Newly unredacted emails between Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency reveal further details on what critics call undue government and industry involvement in the watchdog’s March 2020 decision to exempt airlines from pandemic-related passengerPreviously released with certain names and details omitted when first publicized in 2021, the unredacted versions of the emailsdrew...
Government officials can’t have their names redacted from government documents, said Xavier Barsalou-Duval, the Bloc Québécois MP who in June raised concerns about the redacted name, which is whyin 2021 about whether this meeting included industry lobbyists or another third party. The Bloc Québécois in 2021 asked for an independent inquiry into the controversy, and Barsalou-Duval said this will be on the agenda for the federal transportation committee.
In an email, a spokesperson for the office of Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra said discussions between Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency are a common and established practice, and that the government is “committed to establishing fair and transparent refund processes for Canadians, with emphasis on protecting passenger rights.”
The real question is who benefitted most from this decision. Follow the money.