QUESTION PERIOD — Finance
Pandemic Support for Air Canada
June 1, 2021
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. The Trudeau government boasts about the strict rules it put in place for executive compensation at Air Canada in the assistance plan it announced in April.
This morning we found out that those executives gave themselves $10 million in bonuses for their excellent management of the pandemic, which essentially resulted in some 20,000 employees being laid off. I think that is shameful. I would like to know if the Minister of Finance, Ms. Freeland, was aware of these bonuses at the time of the agreement or if Air Canada took advantage of her naivety, like the U.S. government did with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, which is costing Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in compensation to our farmers.
At this point, should the minister halt the government’s assistance to Air Canada?
Thank you for the question. As you know, the programs implemented to help companies like Air Canada have strict rules about compensation for executives. According to the information I have, the issue of bonuses, which you mentioned, was more of a concern before the government provided support to Air Canada to ensure that it could continue operations.
How can your Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, justify the fact that his Minister of Finance has no other explanation than to argue that she is unable to act on the decisions of the company? She should have requested those decisions be cancelled before giving the company taxpayers’ money.
The Canadian government implemented a good number of measures. Here, in this chamber, I was asked by my colleagues about targeted assistance in the economy, including the aerospace sector. I will repeat what I have said several times. The government made these decisions to ensure that this important sector of our economy, with all the jobs it represents, is supported during this pandemic.