Remember that air passengers’ “bill of rights”?
Yeah, uh, the airlines wrote it
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It was supposed to be a bill of inalienable rights for the passengers, by the passengers. Well so much for that. It turns out the airlines themselves had a primary role in writing the so-called “Flight Rights Canada” document unveiled with fanfare last fall. Over the objections of departmental bureaucrats, Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon’s office happily worked with the carriers themselves to develop the thing. All this is evident in correspondence between the minister’s office and civil servants, which was requested under Access to Information by Canwest News. The government was trying to block its release, according to Canwest, when someone sent the full package of uncensored documents to the news service by mistake. Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe whoever passed it on has the misfortune to travel frequently on Canada’s “award winning” airlines.