How independent is Canadian Transportation Agency?
The now-unredacted email shows that the other person present in that meeting was then-transportation minister Marc Garneau's chief of staff.
By Rosa SabaBusiness Reporter
Thu., Feb. 3, 2022timer5 min. read
Turns out, it was the federal transportation minister's chief of staff.
Newly unredacted emails between Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency reveal further details on what critics call undue government and industry involvement in the watchdog's March 2020 statement that airlines could provide vouchers to passengers for disrupted flights rather than refunding tickets.
Previously released with certain names and details omitted when first publicized in 2021, the unredacted versions of the emails were disclosed on Jan. 31 under a Federal Court of Appeal order.
The earlier disclosures drew criticism from opposition MPs and passenger advocates about the fact that the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) and Transport Canada were in frequent contact in the days leading up to the March 25, 2020 statement by the Canadian Transportation Agency allowing airlines to issue vouchers or credit instead of refunds for flights cancelled due to COVID-19.
One email described a meeting between the Canadian Transportation Agency's chair and Transport Canada's deputy minister, with one other title initially redacted; it also referenced a conversation between then-senior CTA director Marcia Jones and an assistant deputy minister.
Government officials can't have their names redacted from government documents, said Xavier Barsalou-Duval, the Bloc Québécois MP who in June raised concerns about the redacted name, which is why questions arose in 2021 about whether this meeting included industry lobbyists or another third party.
Now that it's clear it was a government official, Barsalou-Duval questions why the chief of staff's involvement was redacted at all.
"They tried to hide the fact that the chief of staff was part of the meeting," he said, adding he "doesn't think it's appropriate at all" for the chief of staff to be involved.
The Bloc Québécois in 2021 asked for an independent inquiry into the controversy, and Barsalou-Duval said this will be on the agenda for the federal transportation committee.
Gabor Lukacs, president and founder of Air Passenger Rights, said the mention of the transportation minister's chief of staff is the new detail that concerns him most.
"It's unclear to me … why that was redacted," said Lukacs, noting that in 2020 Garneau told a special committee that the Canadian Transportation Agency is "a quasi‑judicial body that operates at arm's length from Transport Canada and the government of Canada."
But these emails show much more than an arm's-length relationship, said Lukacs.
"Legally, (the CTA) were supposed to be the watchdog."
In an email, a spokesperson for the office of Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra said discussions between Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency are a common and established practice, and that the government is "committed to establishing fair and transparent refund processes for Canadians, with emphasis on protecting passenger rights."
The statement did not directly address the involvement of the former minister's chief of staff in the meeting referenced in the email.
John Gradek, a former Air Canada executive and head of McGill University's Global Aviation Leadership Program, said the inclusion of the minister's chief of staff in the meeting raises questions about whether there was pressure on the Canadian Transportation Agency at the political level to release a statement protecting airlines from refund requirements.
It certainly appears to be closer than the arm's length described by Garneau in 2020, said Gradek.
"With the redactions removed, you now see the machinations of political influence," he said.
NDP MP Taylor Bachrach said he found this detail "deeply troubling."
"These documents lift the veil on how this government operates and it's not a pretty picture," he said.
"There are important questions to answer."
A spokesperson for Transport Canada said communications between the department and the Canadian Transportation Agency are "intended to allow the department to inform the minister on matters that he may be called upon to respond to in his capacity (as the) minister responsible for CTA."
"Such discussions do not impact or hinder in any way CTA's independence or arm's-length relationship with Transport Canada. For example, it would not be uncommon for the agency to inform the department of an upcoming announcement or for the department to ask factual questions about announcements to be in a position to inform the minister. Such discussions are an established practice, and are part of ongoing, regular communications between Transport Canada and the CTA," said the spokesperson.
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In an emailed statement, a CTA spokesperson echoed responses from Transport Canada and the transportation minister's office, saying that the agency's communications leading up to the March 25 statement were within its mandate. The spokesperson noted that the voucher statement was not binding, and that passengers could still file refund-related complaints to the CTA.
In December, more emails showed that then-Transat A.T. CEO Jean-Marc Eustache asked the Canadian Transportation Agency on March 22 for such a statement so that airlines wouldn't have to issue refunds or suffer credit-card chargeback claims, raising questions about the industry's role in the matter.
This latest release further details Transat's apparent role in putting pressure on the agency to issue this statement; a March 18, 2020 email from a Transport Canada representative to the Canadian Transportation Agency's then-director said that "Air Transat are telling us that they are getting pressure from creditors who are pushing on the airlines for cash. They will request that we officially let them to (sic) provide vouchers to passengers instead of providing them cash because they literally do not have enough cash to give refunds."
Transat's vice-president of HR and corporate affairs, Christophe Hennebelle, said in an email that he can't comment on emails that the company was not directly involved with but that, at the beginning of the pandemic, the intent of any exchanges Transat might have had with the Canadian Transportation Agency or Transport Canada was "to make sure they had a full understanding of a situation that was continuously evolving, and to seek guidance on our interpretation of the applicable legislation, which had been modified only a few months earlier."
"For the record, as we were facing this crisis, we said publicly numerous times that we wished to be able to reimburse our clients, but that we needed help to be able to (do) so. Indeed, we provided refunds when we received help to be able to do so," said Hennebelle.
The Canadian Transportation Agency is supposed to report to Parliament, not the industry nor the minister, said Gradek.
"In this case, they were protecting airlines' financial statements or financial position. I think passenger rights were secondary."
Clarification — Feb. 3, 2022: This article was edited to clarify the March 2020 statement by the Canadian Transportation Agency that airlines could provide vouchers to passengers for disrupted flights. As well, it was updated with comment by the agency.
With files from Jacob Lorinc and The Canadian Press
Rosa Saba is a Toronto-based business reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rosajsaba