Bigwigs in Ottawa made two astonishing admissions last week. One, that Canada's official prime ministerial residence is a disgrace and something has to be done about it. Two, that the country's airline passenger rights rules were badly contrived, have proved utterly useless and need to be radically improved.
This is not small stuff. Politicians don't like to admit mistakes. They particularly dislike confessions involving their own actions. Justin Trudeau was more than happy to denounce errors of any sort as long as they could be pinned on anyone but himself; when the blame pointed directly at his office, the best anyone could expect was a vague concession that 'mistakes (possibly) were made.' By who was left unclear, as if someone had snuck into the PMO and perpetrated untold gaffes while everyone else was out for lunch.
So it's positive news that Prime Minister Mark Carney is willing to say out loud that having a falling-down dump at 24 Sussex Dr. is an embarrassment, and for Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon to pronounce the passenger rights regime an unmitigated disaster.
Perhaps they'll follow through on their declared plans to do better. Still, Canadians can't help but wonder what shift in the slow march of the universe brought about this wondrous realization. The official residence has been in crappy shape for at least a handful of prime ministers, maybe more depending on the degree of crappiness in question. None of them had the nerve to do a thing about it, other than Trudeau refusing to step so much as a sock in the place.
The notion that air passengers enjoyed actual rights has proved similarly farcical, as MacKinnon candidly conceded in a statement that seemed weirdly eager to concede the flaws of a policy put in place by a government he's served for a decade. 'We hear repeatedly the regulations … are too complex,' he declared, citing 'the frustration, the unfair rules, the exemptions, the lack of clarity, the confusion, the loopholes …' And what, you were too busy enjoying winter in Ottawa to fix it?
It can take years to settle a complaint before the Canadian Transportation Agency, where tens of thousands of cases end up because the airlines are so skilled at ignoring, rejecting or delaying passenger gripes brought to them first. I happen to know this first-hand, as a complaint I lodged with the CTA just over a year ago is still marked 'not started' on the CTA website. I have to admit the matter in question wasn't a huge deal, and I'd probably have ignored it if the airline hadn't been so rude, abrupt and crudely dismissive in responding to my original approach.
But that's just the thing. Air Passenger Protection Regulations introduced by the Liberals in 2019 were hailed as a new dawn in ensuring 'Canadians, tourists and businesses all benefit from a safe, efficient and more transparent air industry.' They proved so hopeless they were updated in 2023, with the need for improvement blamed on COVID and a later surge in travel that revealed 'ambiguity' in the rules, 'resulting in an excessive number of refusals to compensate by airlines, and many appeals to the CTA.'
