Juno News - Chaos in Canada’s airports (Ft. Duncan Dee)

00:00:00.000 Hi guys, welcome back to the show. I hope you're enjoying a great summer and enjoying the warm

00:00:24.680 weather wherever it is you are in the country. Normally, this time of year, many of us, many

00:00:31.440 Canadians travel abroad and many visitors come to Canada. But if you've been keeping up with the

00:00:37.480 news, you will have noted what a disaster air travel has become. To be fair, it's a situation

00:00:43.900 that's not just unique to Canadian airports. The disaster at airports seems to be a worldwide

00:00:50.180 phenomenon affecting all major airports across the world. To talk about the situation at our

00:00:57.100 airports, I can't think of anyone more qualified than Duncan D. Duncan D. is the former Chief

00:01:03.820 Operating Officer of Air Canada and a well-known commentator on issues related to travel and

00:01:10.280 tourism. He's been extremely critical about the Trudeau government's handling of the current

00:01:15.140 situation at our airports. So please welcome Duncan D. to the show. Hey Duncan, so it's great

00:01:21.940 to have you here. There's so much to talk about, but maybe we can start with the mess at our

00:01:28.240 airports. You may remember that back in the spring, our Transportation Minister, Omar Al-Gabra,

00:01:35.760 claimed that out-of-practice travelers were responsible for the airport delays. Essentially,

00:01:42.400 I believe shifting the blame to the poor traveler and excusing the government's own failures.

00:01:49.660 What did you think of what Minister Al-Gabra said back then? And more broadly, what do you think

00:01:56.140 have been the main failures from the government that's led to the current mess?

00:02:02.680 Thanks Rupa. So I think that the root of the problem really was when Minister Al-Gabra started blaming

00:02:10.980 out-of-practice travelers for the mess at the airports. Because when you start out by blaming

00:02:17.900 the users for the problems in the system, it signals really to everyone that you don't recognize

00:02:26.080 the problems are yours. And so the issues we've seen at the airports have been very, very consistent,

00:02:32.840 primarily in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, with CATSA lines that have spanned upwards of three

00:02:38.860 hours at the worst of times, aircraft holding off gate two to three hours whenever things have

00:02:45.780 backed up at the customs hall. And so what we've seen now for almost four months are consistent delays

00:02:52.960 in the processing of travelers, both on departure at security and on arrival at customs and immigration.

00:03:00.120 Yeah. So, yeah, he was definitely, I mean, it certainly came across that way to me that he was

00:03:08.300 not looking at the situation at the airports and the way the government's been handling it and just

00:03:13.300 shifting the blame to the travelers. And, you know, I'd like to point to something that I was reading in

00:03:19.880 the news recently. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Toronto's Pearson has earned the

00:03:26.860 dubious distinction of being the world's worst this summer, I believe with more than 50% of flights

00:03:33.800 arriving late the last few weeks, making it even worse than Heathrow, Frankfurt, and all other major

00:03:41.320 airports. But the government's standard defense, again, going back to Minister Al-Gabra, you know,

00:03:47.660 whether it comes to the airport situation or to inflation, everybody else is, everyone is having

00:03:54.520 the same problems. It's not just unique to us. Certainly, there's no question that major airports

00:04:01.140 like Heathrow have had some well-publicized problems this summer. But do you think this is a fair comment

00:04:08.140 by the government? Or do you think it's just a cop-out for their own failure to fix the system?

00:04:14.380 Look, I think it's an absolute cop-out. If you take a look at that list published by the Wall Street

00:04:20.220 Journal, of the top 10 airports, there were two in North America. Number one was Pearson by a wide

00:04:27.640 margin. And then number 10 was Orlando Airport at the very bottom, where they've experienced actually

00:04:33.640 some weather issues in the last little while. And the only other non-European airport on that list

00:04:39.080 was Sydney, Australia, which has had some issues that they've dealt with, particularly regarding

00:04:45.740 labor shortages. So when you take a look at the situation, the best comparators to Pearson would,

00:04:53.080 in normal times, be JFK in New York, O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Atlanta Airport, or, you know,

00:05:00.980 maybe if you wanted even LaGuardia Airport, which isn't an international airport, but is still a

00:05:06.640 major airport in the US. None of those airports are in the top 10 worst delayed airports in the world,

00:05:13.180 but Pearson is. And so, you know, the notion that Canada is just one of many doesn't really hold

00:05:18.940 water, especially when Pearson stands head and shoulders above the second airport on that list,

00:05:25.920 which would have been Heathrow Airport, where they've been facing significant issues.

00:05:29.560 So, you know, I think that it's a definite cop-out. I think what the government has done

00:05:34.660 is basically tried to wash its hands of what's happened at the airports, but the airports and

00:05:40.420 the travelers won't let them forget it. So what exactly makes Pearson one of the worst in the world

00:05:46.760 right now to transit through or to arrive or leave or depart from? What are issues that are specific

00:05:56.420 to Pearson that, you know, one doesn't experience, say, in Orlando or in Sydney, for that matter?

00:06:03.200 Well, like, I mean, Rupa, I think that that is an excellent question. And if you just take a look

00:06:08.240 at the headlines, for example, you know, a few days ago, USA Today had a story how travelers in Maui,

00:06:16.280 Hawaii, were waiting an hour before clearing security at the airport. And somehow that was worthy 0.93

00:06:22.420 of reporting. Well, at Pearson Airport, we've had days and days and weeks and weeks of travelers

00:06:27.940 taking three hours or more to get through security first thing in the morning. And somehow, you know,

00:06:33.720 an hour at Maui is worthy of a newspaper headline. But, you know, like the bottom line is, is I think

00:06:40.280 that what makes Pearson different is the cumulative impact of the delays that we've seen at Pearson

00:06:45.260 for, for almost four months now, these delays started at least the first I observed personally

00:06:51.260 was on the fourth, sorry, the second of April. So almost four months ago, you know, where you've

00:06:57.920 had where we had a three hour delay on a Saturday morning in April, when there really shouldn't have

00:07:02.440 been delays at all. You know, April is not a heavy travel month in Canada, as you know, Rupa, but we

00:07:09.020 still saw a three hour long lineup at security on a Saturday morning in April. That has not changed

00:07:15.080 since April at Pearson. We've had delays like that virtually every day, either at customs or at

00:07:21.400 security. You've had aircraft holding off gate. You've had travelers waiting in huge lines. And so

00:07:28.380 it's really not been any different. And when you have the cumulative impact of that cascading into the

00:07:35.240 peak summer travel period, like we were seeing now, where travel is booming in terms of the number

00:07:41.220 of travelers taken to the skies, it's really just a product of what we've seen that has been taking

00:07:48.060 place for such a long time. So Duncan, is it is it just international travel that's been the most

00:07:54.660 affected? Or is it just also also domestic travel? So if I were to get on a plane here from Ottawa to

00:08:00.900 Fredericton, New Brunswick, am I going to have these issues at security, at security and, and, and,

00:08:09.140 you know, you know, when I'm going to pick up my luggage? Or is it just, is it's, or is it both

00:08:16.560 domestic and international travel that have been severely affected?

00:08:21.580 No, look, it's a great, great question. And the reason why the situation is affecting both

00:08:28.780 international and domestic traveler travelers is because international air, there are no such

00:08:35.680 thing as international only aircraft or domestic only aircraft at airlines in Canada, you've got

00:08:42.340 aircraft that may have started their day in LaGuardia airport. And then they went through

00:08:48.940 Toronto before they got to Ottawa to then go from Ottawa to Fredericton. And so when you've got that

00:08:54.020 situation where aircraft are moving around the system day in and day out, that's where the

00:08:59.660 cumulative impact of this that we're seeing. So let's just say that the flight that you were taking

00:09:04.960 illustratively from Ottawa to Fredericton, if that aircraft started in Montreal or Toronto before it

00:09:12.060 got to Ottawa, it could have been delayed, which would have meant that your delay, your flight would

00:09:17.140 have been delayed from Ottawa to Fredericton. And because that flight was delayed, then the Fredericton

00:09:22.500 back to Ottawa flight would be delayed as well. And so, you know, the ecosystem that's the air

00:09:27.780 transportation sector in Canada is very much intertwined. You've got flights coming in from

00:09:32.940 any destination, international or domestic, that eventually, at some point, pass to, through,

00:09:40.520 or from either Montreal or Toronto airport, which are the two worst affected airports during the

00:09:46.860 federal service failures we've seen over the last four months.

00:09:49.580 Right. I mean, for sure, there's a cascading effect when it comes to these things, even in the best,

00:09:54.600 during the best of times. And I can only imagine, I can't even imagine what the situation right now

00:09:59.860 is. But I wanted to ask you, you know, it's been a month since the Trudeau government announced this

00:10:08.660 task force, I believe, to fix the mess at the airports. And also, I believe, the passport offices.

00:10:14.280 Do you have any sense of what's been going on with this task force? Do you think that the government

00:10:21.060 is actually serious about fixing these problems? Or do you think the task force is going to be just

00:10:27.480 another eye wash?

00:10:29.780 Well, look, the task force was announced on the 25th of June. The minister who was co-chairing the task

00:10:37.820 task force, Marcy Ian from Toronto, said that she wanted to see something tangible within weeks. Well,

00:10:44.520 it's been a month, and we haven't seen anything tangible come out of the task force. The only

00:10:49.360 thing we've seen tangible at the passport office from the task force seems to be they've ordered new

00:10:54.720 chairs to deal with the lineups, but they've not extended the opening hours of the passport offices.

00:11:00.880 Right. Just going back to the delays at the airports, the mess at the airports, how much of that has to

00:11:11.000 do with labor shortages? Certainly, that's something that we've been hearing from, you know, from other

00:11:18.160 airports. You know, here at Pearson, I believe I've heard some officials saying that they just weren't

00:11:28.420 prepared for all of the travelers coming back. They had to lay off many people at the beginning of

00:11:37.300 the pandemic, and they haven't rehired these people. So is that a fair, you know, do we accept that as

00:11:45.100 a plausible situation?

00:11:48.620 Well, you know, it's interesting that they started blaming labor shortages a little bit late in the game.

00:11:55.680 You know, very early on, when the minister was blaming travelers, he said he had enough staff.

00:12:01.840 He said he had 90% of his pre-pandemic workforce at security, dealing with less than 70% of the

00:12:09.880 pre-pandemic air traffic. So he had more staff dealing with fewer travelers than he did before

00:12:15.620 the pandemic, and then he still got three-hour lines. So that shifted after that initial comment to,

00:12:21.460 he's now short, he started by saying he was short 600 security screeners, then it became 800 security

00:12:28.100 screeners, then it became 1,000, and then he settled in at 1,200 security screeners that he was

00:12:33.220 missing. So it ballooned from 600 to 1,200 in about six weeks, in terms of what he said he was missing.

00:12:40.120 Incredible. Yeah.

00:12:40.900 Yeah. And so, you know, either his workforce got that much more inefficient during the pandemic,

00:12:47.440 which, you know, the only conclusion you can come to is that, or really things are just so messed up

00:12:53.420 that, you know, he's needing more people to do the same amount of work or even less work than he did

00:12:59.980 before the pandemic.

00:13:00.800 Mm-hmm. And, you know, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about Aright Can or Aright

00:13:08.420 Can't, as it's popularly known these days. Many of us hope that this app would just be retired for

00:13:15.080 good once the pandemic abated. But there seems to be no such luck. The government seems to want to

00:13:22.860 make it permanent. And I believe they're sneakily going to bundle this with customs declaration

00:13:28.980 into the app. And, and of course, you know, I'm sure you're aware of this, that the app has had

00:13:34.700 some very notorious glitches, including sending vaccinated passengers into quarantine. And, and,

00:13:42.820 you know, as far as cross-border travel is concerned, you can bet your bottom dollar that

00:13:46.860 Americans, for example, are not going to be interested in using this app for just a short visit. It just

00:13:52.960 makes no sense. And recently, an NDP MP, I believe, Brian Massey, you know, criticized Aright Can. And

00:14:03.420 he said that this is not about public safety. It's being used as, in quote, to quote him,

00:14:09.520 backdoor to permanently track all border crossings. And it's not worthy this critique is coming from

00:14:17.220 the government's allies that are, you know, propping up the Trudeau government and not from the

00:14:22.180 conservatives. What do you think of what Massey has been saying about the app? And do you think

00:14:28.340 that this will, you know, given that the fact that it's coming from the NDP, you think that the Trudeau

00:14:34.140 government may rethink it? You know, look, I think what Brian Massey said was stunning, because as you

00:14:41.980 point out, these are the government's own allies that are keeping them in power. But the one thing that

00:14:47.100 didn't surprise me was that Brian Massey represents a border community. You know, he's from Windsor.

00:14:52.180 And border mayors have been the most consistent, loudest voices against Arrive Can since Arrive Can

00:14:59.440 was created. You know, the border mayors have seen the impact that Arrive Can has had on their

00:15:05.680 communities very firsthand. And so they're the ones who are saying, let's stop this nonsense.

00:15:11.100 In terms of what's happened at the airports, you know, none other than the CBSA union, the union

00:15:18.320 representing CBSA customs officers have come out and said that 30 to 40 percent of travelers arriving

00:15:25.500 at the airports don't have the app completed or don't have it completed correctly. And so you've got

00:15:32.460 the situation where, you know, criticism is coming from health experts, border experts, border mayors,

00:15:40.620 now you've got an NDP member of parliament joining the fray. You know, it's really difficult to see why

00:15:46.460 the government wants to make this app permanent, but not just permanent, but mandatory. You know,

00:15:52.840 if they have an app, you know, I've often said the government can have an app, a kiosk, or even mental

00:15:57.780 telepathy. As long as they don't make it mandatory, it's fine. People can choose to use it if it really

00:16:03.520 saves time. But this is an app that the government decided has to be used by travelers.

00:16:09.480 What purpose does it serve at this point? I've used the app when I, you know, when I had to use it

00:16:14.980 when I went overseas back in April. And, you know, I don't even, I don't recall whether anybody even

00:16:22.600 checked to see if I was fully vaccinated, but I don't even know how it worked. I can't recall

00:16:27.700 this anymore. But what purpose is it serving right now? And why is the government doubling down

00:16:33.860 on Arrive Can when clearly there have been so many issues? And what does MP Massey mean when he says

00:16:43.260 this is being used to track border crossings? Why would you want to track border crossings? What's

00:16:50.060 the agenda there? Well, look, I think that that's an excellent question. So let's start at the

00:16:56.120 beginning what it was supposed to do. So if we could start at the very beginning of Arrive Can,

00:17:02.320 when it was first started, it was billed as a time-saving device that would be used by travelers

00:17:08.880 to upload their personal vaccine information so that it could be verified by government ahead of

00:17:16.500 time before people arrived at the border. And so, you know, the initial use of it was as a voluntary

00:17:23.440 way. Instead of showing this paper document at the border with your vaccine information,

00:17:28.820 you could do it ahead of time. And that's what it was billed as. Since that time, it went from being

00:17:35.080 a voluntary app to a mandatory app. And that app is now being made permanent. And they're, they keep on

00:17:41.580 saying they're, they're enhancing it. And you know, when a government tells you they're enhancing

00:17:45.280 something, you've got to be worried about what they mean by that. Because they're adding customs

00:17:50.340 declaration, as you said, onto this app. And, you know, at some point is, are they planning on making

00:17:55.720 the app, you know, the only way you can make your declaration when you enter Canada, which basically

00:18:01.240 means it's not just mandatory, but there's no other way of, of entering the country, except through this

00:18:07.460 app. In terms of what Massey's comment was regarding tracking of entries and exits at the border,

00:18:14.540 I think what he was meaning was that it's a backdoor way to accomplish what the government

00:18:18.500 may want to do, which is have an electronic way of tracking people coming into the border,

00:18:24.920 tracking their whereabouts when they're in Canada, and then tracking when they depart the country.

00:18:30.020 And so, you know, I'm not quite sure whether that's accurate or not. But you know, when you've

00:18:34.820 got an app that's being that's so critical to what the government keeps on saying is their border

00:18:41.000 measures, you've got to wonder what it is that their intent really is with something like this,

00:18:45.720 when the initial justification for this app is no longer valid.

00:18:50.560 Right. I mean, it sounds like, you know, if you want to track people's movements, it's not,

00:18:54.880 it's not, it's no longer about COVID-19 or fighting the pandemic, it seems to be more about

00:19:00.100 security, perhaps. And, you know, why not just say that, you know, just admit that that's what

00:19:07.300 you're trying to do, instead of using the cover of public health safety. And, yeah, and that's,

00:19:14.840 that's what's very problematic. And of course, that raises all kinds of issues. And, you know,

00:19:20.980 and I just, I just, in terms of privacy, for example, you know, I don't know where we're going

00:19:26.840 with this in terms of tracking people's movements within the country. Would that,

00:19:31.360 would that apply just to visitors? Or would, would it apply to everybody?

00:19:36.340 Well, you know, the thing that's really quite sneaky with the way the government's done this

00:19:40.060 is they've said this is a mandatory app, but then they've also said Canadians and permanent

00:19:45.460 residents who refuse to use the app can't be denied entry to the country. But then they've also said

00:19:52.520 that if you don't use the app, you can be fined $6,000 for not using it. So, you know, it's,

00:19:58.280 it's really, we're, we're charting very uncharted waters here in terms of what this app is,

00:20:06.180 what it's used for, why is it so important? Why does the government want to make it mandatory?

00:20:11.280 They've not answered very many basic questions. And I think when you've got an NDP member of

00:20:16.400 parliament from a border community like Windsor, raising those concerns, people need to pay attention

00:20:21.600 and they need to ask these questions of the government as to why it is that they're so intent on

00:20:26.980 making this app permanent, but not just permanent, mandatory, you know, that you can't enter the

00:20:32.700 country unless you use this app.

00:20:35.120 And what do you think of random testing that's now returned? We thought that they were getting rid of

00:20:42.660 it last month. I think it was temporarily put on hold and now it's come back again, or it's been in

00:20:50.260 effect since for about a week or so, if I'm not mistaken. Why are they, why are they again,

00:20:56.100 doubling down on random, randomly testing passengers? Is any country doing this anymore?

00:21:03.920 You know, 160 countries have reopened to tourism and travel since the start of the summer. And none of

00:21:12.000 them are doing mandatory random testing at the borders. You know, there, there are several countries that are

00:21:17.640 tracking new variants, which is what the minister says, the minister of health says is the justification

00:21:23.560 for mandatory random tests, random testing, but they're tracking those new variants using other

00:21:29.320 methods like testing of wastewater at airports or testing of wastewater in the community to track

00:21:36.480 the arrival of new variants. They're not randomly testing travelers. You know, four infectious disease

00:21:44.360 physicians came out and wrote an op-ed piece that basically said these pandemic checks are doing no

00:21:51.440 good anymore. But yet the government still wants to persist in, in these checks, which really aren't

00:21:56.620 doing anything other than causing disruption and delays at the airport. Imagine if you're a traveler

00:22:01.580 coming in from Europe, recently recovered from COVID. And everybody knows that you can test positive

00:22:08.420 for COVID months after your last infection using a PCR test. And yet the government wants to test these

00:22:15.960 travelers. And what traveler is going to subject themselves to that test with a risk that they would be

00:22:22.220 forced into a 10 day quarantine if they test positive?

00:22:26.700 Yeah. So speaking of which, do you have any sense of how tourism is performing this summer at all?

00:22:34.500 Are we seeing an increase in tourists this year compared to the last couple of years? I'm thinking

00:22:42.520 for sure, a lot more people are traveling this summer, given that there's been a loosening of travel

00:22:48.980 restrictions around the world. But how are we doing in terms of tourism? Are we getting,

00:22:54.940 how are we compared to other countries, for example?

00:22:57.840 Well, you know, all I can quote are some statistics that were used by a US congressman

00:23:05.860 representing the Buffalo area, where he said that traffic across the Canada US border in his area

00:23:13.160 was down 50% from what it was pre-pandemic. So yes, people are traveling now versus what they were

00:23:21.140 during the deaths of the pandemic. But compared to what it was before the pandemic started,

00:23:26.580 you know, the numbers are very, very low. And the ones that are suffering the most are tourism

00:23:31.700 operators, which haven't seen the return of American travelers in particular, who are coming

00:23:37.480 to Canada. And, you know, with these restrictions that are at the air border, it's getting more and

00:23:43.680 more difficult to attract Europeans and other travelers to come to Canada to spend their money.

00:23:48.060 Yeah. And lastly, Duncan, I just, everybody would agree that Minister Al-Gabra has been one of the

00:23:56.920 underperformers in the Trudeau government, and that's maybe putting it mildly. His instinct seems

00:24:02.940 to be to blame everyone else rather than own up to, you know, the government's failings. Do you see

00:24:09.800 any hope of real change in the sector while Minister Al-Gabra continues to be minister?

00:24:15.200 Look, I mean, I really can't say whether this minister is capable of change. The fact that

00:24:23.880 his initial reaction to the troubles at the airport was to blame travelers did not bode

00:24:29.860 well for the response subsequent to initially blaming the travelers. We've not seen any progress

00:24:35.400 since that time. And I wouldn't hold my breath in terms of any more progress going forward.

00:24:40.420 The only thing that is going to save the minister, in fact, from the mess at the airports is Labor

00:24:45.980 Day, because that's when travelers stop traveling. So, you know, it seems like he's just holding his

00:24:51.820 breath for another six weeks. And then, you know, things will miraculously get better when travelers

00:24:56.660 start going back to school and going back to work after the summer travel season.

00:25:00.660 Right. Well, thanks, Duncan. There's so much that we could chat about. But alas, we're getting towards

00:25:07.500 the end of our time. But I wanted to thank you for coming on the show. And I really hope that,

00:25:13.640 you know, we all have stress-free travel going ahead and that the chaos at the airports

00:25:19.140 is a temporary thing and that the new normal is not chaos going forward. But I really appreciate

00:25:25.560 your time. And I hope to have you back on the show sometime soon. Thanks so much, Rupa. That was

00:25:30.960 great. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you.

Juno News - August 04, 2022

Chaos in Canada’s airports (Ft. Duncan Dee)

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