unfortunately all of us in this chamber, who are all frequent travellers, hear all too frequently. I noticed that part of this bill is to authorize the Governor in Council on service standards.
Could the hon. member opine on some of the service standards that are not being met on an all-too-frequent basis for those of us who travel on airplanes fairly frequently?
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- Nov/21/23 11:38:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there seems to be some confusion between what is law and what is regulation.
This would be a law that possibly sets up an agency for the creation of regulations. This is not the place to ask for specific standards as to when baggage should or should not arrive or when airplanes should fly on time or not fly on time. It probably would be better in committee. Once the bill is passed and the regulations are published, there would be a scrutiny of regulations committee to establish whether the regulations are appropriate.
Can the hon. member give us his understanding of the interaction between the creation of law and the creation of regulations?
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- Nov/21/23 12:04:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to carry on from the two previous questions and the information in the bill. The bill would create a formal process for notifying and consulting the public on changes to aerospace designs that affect aircraft noise near airports and ensure that communities would be consulted.
The simple question here is this: Does the hon. member, or any of us, know anything about aircraft noise? I dare say that, in my case, I certainly do not. I am interested in the hon. member's views on his expertise on aircraft noise.
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Madam Speaker, I will say at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge, who has some expertise in this subject.
I make no claim to expertise. I am a mere consumer of transportation services, just like pretty well everyone else in the chamber. I would say a lot of us consume a lot of transportation services on a weekly basis because of the requirements of this particular job. I am coming at it from that standpoint.
Before I get to that point, I just want to make a distinction between the passage of a bill and the creation of regulations. When we pass a bill in this chamber, we are essentially setting up the legal framework to be able to promulgate regulations. If we do not have that legal framework, then we will not be able to proclaim any regulations. It is not as if anyone in this chamber actually has any expertise on, say, noise abatement, which was discussed earlier; when baggage should arrive; what the proper standard is for flights to be on time, or not, as the case may be; or the various other irritants that go with travel in this country, which is quite frustrating at times.
This legislation would set up the authority, and the regulations would put meat on the bones. After some period of time, members could initiate inquiries into the quality of the regulations through the scrutiny of regulations committee, which is a jointly chaired committee of the Senate and the House. It is not a very popular committee because it deals with exceedingly boring stuff, but there are certain members who are keen on exceedingly boring stuff.
I want to talk about three things, if I may: service standards, security and competition. I have been switching airlines. I have the good fortune of living in the GTA. Therefore, I do have some choice, which is unlike some members who have no choice. I have a strange idea in how I should make my choice.
My choices should be, number one, for the airplane to fly on time. I know that is a novel ideal to fly the airplane on time, but that is probably going to get me to choose that airline. The second standard I have is to not lose my baggage. Lately I have noticed that people do not put their baggage in. They carry it on, and I dare say that is largely driven by the fact that a lot of baggage is getting lost. I have a third rule, and that is to not treat me badly. Those are the three rules that I have for any airline I use: fly the airplane on time, do not lose my bag and do not treat me badly. I think that is pretty fair. After all, I am paying, or somebody else is paying, a pretty significant sum of money for me to fly to my destination.
In that vein, BillC-52 would bring in an accountability mechanism by permitting the creation of regulations requiring airports and other operators within airports to create service standards for their part of the passenger journey. I do not see what is so complicated about that. Over the course of today's debate, hon. members have shared their experiences, many of which are actually quite negative, so this is a timely bill. We could make the argument that it should have been put forward earlier, and so should a lot of things have been done earlier
However, here we are trying to deal with the creation of a legal framework so that the complaints I just enumerated can be dealt with in an organized fashion. That is the point of this bill. Examples include how long it should typically take for a bag to arrive on the carousel. I have no expertise on that. Maybe other members do, but I do not know how long it should take for a bag to get off the airplane and onto the carousel. This bill, through its regulations, would create some standards. When a bag is lost, and we have all been in airports where there are stacks and stacks of bags, there should be some standards to which the airline is held.
The second part of the standards would create an enforcement mechanism. Currently, enforcement mechanisms are pretty grim. My family was flying to Europe and their connecting flight was through Montreal. That flight was late, they missed the connected flight and they had to do a day in Montreal. It was not a burden, really, but the application just to get compensation required the services of a Bay Street lawyer. Anything to make that process a little easier would be good.
Part of what the bill could do, which I hope to see in the course of its review before committee, is look at the security arrangements at the entry into the airport. There is a delusion, I would say, that redundancy creates security. However, all redundancy creates is redundancy and time wasting.
It was exemplified to me that there was no risk analysis when the former minister of public safety, Ralph Goodale, was taken out of the line for a special security examination. I do not know what Mr. Goodale's security clearance was at the time, but I daresay it was about as high as high gets in this country. Why would someone looking at the passport of a minister of the Crown who has the highest security clearance want to take him out of the line for a special security clearance? That is the height of absurdity, and I daresay it is the height of absurdity for many of us. Why are NEXUS cardholders put through checks that are similar to those of the people who do not have a NEXUS card? After all, we have been checked by the RCMP and checked by the CIA. It just seems to me that no thinking goes on with security.
Finally, I want to deal with the issue of competition. My hon. friend from Winnipeg North, who members seem to be quite fond of listening to, made the comment that competition would start to eliminate some of these absurdities and get better service standards. Interestingly, WestJet has pulled back from eastern Canada, for reasons I do not really know. Porter, on the other hand, has expanded into international flights and many other locations outside of Toronto.
It is an interesting area. I encourage members to give the committee a chance to do its work and to pass this piece of legislation so that the frustrations that I and other members have enumerated can be dealt with.
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- Nov/21/23 12:50:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me put it this way. If we do not pass this legislation, the complaints we already have, which are in abundance in this chamber alone, will only multiply and the frustration will go forward.
Frankly, I do not know whether the analysis we hear particularly from our Conservative friends is a failure to understand the process or there is something else to it. I would never want to attribute improper motives to colleagues across the way who might have different political agendas than that of the government.
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- Nov/21/23 12:52:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it should be an operating principle that the board reflects the travelling public. How we achieve that I am not quite sure. My preference would be a less onerous way of going about it, but there is no doubt the principle should be that the board looks like the travelling public so that all perspectives can be brought to bear when decisions need to be made.
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- Nov/21/23 12:53:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I congratulate those folks who made it to 70 years. That is quite impressive.
The hon. member has a contradiction in his question. Here is legislation that would deal with the so-called bungling, which I disagree with profoundly, and he is going to vote against it. He apparently prefers that the current state of affairs in Canada's airports continues. I assume that he, as I do, consumes a lot of travelling services and knows that the state of Canada's airports is not the best. Here he has a chance to do something about it and he is blowing it.
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- Nov/21/23 1:04:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would be interested in the hon. member's comments with respect to the ease with which passengers are getting through security, particularly at Pearson airport.
I had the experience on the break week of travelling to Washington and, frankly, the experience was as it should be. I would like to think it would have something to do with my colleague and his group's advocacy. I would be interested in his comments on the security situation there, and indeed at the Ottawa airport, for those who have a NEXUS card.
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- Nov/21/23 1:06:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I also want to call on the expertise of the hon. member with respect to competition in the airlines. We have seen WestJet pull back. We have seen Porter expand. We see the Billy Bishop airport wishing to expand and being able to accept jets. We have seen quite a number of new airlines start up in the last little while. It seems to run contrary to the narrative that we hear. Therefore, I would be interested in the member's observations.
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