44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 21, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I want to thank hon. colleagues for allowing me to be part of this debate on Bill C-52.
I have listened intently to the debate. I even went back to listen to the debate of October 27. Some may ask why I did that. I spent about 25 years in aviation and I am keenly interested in the transportation sector. I think there might be a handful of us in the House who have lived it, breathed it and know what we are talking about when it comes to aviation and our transportation networks, Therefore, I am going to be come at this in a few different areas.
I have heard what our Bloc, NDP and Liberal colleagues have said, and a few things need to be addressed. Bill C-52 was an opportunity that the government had, after eight years, to actually fix some of the problems with the disastrous travel seasons in the last couple of years post-pandemic.
How did we get here? We had a summer season that was horrible. We had a winter season, a Christmas season, when passengers were sleeping on the floors of our national airports. I am probably not going to make any friends with my airport colleagues, probably limiting any of my post-political career job opportunities, when I say that our national airports or our gateway airports are failing us. Why are they failing us? Because the government has failed to put into place measures to make things better for passengers, Canadians and the travelling public, the people coming to and from our country.
Only a decade ago, Canada had a government that understood that our country was a trading nation, that our success as a nation was predicated on our ability to move people and goods seamlessly and securely. Our former Conservative government invested in our ports and airports, our roadways and railways. We were able to move people and goods seamlessly and securely. We did not see the blockages or blockades to the number we see now. We are losing our reputation on the world stage to be a frontrunner of trade and in the movement of goods and people. Our success is predicated on being able to move the goods and the talent we produce here to other countries.
The member for Winnipeg North talked about Bill C-52 and its goals to increase the efficiency, accountability and transparency of our ports and airports. He said that the blame was on the airports, but the blame is spread a little throughout. The government has failed to do what it could in the last eight years. It has really fallen down.
This was most evident during the last Christmas break when thousands upon thousands of visitors to our country and Canadians were forced to camp out on the floors of our airports and major gateways for hours and days. I was on an aircraft for six and a half hours waiting for deicing fluid for deicing tanks. However, my time was minimal compared to those who spent days in that airport. I am so proud of Vancouver, YVR, one of our major gateway airports, but I was very vocal about how it had failed.
The reason I say this is because I have sat in pre-winter briefings with our major airports as a small airport manager. As a regional airport, we have to funnel our passengers through our major gateway airports to get them to and from our country.
We ask our major airport officials whether they are ready for Christmas and for the snowfall. They say, “We are ready.” As a matter of fact, YVR released a shiny video with all its snow removal equipment. We get two or three inches of snow, which is a normal dump of snow for those of us in rural areas and our airports stay open, but it causes chaos in our major airports. Therefore, they will pardon me if I get a little frustrated when our major airports continue to fall down.
I was invited to join a winter debriefing call. I challenged our airport and airline colleagues as to whether they were ready, and what were some of the lessons learned. I heard they have learned their lesson. How many times in 20 years have I heard that? It is so frustrating.
My travel day is 12 to 15 hours on a good day. Most times, it is delayed, but I am okay; I signed up for this and I just take it as it comes. What about the average Canadian passenger who is delayed or cannot make it to a funeral or a wedding?
Our concerns are that Bill C-52 proposes to make airports more accountable, but it does not look at the aviation ecosystem as a whole. What about Nav Canada? What about CBSA? Again, there is flow control. How many times are Canadians forced to sit on a plane due to flow control because Nav Canada has not been able to staff up our air traffic control towers?
I heard from our Bloc colleagues about air service development. Bill C-52 would do nothing about air service development. Here is a news release saying that Bill C-52 would not do anything about it. The only thing they can do is work with their regional carrier. The reality is that we are all in competition. Every community across our country is in competition for air service. There are 26 airports in our national airport system and four regional airports that have over 200,000 passengers. There are 71 regional airports and we are all in competition.
Not only are we in competition with one another, but we are in competition with our border communities in the United States. Billions upon billions of dollars are lost every day because we are failing in our competition with airports and ports just across our border. We have people who leave Canada out of my province and take a flight out of Bellingham. Why is that? It is because a $29 fare in Bellingham is a $29 fare. In Canada, a $29 fare would be probably about $174, if not more. That is because we have a user pay system in Canada. The idea is that the costs for airports, for the operation, for airlines and whatever are borne by the air travellers. It is in the form of airport improvement fees. That was introduced in the 1990s. YVR, I believe, was one of the first airports to allow for airport fees for renovations. We do that because we as a country view our airports as cash cows and not necessarily the economic engines that they really are, so airports have to recover their costs in one of a few ways: landing fees, terminal fees, real estate and commercial fees. That is really the only way that they can do it. There are very limited revenue opportunities for airports.
I will get back to Bill C-52. I am on a soapbox right now, and I apologize for that.
Our colleague across the way said that we over here on the opposition side like to talk and talk about legislation. Is that not what we are here for? Is that not like the pot calling the kettle black? As my colleague just mentioned, that colleague from Winnipeg North has stood up over 3,026 times, I believe, since 2021.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: That's not enough.
Mr. Todd Doherty: Madam Speaker, I am hearing from one of the colleagues that it is not enough.
I, on the other hand, have risen 162 times. Shame on me. I should be getting up a little bit more. I have to be doing my job a little bit more. I get heckles from across the way.
I listened to the debate on October 27. In response to a question from a Bloc member about why there is no air service in their region, that they have an airport but they do not have air service, and shame on this government, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport stood up and said that he had heard the same from one of his colleagues in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and that he is working on that.
One is telling me that the government is going to pick winners and losers, once again, as it has throughout this whole eight years, that it will subsidize air service in the Yukon and Northwest Territories but perhaps not in Quebec or not in B.C. or not in some of our rural or remote areas that some of our other colleagues on the opposition side represent. Once again, we see Liberals picking Liberals over the rest of Canadians. That is shameful.
Our colleague from the Green Party talked about the fact that Bill C-52 fails to mention intermodal opportunities. She is right. We missed a great opportunity in following up on the great work that our former Conservative government had started, investing in intermodal opportunities, making sure that we can seamlessly move people and goods through our airports, ports, railways and roadways.
We have the fastest and greenest marine port to Asia in the Port of Prince Rupert just adjacent to my riding. We have the fastest and greenest railway into the U.S. Midwest, connecting the Port of Prince Rupert from Asia and bringing goods by rail into the U.S. Midwest. If Canada ever figured out what we really wanted to be in this world, we could set the world on fire. We could really do some incredible things.
Bill C-52 was a great opportunity for the government to put a stamp on the transportation network and yet it did not.
This government does some things really well. Let us give credit where credit is due. It does photo opportunities incredibly well. We had the transport minister banging his fist on the desk, saying that he sure told those airlines and the aviation business and they are going to listen to him.
Bill C-52 does nothing. It is lacking in so much detail. All we have asked for is to be provided some details. Who are they going to make more accountable? Where are the regulations for CATSA? Where are the regulations for CBSA?
It would require “airport authorities to publish” an annual report on “diversity among directors” of the airport authority and members of “senior management”. We have among the most diverse individuals, with the most expertise, on our airport authorities than any other nation, I believe. We have incredible people on our airport authorities.
It would force airport authorities to create and publish five-year climate change adaptation plans.
One Bloc member talked about how there is no air service in their region and then another Bloc member said that it is GHG emissions and the noise abatement issues. One cannot suck and blow at the same time. One cannot have it both ways. What is it? Does one want air service or not? As for noise abatement issues, there are regulations for airports. Our airports do have to report to Transport Canada. They are heavily regulated. As a matter of fact, we have among the most heavily regulated and we have the highest cost aviation jurisdiction in the world.
Why can we not attract carriers to our country? We cannot attract carriers to our country because it is expensive to fly into our country. It is expensive to even just fly over our country. They have to pay NavCan fees.
I will go back to intermodal opportunities now. Our colleague from the Green Party mentioned bus service. My community of Prince George is on the Highway of Tears and the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls has been widely publicized.
Far too often, members of our indigenous and our rural and remote communities are forced to hitchhike to get to major service centres or other communities because there is no national bus service anymore. Greyhound, the national bus service that we had for so long, that served some of our smaller communities, pulled its service in 2021. I believe the last service was in Ontario and that service was pulled. There are no coordinated services amongst provinces. We have smaller bus agencies that are trying to get another bus service, but without a coordinated plan, either federally or provincially, we are going to continue to see that.
I was amongst the first employees of WestJet. We looked at how to pick markets to go into. We did bus surveys. The idea was we were going to get bums out of bus seats and into planes. WestJet has been pretty good at that, but the ripple effect makes it harder for people in rural and remote communities, because of the departure of our national bus carrier, Greyhound.
Our colleague, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood mentioned service standards. He asked our colleague, the member for Winnipeg North about the service standards that are not being met. It was interesting, because he did not ask about the service standards in Bill C-52. There are no service standards in Bill C-52.
Bill C-52 lacks a ton of details, and that is our concern. It gives the authority to the minister, once again, without having to come before the House or Canadians to say that this is what the government is going to do.
Earlier in the day somebody said to me that trust and respect are earned. I would hazard that the Liberal government received the trust and the respect of Canadians in 2015, but in the last eight years, the Prime Minister and his government have squandered that. Fool me once, shame on them; fool me twice, shame on me.
What we have seen over time is that Canadians are just waking up to the fact that the government is not worth the cost. Bill C-52 is yet another piece of legislation where the government is saying, “Do not worry about it. We will get it to committee and work on it.” The Liberals say all the time that it is the Conservatives who are squandering time and delaying bills, but they have a majority with their NDP coalition, and now with their Bloc coalition. If Liberals really want to force things through, and believe me, I sit on the committees and I see it all the time, they could get it done, if they really wanted to do it.
We are on the record.
I see a colleague across the way waiting to get up and ask me a question. I will simply leave with this, Bill C-52 is just another example of a bill where the Liberals are saying, “Trust us”. Canadians know they can no longer trust the government to get anything done, and that Conservatives will come in and clean up the mess.
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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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- 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 1:49:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
The reality is, and I mentioned this to a Liberal colleague earlier, the Liberal government was really asleep at the switch when it came to transport. I know many people were avoiding, for instance, the Toronto Pearson International Airport because there were difficulties.
As I understand it, a backlog of 60,000 complaints remain. I remember experiencing travel issues. I was probably one of many millions of Canadians. As I said, the Liberals have been asleep at the switch, so how can we trust them to eliminate and deal with these 60,000 complaints when they cannot seem to get anything right after eight years in government?
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