44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2023 10:00AM
- 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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Madam Speaker, the hon. colleague, who has been in this House a lot longer than I have, summed it up quite succinctly.
The issue that Conservatives have with Bill C-52 is it lacks the meat, the intention and the direction for when it gets to committee. What is the mandate for the committee? What is the direction and where is the meat in Bill C-52 that will set the guidelines for the work that the committee is going to do?
Bill C-52 fails to do that. Similar to what the government has done in the last eight years, it has failed Canadians on the transportation file.
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- Nov/21/23 11:40:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would really love some understanding on where the hon. member stands.
I understand that we are talking about service standards and regulations, and I too am concerned about an industry that self-regulates. That has consistently been an issue, especially when dealing with the safety of Canadians.
Is the member saying it is imperative that it be part of this bill, that there should be transparency in government to ensure that transportation standards cannot be self-regulated and that those significant changes be made in the bill?
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Madam Speaker, if I understand my colleague correctly, no. Our transportation sector is among the most regulated in our country. Are there areas that we need to focus on? Absolutely.
We need look no further than news reports in recent weeks about those who have disabilities and travel. One gentleman was dropped in the middle of the aisle and had to literally crawl his way to the front of the plane. That is absolutely unacceptable.
Bill C-52 has some points in it that I think are great and I support, but there are areas that we need to address. Bill C-52 does not go far enough. That is what concerns Conservatives.
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Madam Speaker, I look forward to discussing Bill C-52.
Before I do that, I want to say that just as the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader was finishing up his speech, I got a real kick out of seeing a Conservative member come running into the House to jump up and criticize the member for Winnipeg North for having spoken over 3,000 times. It was as if somebody had punched things into a computer in the backroom to figure that out. The reality is that we are now in a position where Conservatives are criticizing members for wanting to get up and repeatedly represent members of their community.
The member for Winnipeg North should take great pride in the fact that he stands up for his constituents so many times. Over 3,000 times he has stood up for the people of Winnipeg since 2021. That would be something to celebrate, in my opinion. Only a Conservative would come in here and suggest that it is somehow to the detriment of democracy that the member for Winnipeg North continually stands up and represents his constituents. It is no wonder the man keeps getting elected and sent back to this place by the people of Winnipeg when they see that time after time after time he gets up to represent his constituents. If we could all represent our constituents to that effect, we would be absolutely incredible members of Parliament, all 338 of us. I take great pride in sitting so close to such a passionate member who represents his community.
Let us talk about Bill C-52 for a few minutes. This is a very important piece of legislation.
I find it quite interesting that the most recent Conservative member who got up to speak, in response to a question from the NDP, basically admitted that the bill does a lot of what he thinks it should do, in particular, with respect to the scenario that my NDP colleague brought up. He said that he thought the bill would actually do a lot of that stuff and would be good in that regard; however, it does not go far enough in another area that he is concerned about. However, the Conservatives have had a difficult time articulating that today. None of them have really pinpointed where that is, other than to say that regulation is bad and extreme competition is good.
Why will they not at least send the bill to committee? Why will they not at least get it to committee? Then the member or his colleagues who are represented on that committee could talk about it and try to address the issues they have.
I would suggest it is not because Conservatives are genuinely interested in the bill or genuinely interested in advancing any kind of meaningful policy for Canadians. I think it is just that they do what they always do, which is to delay and prevent legislation going forward at any cost. It does not matter what the issue is.
I actually have a hard time sitting here wondering when the last time was that Conservatives voted in favour of anything the government proposed. I understand if they say they disagree with everything that this government does, but what are the odds that they would just happen to be against absolutely everything? I think that it is really—
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- Nov/21/23 11:45:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, there does not appear to be a quorum in the House.
And the count having been taken:
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- Nov/21/23 11:46:19 a.m.
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I believe we now have quorum.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands may proceed.
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Madam Speaker, if this were the first speech I ever gave in the House and we lost quorum, I would feel personally offended that everyone ran out of the room when I started to speak. However, I am going to assume it is that it is close to lunchtime and people are hungry, so I will not take offence at the fact that we seem to have lost quorum during my speech.
In any event, let us talk about Bill C-52, because I think it seeks to address a lot of the issues we see with airports in our country. Before I identify some of those key challenges, let us reflect on Canada's transportation ecosystem.
In the year 2019, for which I have the data, a total of 162 million people boarded and deplaned at Canadian airports. It is really important to note that 69% of those people either boarded or disembarked from a plane in these four cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. That is really important, because it speaks to why we need this legislation, given that so many people are using just four airports.
There were 26 airports in the national airport system that served around 90,000 air travellers since the 1990s. Most large airports were operated by private not-for-profit entities, which we know as airport authorities, through long-term leases with the federal government. There were 150-plus other airports owned and operated by provinces, territories and municipalities, including the municipality of Kingston. Of the air carriers, in 2019, Air Canada and WestJet accounted for 86% of the market share domestically. Let us think about that. Two operators accounted for 86% of the market share. Multiple mid-sized and small carriers existed. Those airports would often hire external service providers for baggage, ramp handling and refuelling, for example.
Canada's geography and population density can lead to unique challenges, as members can imagine. We have those four primary locations where people get on and off planes, which literally, if one were in Europe, would be several countries apart with respect to geography.
It is also important to point out that private or not-for-profit corporations are responsible for civil air navigation services across 18 million square kilometres of Canadian airspace, and they oversee more than 3.3 million flights a year through a network of air control centres. That is all done, as we know, by Nav Canada.
There are CATSA, CBSA and U.S. CBP. It was indicated that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority screened just under 68 million passengers between 2018 and 2019. The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for guarding our border, for immigration enforcement and for customs services. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection currently provides pre-clearance at eight airports. That provides the context for where the challenges exist, and I think it is important to understand what the ecosystem looks like in order to do that.
There are key challenges, and I will identify five of them.
The first challenge is with enhancing federal oversight legislation in the air sector. Canadian airports are not subject to an oversight framework legislation, apart from, as we know, safety and security. I think that is a major need, in the transportation sector specifically, and we really need to address it to provide that oversight framework.
The second challenge is the accountability deficit that impacts air service to Canadians. There are long-standing concerns, particularly about major disruptions like storms, and about system accountability and transparency, because we quite often hear about them.
I will never forget waiting to board a plane, and it was four or five hours late. We were told it was out of their control. Due to weather, the plane was going to be late, and nobody was going to be compensated. I looked out the window, and it was a bright, sunny day. I wondered how it was even possible that they blamed it on the weather. It turned out, after I bugged some people, that it had more to do with what the weather was like for the crew who had to fly from another area of the country.
There has to be accountability when it comes to those things, and quite frankly, it does not exist right now. How many times can we allow that domino to fall over? Eventually, one is going to hit somewhere in the world that has bad weather that can impact one's flight down the line. That is where there is a deficit in accountability.
A third challenge is that the system lacks service standards and a reporting framework. Canada's air transportation ecosystem lacks clear standards among key operators to ensure the delivery of efficient air transport. Why is having those standards so important? It is very important, especially in a sector that has fewer players, because the competition is not as robust.
We should have standards in the aviation sector anyway. Specifically, when a sector has only two key players, Air Canada and WestJet, that make up 86% of the market in our country, it is extremely important that we have standards in place. In some instances, we cannot rely on the competitive nature to develop those standards, especially when the competition is so low in terms of the number of players.
The fourth challenge is insufficient accountability in the marine mode. We know there are concerns that Canadian port authorities are not sufficiently accountable and are lacking appropriate recourse mechanisms when taking certain decisions like changing fees. Right now, those port authorities can, at their own will, change their fees to whatever they want, and there is no oversight mechanism.
It is important because it is not as though those fees can be done by somebody else. The fee is inelastic from an economic perspective. It is a fee that the marine port authority can charge at its discretion, and users have no recourse. That is a big challenge.
The last challenge I want to address is specifically with respect to data about accessible transportation, which needs to be improved. The Auditor General of Canada has called for better compliance data for service providers to identify and to remove barriers to accessible transportation. That one is self-sufficient. We heard a question regarding that. That is why it is so important. Those are the challenges that exist.
I would now like to talk about how this bill attempts to address those challenges. First, the bill introduces legislation, the air transportation accountability act, that would establish an oversight framework for airports on noise; establish requirements to provide information, environmental reporting, and equity, diversity and inclusion reporting; and provide regulation-making authority for the creation of service standards and the associated public reporting for operators in the airport ecosystem.
As I indicated, there are some authorities with respect to safety, but it pretty much stops there. We brought in a bill of rights back in 2018 for airplane passengers, but that pretty much stops at the actual interaction on the plane itself. That does not extend to everything else that happens from the moment one arrives at the airport to the point when one departs from a Canadian airport. We are looking to extend that framework and to allow it to encompass all those things in the ecosystem of the airport, not just on the plane itself, in addition to the other issues I talked about regarding noise and providing information on environmental reports.
The second thing this bill would accomplish would be to amend the Canada Transportation Act to provide the Governor in Council with the authority to make regulations: to require certain persons to provide data on key accessibility metrics to the Minister of Transport and to the Canadian Transportation Agency to support an accessible transportation system; and with respect to the process of dealing with complaints related to accessibility.
We did hear, earlier in the debate, examples of individuals who were put in extreme hardship as a result of not having that information in place. We know we have to do more for people with disabilities, and we have an obligation to bring in meaningful changes to ensure that people are treated with equity and fairness. However, we also need the data to be able to properly develop those regulations, and that is what the second part of the legislation would do.
Finally, this legislation would amend the Canada Marine Act to improve Canadian port authorities' accountability and transparency on fee setting and the related complaints process established in the regulations of dispute resolution mechanisms. I mentioned earlier that a port authority at a marine location can change its fees at its own discretion, whenever it wants and without consultation. We would put in place a mechanism to ensure consultation would take place with users, and there would be a mechanism to file a complaint if the users did not feel they had been justly informed and included in the creation of fees or the changes made to those fees.
Again, this is about making sure the framework is there to have a better experience for users. This entire bill would do that. It is about making the experiences for users of our airport authority ecosystem and of our marine ports better and more accountable. It is incredibly important.
I am getting the sense, after listening to the debate this morning in the House, that the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc will likely be in favour of moving this to committee. I recognize that the Conservatives appear to have some issues with the bill not going far enough, which is what we have heard them say. I do not know why that would prevent the Conservatives from at least voting for it at this point to get the bill to committee.
In the eight years I have been around here, times have become perhaps slightly cynical, but I would suggest that is a bit of a red herring. The Conservatives do not want to support the bill, but it is easier to say it does not go far enough, and it should go further; therefore, they will vote against it. It is probably more along the lines that they do not like the framework and do not think the framework should be in place. They believe in a form of extreme competition, even when it only includes two major players in the airline industry, for example, and they do not believe we should have regulations in place for standards. Perhaps that is just my cynical side, but it certainly has come across over many years of listening to debate in the House.
I hope that, at the very least, Conservatives will not filibuster this bill so it can never get out of the House to committee and that we do not have to work with the NDP and/or Bloc to time-allocate the bill so it does get to committee. However, I know that is another game the Conservatives like to play, so we might end up going down that road as well.
In any event, this is a very important bill. It would improve the experience of people utilizing marine ports and the airport ecosystem. I strongly encourage all members to support it so we can get it to committee, make the required amendments, and then bring it back before the House so it can become law for the betterment of our country and of those transportation systems.
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Madam Speaker, people living in the northern boroughs of Montreal, be it Ahuntsic or Montréal-Nord, are extremely concerned about the noise from Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport's air corridor. For years, they have been pleading for noise mitigation measures.
While there are good things in Bill C‑52, the New Democrats would go further. We would implement World Health Organization standards for noise around airports. We would make public Transport Canada noise data for areas surrounding airports, and we would improve data collection on ground-level airport noise. All these actions are found in the report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities released in 2019.
Why has the Liberal government not decided to go further, pushing forward to protect citizens suffering from excessive noise in the vicinity of airports?
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- Nov/21/23 12:01:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the comment, but I think the important thing here is to recognize the fact that, while this NDP colleague brings forward a concern, he also knows that he can address it when the bill gets to committee.
The member referenced a report where this issue about noise has already come up. The member for Scarborough—Guildwood made a comment earlier about the difference between legislation and regulation. I do not know if the member's concern falls into the legislative part of it, which is what we are dealing with now, or the regulation that comes out of the framework that is created. In any event, what we are trying to do here and what the bill would establish is the oversight framework for those airports.
As I indicated, I think 69% of all air travel in Canada is in four airports, with Montreal being one of the busiest four airports in the country. Obviously, the other three will probably have similar concerns with respect to noise. However, this framework would set up the manner in which the data that the member is talking about will be collected; the rules, decisions and regulations can then come out of that framework to better improve the negative experience that people are encountering at the Montreal airport.
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- Nov/21/23 12:03:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the bill purports to make travel experience better, but it does not really have service expectations or standards set out clearly. A lot of it is just left to the Governor in Council, or in other words, cabinet. I think it would be unfounded, but the member may have comfort in the Governor in Council today. He may not have that comfort in the future. Could he comment a little bit on whether the bill should not have more service standards and expectations built into it?
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- Nov/21/23 12:03:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question, but the member must not have been in the House to hear a similar question from the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, which would have answered it.
However, this is where I think the Conservatives are just using the issue as a red herring. The member should know better than to suggest that those specific details should be included at this point. The bill is about setting up the framework to be able to collect the data and then make those regulation decisions.
The member is basically asking why that detail is not in here, which I think is a red herring. This is just the Conservatives' excuse to vote against the bill. The member should know better than to suggest that this information should be included at this stage. This is about setting up the framework so that what he is going after can actually be obtained and then decisions made with regard to the 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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- Nov/21/23 12:05:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am certainly not an expert on it, nor do I claim to be. However, I know that there are experts out there, and they are probably the ones we should be relying on to collect the evidence and to make recommendations.
This is the exact point. From time to time, we have to put in a framework such as this one, with various pieces of legislation. The criticism, which I think is just a red herring, is that we are not doing the regulations. Well, would we not want to consult people first, obtain the information, talk to experts and then put in regulation? Of course we would, and that is what this bill would do; it would set up the process to allow that to happen.
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- Nov/21/23 12:06:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just have a couple of quick comments and then a question for the member.
Early in his speech, the member asked about the last time Conservatives voted in support of a Liberal bill. We did that yesterday, not even 24 hours ago.
The second thing is that I just want to thank the member for putting on the record that every member of Parliament should have as many interventions in the House as the member for Winnipeg North does, with 3,000 in the last two years. We may have two years left in this Parliament. I am looking forward to every other member in the House getting 3,000 interventions in the chamber in the next couple of years. That would be a great way to represent our constituents. I want to thank the member for putting that on the record.
Part of this bill would set up a framework for dealing with the challenges in our air industry, particularly the complaints. The member represents an area that has a local, regional airport. Having flown out of it many times in the past, I have run into a number of challenges flying through Kingston.
Could the member elaborate on whether he has heard any concerns in the last couple of years about his airport in Kingston?
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- Nov/21/23 12:07:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Kingston has had an airport since World War II. It continues to operate today.
Absolutely, there are always concerns. One of the challenges for Kingston, which other people see as a benefit, is that it is located two hours from Ottawa, two hours from Toronto and two hours from Montreal. The member said he flew through Kingston, and I do not understand that; one is either arriving or leaving to go to one of those other spots. However, the point is that while we have what might be seen as a detriment to Kingston, in terms of our airport, we also have the fourth-busiest train station in the country. People might not expect that of Kingston, but it is the case because of our proximity to the other cities I just mentioned.
In Kingston's case, it makes more sense for the average traveller to take the train, for example, from Kingston to downtown Toronto, jump on the train to Pearson, and then fly out of there. There are some people who still prefer to fly right out of Kingston, but the options are not as great as they are for some other small regional airports.
We have challenges, and I want this framework in place so that some of those challenges could be dealt with. That is what the framework is all about.
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- Nov/21/23 12:09:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I commend by colleague from Kingston and the Islands for his speech.
While the bill is well intentioned, certain aspects create great uncertainty. I would like my colleague to offer his opinion on the matter.
We note that the regulations in this bill give the minister a lot of latitude. Most of the changes will be through regulations. This raises many concerns for the various industries involved. Furthermore, it does not give legislators either control or certainty regarding the scope of the measures.
I would like my colleague to enlighten us on this matter.
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- Nov/21/23 12:10:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the theme of my questions.
The member for Scarborough—Guildwood said this better than I can. The framework is put in place, the regulations are put in place and then we have a committee that can oversee the regulations. If a member of Parliament has an issue, they should talk to their representatives on that committee, where the regulations that have been put in place by the minister could be scrutinized.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the incredible constituents of Calgary Midnapore.
Before I begin my speech, I would like to state that I will be splitting my time with the member for Provencher. I look forward to his remarks following mine.
When I received the request from our shadow minister for transport, the member for Chilliwack—Hope, I was, in fact, very honoured. One of my greatest achievements in my time in the House of Commons was serving as the shadow minister for transport during the pandemic. I can certainly tell everyone that things did not function as they should have during that time. They did not function at all, in fact.
My experience, based upon that time, leads me to the conclusion that there is, in regard to the government, lots of regulation and no responsibility. This also summarizes my conclusion regarding Bill C-52.
I think that this is a theme we have seen with the government. We have seen this with some recent decisions made at different levels of government, as well as at higher courts, including with regard to Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, as we called it here. There, they put in significant regulation against not only pipelines but also, actually, lots of other pieces of infrastructure. We see that this was, in fact, overturned.
Just this past week, as well, we were very happy to see, on this side of the House, the overruling of the single-use plastics legislation that was put in by the government. Again, the government imposes all this regulation on industry, on Canadians and on third parties without taking the responsibility for the regulations that it has imposed upon itself. I think we are seeing this again in this bill.
I am sure that we are aware that 2022 was a disastrous summer travel season, as well as a terrible holiday travel season through December. Really, if we look back at that, it was for the reason that I gave at the beginning of my speech, which was poor management of the transportation sector through the pandemic.
Frankly, they had no plan for the airline sector at that time. As the shadow minister of transport, I certainly tried to get them to produce a plan. They did no such thing. This had significant and widespread consequences not only for Canadians but also for workers across Canada, as well as for different communities and regions across Canada.
I implored them to come up with a plan for regional airlines at the time. Regional airport authorities were left to fend for themselves. I, along with my colleagues, made a very strong push for them to implement rapid testing and implement it sooner than they did, in an effort to more easily facilitate both travel and the travel sector. As well, I tried very hard to convince them not to use the supports for sectors for executive compensation. All these requests that I made as the shadow minister for transport fell upon deaf ears at that time.
In addition, of course, I was not alone in doing that. There were also my colleagues, the member of Parliament for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and the member of Parliament for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.
Sadly, in September 2020, we saw 14% of Nav Canada employees being laid off in centres in Winnipeg and Halifax. That is just another example of the lack of action of the government during the pandemic. At that time, 750 families had to go home and tell their families that they did not have a job anymore.
I said back in September 2020, before the throne speech, that our economy simply cannot function, let alone thrive, without major carriers and airport authorities. Ironically, I said that on mini-budget day, and here we are again today.
In 2020, the Calgary Airport Authority alone was expecting a 64% drop in passenger traffic from 2019 levels and projecting a loss of $245 million in revenue. Other airport authorities across the country were facing similar challenges at the time. Stakeholders also reported that some supply chains had been overloaded as a result of the pandemic, with demand for some products having increased by up to 500% and vulnerabilities having become apparent.
At that moment, I asked for the government to develop a plan with common-sense solutions. We continue to ask for such solutions today; again, they are not apparent in Bill C-52. Once again, we see a government that has lots of regulations, yet takes no responsibility.
I will turn my speech now to the point about complaints. Over the past year, the backlog of complaints with the CTA, the Canadian Transportation Agency, has grown to an average of 3,000 complaints per month, with a backlog of over 60,000 complaints now waiting to be adjudicated by the agency. In fact, the bill before us would set no service standards for the Canadian Transportation Agency and would do nothing to eliminate the backlog of 60,000 complaints. I have an example from my riding, where, as of July 2023, I had a constituent waiting two years for a response from the CTA to the complaint they had registered. In the same eight months when the CTA processed 4,085 complaints, the complaints grew by 12,000, doubling in that time. It is no wonder Canadians are dissatisfied with the current process in place, and the legislation would do little to improve it without said standards.
As well, it is not clear which entities would be covered by the bill as the bill would be left to future regulations. A theme we have heard on this side in discussing the bill today is there are lots of regulations. In fact, we have seen from the other side of the House that members take advantage of the regulations. They take advantage of Canadians in using these regulations. We might see something that is perhaps gazetted and then all of sudden brought into implementation, with both industry and Canadians being forced to respond and to pay the price for the use of regulation by the government.
Fundamentally, the bill remains a toothless bill that contains no specific remedies to the problems that have been plaguing the system since the pandemic. I will add that during the difficult time coming out of the pandemic, the then minister of transport blamed Canadians for forgetting how to travel. I talked about the government's shirking responsibility, and there we see it again with the minister of transport's not saying that it was his bad or that he should have come up with a plan during the pandemic, but rather blaming Canadians. He was not even addressing it through the complaint process, nor was he willing to fix the complaint process.
I have a quote from a significant air passenger rights advocate, Gabor Lukacs. Anyone who sits on the transport committee certainly will have communicated with him. He says, “There may be penalties, but even those powers are left to the government to create.” Since I am throwing out Gabor Lukacs's name, I would also like to mention Roy Grinshpan, who has also been an incredible advocate for passenger rights and passenger advocacy.
Even the pilots with whom I worked so closely during the pandemic are not in favour of the legislation. The president of ALPA Canada, Captain Tim Perry, for whom I have a lot of respect, brought to my attention that safety might be compromised as a result of the implementation of the bill to ensure that passengers are taken care of. This is simply another concern, which is that passengers are not being taken care of, and even the pilots who fly the planes are voicing their concern over this.
To conclude, I talked about the implementation of regulation, so much of it, but again there is no responsibility. The then minister of transport said that there would be consequences for service providers that do not meet the standards, but he did not disclose what they would be. Again, there is so much regulation and no responsibility. The government tells Canadians and industry time and time again that they have to do this and that, but it never takes responsibility for the legislation it implements.
In conclusion, Bill C-52 and the government are about lots of regulations but no responsibility.
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Madam Speaker, because today I understand that the Conservatives are doing a count, I think this is my 3,260th or so time that I have actually stood up in the House. I can honestly say that this is in good part because the Conservative Party continues to want to mislead Canadians and direct them off track. Unfortunately, that means I do have to stand up periodically to set the record straight and put some facts forward, as opposed to the mischief that the Conservative Party wants to constantly create and spread throughout social media.
The bill is a very good example. Bill C-52 is good, solid legislation that would improve the conditions of air travel and port fees for Canadians virtually from coast to coast to coast. It is good, substantial legislation, yet the Conservative Party is going to be voting against it. Why would the Conservative Party vote against the legislation, as opposed to supporting it, allowing it to go to committee and maybe looking at making some changes like the member herself is? It seems to be common sense.
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