CTA REPORT DESERVES MORE THAN A CURSORY GLANCE

July 25, 2001

OTTAWA-The final report of the Canada Transportation Act (CTA) Review Panel was tabled in Parliament on July 18th, 2001. Almost immediately the Minister of Transport began to downplay a number of the key recommendations made by his hand-picked panel of transportation experts, in particular the recommendations for reforming the airline industry. 

“This review and its recommendations were intended to provide the Government with a “blueprint” for the direction of transportation policy in Canada. It is hard to see how that will happen when you start denouncing its recommendations the day you release it to the public.” began Jay Hill;, MP. 

The Minister has indicated he prefers a wait-and-see approach to restructuring the airline industry in order to allow the various competitors to find their niche and give emerging airlines a chance to grow. Since adopting this position Royal Airlines and Canjet Airlines have been bought out by Canada 3000 and Roots Air was abandoned in a now failed merger with Air Canada. 

“An entire Chapter(7) of the report was dedicated to analyzing the current near monopoly status of our airline industry and included several reasonable recommendations on how the Government could create an atmosphere which would create competition, without sacrificing our domestic airlines. To simply ignore the recommendations contained in the report will ensure that Air Canada will solidify its monopoly position and Canadians will see less choice of airlines and the cost of airfare will continue increase dramatically.” continued Hill. 

Included in the report were recommendations such as exposing air services to the benefits of NAFTA, increasing foreign ownership to 49%, removing barriers to participation in frequent flyer programs and providing a means for appealing access rights at airports for new entrants to the industry. 

“It is time the government stopped protecting Air Canada at the expense of the traveling public and began to consider seriously the recommendations made by its own panel of experts..” concluded Hill.