Roundup: Changes To Airline Complaints System Hit Turbulence
Plus: Timmies to hire local workers, Ozempic price is slashed as generics arrive, and a McDonald's restaurant goes rogue
The battle over airline complaints is heating up, with a Bloc Québécois MP and passenger advocates this week calling out the federal government’s plan to change the heavily backlogged system as “illusory” and “highly problematic.”
Federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon earlier this month announced that complaint resolution is going to move to third-party organizations chosen by the government in order to speed up resolutions. The Canadian Transportation Agency currently handles disputes, but its backlog is approaching 100,000 and many complaints are taking up to three years to resolve.
On Monday, Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament and Transport Committee vice-chair Xavier Barsalou-Duval held a press conference with Jacob Charbonneau, chief executive of Flight Claim, and Gabor Lukacs, president of Air Passenger Rights. The trio criticized the government’s plan and accused it of allowing Canada’s airlines to set complaint resolution terms that will be favourable to them.
In an interview with Do Not Pass Go, Barsalou-Duval said the third-party system is strikingly similar to one announced by Air Canada in April, where the airline is testing complaint resolution with 500 random passengers through Canada Aviation Dispute Resolution, a subsidiary of U.K.-based CDRL Group.
“It’s a dangerous situation, they could have written the bill,” he said, referring to Bill C-31, which contains the government’s proposed plan. “It’s really problematic when an airline knows what’s coming and puts it in place before it’s even tabled in the House [of Commons].”
For its part, Air Canada told the Toronto Star this week that it has kept officials informed of its dispute resolution experiment, but that the government was designing its own reforms.
Barsalou-Duval added that MacKinnon this week refused his call to refer the complaints plan to the Transport Committee for proper study and discussion.
“This is a unilateral implementation of a regime that is not under CTA supervision,” he said. “I see this as highly problematic.”
At the press conference on Monday, Lukacs said the government’s plan is “unprecedented in the Western world” as it hands disproportionate power to the airlines through hand-picked third-party arbitrators.
The dispute system would also lock passengers into legally-binding rulings, which is out of step with peer countries. Europe’s alternative dispute resolution system, for example, allows passengers to reject outcomes and pursue legal action.
“Canada’s own telecommunication complaint system similarly lacks binding authority over consumers,” he said, referring to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services, whose decisions can be rejected by consumers.
Lukacs said the cause of the backlog is the government’s unwillingness to impose significant fines on airlines that violate passenger rights as well as its refusal to adopt the European Union’s “gold standard” of protections, which can quickly determine eligibility for compensation using publicly available data rather than hundreds of pages of documents and lengthy adjudication.
Passenger complaints in Europe are resolved in minutes, he said, while the average case in Canada requires a full day, hence the backlog.
“They have mud on their face because the public is asking lots of questions,” Lukacs told Do Not Pass Go. “They’re not helping passengers and they don’t have much understanding about the harm that they’re doing.”
In an emailed statement, MacKinnon reiterated that the change was being made to clear complaints the backlog and speed up resolutions.
“We examined models that are working successfully in other jurisdictions, where independent dispute resolution is delivering faster and fairer outcomes for travellers. Our approach adapts those proven best practices to the Canadian context, while maintaining strong oversight by Transport Canada,” he said.
“Any organization involved will have to meet strict accreditation standards, including protections for official languages, safeguards to ensure independence from airline influence, and clear national service requirements. These reforms are about restoring confidence in the system by delivering a process that is faster, fairer, more transparent, and more accountable for Canadians.”
🎧 ON THE PODCAST THIS WEEK:
🛒 GROCERIES & RETAIL
It’s funny what a little competition – or even the threat of it – can do. This week, TIM HORTONS said it was looking to recruit 10,000 new employees – except this time, they’re going to be local as opposed to temporary foreign workers (TFW). As commentators have pointed out, the donut chain has long lobbied for the expansion of TFW worker numbers, citing a lack of local options. But lo and behold, the chain has now switched gears shortly after U.S. chain DUNKIN announced its plan to re-enter the Canadian market. As National Post columnist Chris Selley points out, Canada needs more of this sort of competition – perhaps even in markets such as telecoms and airlines.
Thanks to a poll back in March, we know that the majority of Canadians want SURVEILLANCE PRICING – where merchants sell goods and services based on what they know about consumers – to be banned. A similar survey in the United States this week suggests that Americans may be even more concerned about the phenomenon. Nearly 70 per cent of respondents believe that surveillance pricing will raise the cost of goods while only 5 per cent think it will lower them. Nearly 60 per cent also said they won’t shop in stores that have digital price tags.
Back in January, MCDONALD’S Canadian operation surprised the fast-food world with a “one-year price promise” on its McValue series of meals. The chain announced it was locking the price of the meals at $5, an unexpected development given continuing food inflation and global economic turmoil, but one that was driven by “the company’s dedication to delivering reliable value at a time when Canadians are navigating rising costs.” As an occasional partaker of these McValue meals, I was therefore surprised last week to see my local restaurant had quietly raised the price to $5.10, which seemed to run counter to the price-lock declaration. The store manager explained that corporate-owned stores are bound by the price promise, but franchisees – like the location in question – had leeway to adjust by 10 to 30 cents. That didn’t seem to be the case after checking with McDonald’s media relations, who confirmed that the restaurant went rogue. “McDonald’s franchisees are independent business owners and, in most cases, set their own prices at the restaurant level. That said, the $5 McValue Meal is a nationally advertised offer, and pricing should be consistent with that positioning,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We’ve looked into the specific restaurant you referenced and it appears this was an error that has since been corrected.” I went back and checked and the price is now indeed back to $5. Has anyone else spotted a rogue McDonald’s? Let us know:
🩺 HEALTH
Remember when we marvelled at the effects of competition just a few paragraphs ago? In another good example, Danish drug maker NOVO NORDISK this week announced that it is slashing the price of Ozempic in Canada to better compete with the arrival of generic versions. The drug, known as a GLP-1 agonist, is used to treat diabetes and for weight loss. Health Canada earlier this month approved two versions of a generic semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, which is also made by Novo Nordisk.
🥊 COMPETITION
Canada’s job market is undergoing a significant structural change that is making it harder to set monetary policy, according to Nicolas Vincent, external deputy governor for the BANK OF CANADA. Vincent told a Montreal think tank this week that ongoing slowness in the labour market could lead to lasting damage for workers’ prospects and affect the Bank’s ability to make decisions on issues such as interest rates. In relation to the Tim Hortons item above, he noted that high immigration rates between 2022 and 2024 increased the competition for lower-skill and entry-level jobs, which ultimately made it hard for young people to find work. In a larger sense, economic uncertainty has created a “low-hire, low-fire” situation where workers aren’t moving as much from less productive sectors to more productive ones.
In case you missed it, we broke the story this week that the federal government is axing the OFFICE OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS and the projects its supports. Numerous consumer advocacy groups are affected, as well as initiatives that range from protecting seniors from fraud and junk fee tracking to food affordability and digital privacy rights:
💾 BIG TECH
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon is more concerned about Canada creating large AI companies than he is about making them monopolies. Speaking at an event hosted by Betakit this week, he said that Canadian firms such as COHERE and XANADU – who have been singled out by the federal government as national champions and awarded subsidies and tax incentives – need that help to compete against U.S. giants. “They’re competing against OpenAI and Anthropic,” he said. “They are running with some big dogs, and you can fail quick.”
GOOGLE is appealing a 2024 ruling in which a U.S. court found the company to be a monopoly in search. The company says the judge made legal errors in the case, which revolved around Google stifling competition by paying billions of dollars to make its search engine the default on APPLE devices. The company escaped an order that would have broken it up last year, but it was ordered to share some data with its competitors. A similar Canadian case was dismissed by the Competition Tribunal in January.
📱 TELECOM
Former Industry Minister and ROGERS executive Navdeep Bains has officially entered the race for leadership of the Ontario Liberal party. Bains’ move, which was widely expected, comes after the party rejected a complaint by Nate Erskine-Smith, the current federal Liberal Member of Parliament for Beaches–East York, regarding a recent candidacy vote in the provincial riding of Scarborough Southwest. Erskine-Smith, who was aiming to become the Liberal candidate for the riding in an upcoming by-election, raised concerns of irregularities during the voting process. Bains joins current provincial caucus member Lee Fairclough, political strategist Dylan Marando and Ajax Member of Provincial Parliament Rob Cerjanec as declared leadership candidates so far.
🏦 BANKING
Claim filings for a class-action lawsuit involving CIBC and RENAISSANCE INVESTMENTS are now open, with the Ontario Superior Court approving an $11 million settlement involving the two companies’ mutual funds operations. Customers who held units in either mutual fund trusts at any time before Sept. 5, 2025, are eligible for payouts, with filings accepted until Nov. 18.
Toronto-based cryptocurrency firm WONDERFI says it has the regulatory go-ahead to be acquired by California-based financial services provider ROBINHOOD. The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization has approved the deal, which is expected to close on June 1. WonderFi owns several Canadian crypto trading platforms, as well as stock trading and prediction market options. The $250 million (U.S.) deal was announced just over a year ago.
🚜 FARMING
The two largest JOHN DEERE farm equipment dealers in Manitoba have called off their merger, citing “considerable roadblocks and delays” from the Competition Bureau. GREENVALLEY EQUIPMENT and ENNS BROTHERS announced their plan to merge in January, though the Bureau’s merger review listings show the transaction as “abandoned” as of May 1. The Bureau typically does not provide additional information on mergers it reviews.
🛢️ RESOURCES
Speaking of merger reviews, the Competition Bureau is also having a look at EQUINOX GOLD’s bid for fellow Vancouver-based company ORLA MINING. The $7 billion deal would create Canada’s second-largest gold producer, after AGNICO EAGLE MINES, with acquired properties in Ontario, Nevada, Mexico and Panama joining Equinox’s existing assets in Ontario and Newfoundland. The deal is code-named “Project Kismet,” because the companies believe they are fated to be together, Equinox’s chief executive Darren Hall told The Globe and Mail.
🚨 COMING UP
When is a discount real and when is it fake? And what happens when you add algorithms and surveillance pricing to the equation? Advertising a discount on a fake regular price is illegal in Canada, contravening what’s known as “ordinary selling price” rules under the Competition Act. MATTHEW CHIASSON, a senior policy advisor at the Competition Bureau, returns to the Do Not Pass Go podcast on Tuesday to discuss his new paper, which is the first to question how regular prices are set and governed in a world where they can change by the second.