Canadian officials and ministers have allegedly tried to delay and undermine efforts that would force airlines to pay for the country’s air passenger complaints system, according to a new report.
Almost 100,000 people are waiting for compensation after parliament directed the Canadian Transportation Agency in 2023 to introduce a cost-recovery fee on airlines.
Currently, Canadian taxpayers cover about $30 million in processing air passenger complaints, and the backlog of people seeking compensation has reached more than 88,000.
Types of issues that people could seek compensation for include flight delays or lost luggage.
However, due to an overwhelmed complaints system, parliament ordered the agency to charge airlines a fee for cases when passengers had eligible claims.
CBC Go Public reported that documents revealed correspondence between the Canadian Transportation Agency and multiple transport ministers through different governments.
One of the documents reveals that then-transport minister Anita Anand requested the CTA delay the introduction of a fee charged to airlines, according to the report.
“Given that the agency has not consulted with me, I respectfully request that you refrain from implementing any decision on the fee until you have adequately done so,” the letter reads.
Further, ministry officials emailed the CTA to express concern about the proposed fee. Airlines would be charged $790 per complaint regardless of the findings.
That charge would still cover only about 60 percent of the nearly $30 million it would cost taxpayers to handle the backlog of complaints.
While the CTA had received input from Anand’s predecessor, Pablo Rodriguez, the then-minister said that was not good enough.
"I should have been accorded, as the incoming Minister, the opportunity to provide my input to the proposal," wrote Anand. "Notification to the previous Minister is insufficient."
Research chair in administrative law and governance at the University of Ottawa, Pauly Daly said Anand’s conduct appeared “spurious” and “constitutionally inappropriate”.
“The clock doesn’t restart on consultation or anything else when a new minister takes office,” he said.
“It is not the personal property of whoever happens to be occupying the office at a particular point in time.”
Daly further argued that the adequacy of consultation should be judged by the CTA, not the minister.
“It’s very clear that it is the agency’s job to decide who should be consulted,” he said.
“What we are seeing here is that the government and the minister in particular are sabotaging parliament’s will.”
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