Air Canada Bill Cuts ‘Strings’

www.blacklocks.ca, Tom Korski
Cabinet concessions to Air Canada will send maintenance jobs to the U.S. and China, says a Conservative senator. The transport minister under Senate questioning said the former Crown airline deserves to fly without ‘strings attached’.

“Here we have another Liberal government jeopardizing Canadian jobs at a time when Canadians need us to focus on job creation,” said Senator Donald Plett (Conservative-Man.). “How can you and your government justify leaving Canadian aerospace workers from my province, Manitoba, and from Québec out in the cold, giving their jobs away to people in Europe, China and the United States?”

Bill C-10 An Act To Amend The Air Canada Public Participation Act introduced March 24 rewrites section 6.1.d of the law requiring that the airline “maintain operational and overhaul centres” in Winnipeg, Mississauga and Montréal. The conditions were enacted when Parliament privatized the airline 28 years ago. Amendments would allow Air Canada to decide its “volume” of maintenance in Canada “as well as the level of employment”.

The amendments followed a 2015 Québec court ruling that Air Canada breached the Act in transferring maintenance work to Duluth, Minnesota after its privatized subsidiary Aveos Fleet Performance went bankrupt, costing 2,600 jobs. Legislatures in Manitoba and Québec protested the closure of local shops.

“Any maintenance jobs created in Canada will total a mere 40 percent of the jobs that were lost,” Plett yesterday told the Senate. “Now we see the government through Bill C-10 is allowing Air Canada to shift the bulk of its maintenance out of the country.”

Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the bill is “part of the evolution” of the air industry: “It is to recognize that Air Canada is expected to compete nationally and internationally, on the world stage, and this creates a little bit more of a level playing field for that airline.”

“Those were conditions that were imposed on Air Canada at that time despite the fact the Mulroney government said, ‘We’re privatizing you; go out there and compete.’ But those strings remained attached.”

The amendments follow Air Canada’s February 17 announcement it would buy 45 jet aircraft from Montréal-based Bombardier Inc. The manufacturer cut a further 2,830 jobs Canadian jobs in February. Bombardier is appealing for $1.3 billion in federal subsidies to match aid received from the provincial government.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers today launches a lobbying blitz on Parliament Hill to protest Bill C-10, including a petition for lawmakers.