Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Ottawa must do more to hold airlines accountable for “breaking their word” to passengers and leaving them stranded in airports.
Speaking in Ottawa during a rare press conference with Parliament Hill journalists Friday, Poilievre laid the blame for the chaos endured by thousands of Canadian passengers over the last week at the foot of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, arguing airports and airlines are federally regulated and therefore a responsibility of the federal government.
“This is a federal problem,” Poilievre said.
“The solution, of course, is to have a Canadian Transportation Agency that holds airlines accountable for breaking their word to the people. That’s what the agency’s there for, it is a federal agency and it is the machinery of government that is the responsibility of the prime minister to make that agency work.”
Poilievre’s comments come as horror stories continue to surface from Canadians left stranded in Mexico after Sunwing cancelled their flights home.
Some Canadians described being shuffled between hotels in Mexico, sometimes arriving to find there were no rooms booked for them, saying Sunwing officials passed along inaccurate and incomplete information about when they would be booked on a flight home.
Passengers who did manage to return home say their Sunwing flights appeared “half-empty,” even as hundreds of Canadians remained stranded in Mexico, following significant disruptions caused by a major winter storm that disrupted travel plans across the country last weekend.
Meanwhile, some passengers have taken to social media with complaints that Sunwing has told them they would be compensated a far lower amount than is legally required for missing and lost luggage.
The travel company told multiple passengers it would compensate them up to US$450 — roughly C$600 — for replacing items in luggage that did not arrive at their destinations.
Related News
