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The Canadian Airports Council (CAC) has welcomed the announcement of an Advisory Council on jobs and the visitor economy to assist Minister of Tourism and Official Languages Melanie Joly in the development of a tourism strategy by next summer.
As a major air transport stakeholder, Canada’s airports look forward to meeting with the council to bring high-level awareness to the challenges and opportunities facing Canada’s airports and industry partners.
“Tourism is a major economic driver for Canada, a $97.4 billion industry that employs some 1.8 million Canadians, with about 194,000 direct jobs at Canada’s airports,” said CAC president Daniel-Robert Gooch. “These are not only in Canada’s biggest cities but also in regional economic centres and small communities throughout the country.
“Tourism does help every part of the country, urban and rural, and it does supports middle class jobs that cannot be easily replaced. Many of these are in air transport and given the important role of air transport to the success of our tourism sector, an effective tourism strategy must consider the government role in addressing issues and opportunities identified by Canada’s airports and our partners in the air travel supply chain,” Gooch added.
The CAC has been actively engaged with the Canadian government on several files dependent on federal action. As outlined in the CAC’s pre-budget submission for Federal Budget 2019 next spring, these include:
- Service level standards for government services at airports, notably security screening and border services conducted by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), respectively. Canada’s ability to welcome millions of additional tourists is dependent on the capacity to receive them. This requires a commitment to funding and investments in both staff hours and technology/innovation, as Canada’s airports expect to welcome an additional 75 million passengers a year 10 years from now.
- Infrastructure funding for small airports and for regional ground connectivity. Canada’s airports have invested $25 billion in infrastructure since 1992 to improve services to travellers and ensure airports have the capacity to absorb the growth in demand for air travel. However, the federal government has a role to play in supporting infrastructure investment at small airports and in promoting connectivity groundside through investments in transit and roads connecting airports with the surrounding region.
- Reconsidering the fiscal approach to airports, which contributed $368 million to the federal government in “airport rent,” last year. The CAC has called on the federal government to eliminate rent for all airports with fewer than 3 million passengers. If rent is to be charged of other airports, the CAC has called for it to be capped or the calculation formula revised to no longer penalize airports for capital investments and revenue diversification.
- Programs to improve international connections through Canada, which help support new international air routes and additional service on existing routes that would not be viable without connecting traffic. This opens new opportunities and capacity for travellers to come to Canada.
