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The Liberals have put forward legislation that aims to make good on their pledge to tighten passenger rights rules after a year marked by travel chaos and a ballooning complaints backlog.

Tabled in the House of Commons as part of a broader budget bill, the new provisions ratchet up penalties on airlines, shore up the complaint process and target luggage and flight disruption loopholes that have allowed airlines to avoid customer compensation.

READ MORE: Vancouver airport promising improvements following Christmas season travel mess

The proposed $250,000 maximum fine for airline violations a tenfold increase from the existing regulations encourages compliance, said Sylvie De Bellefeuille, a lawyer with the advocacy group Option consommateurs.

So does an amendment placing the regulatory cost of complaints on carriers shoulders, she said. In theory, the measure incentivizes carriers to brush up on their service and thus reduce the number of grievances against them.

If these measures are adopted as they are proposed, these are all good things for consumers. It should fix some loopholes that weve been talking about for the past two, three years, De Bellefeuille said.

Undergoing first reading Thursday, the new legislation further demands that airlines institute a process to deal with claims and respond to complaints with a decision within 30 days. The establishment of complaint resolution officers at the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) should expedite the process, De Bellefeuille said.

She also applauded the closure of a loophole that has allowed airlines to avoid compensating passengers for delayed luggage, though not for lost luggage.

This thing was obviously something that was forgotten in the first law, she said.

The bane of many passengers over the past few years, a second loophole has allowed airlines to deny customers compensation for flight cancellations or three-hour-plus delays if they were required for safety purposes as stipulated in the Canada Transportation Act.

The revised section of that law makes no mention of the safety out, paving the way for the regulator to align its rules with those of the European Union, De Bellefeuille said. The EU distinguishes only between flight disruptions that are within the airlines control caused by mechanical issues, for example and those outside its control, such as weather-related delays. In general, only the latter reason relieves a carrier of compensation obligations.

Not all observers found the would-be law so uplifting.

The legislation fails to ensure transparency for the complaints process and leaves too much discretion in the hands of the regulator, particularly when it comes to compensation for flight disruptions, said Gabor Lukacs, president of advocacy group Air Passenger Rights.

Lukacs pointed to one amendment that states the complaints process shall be kept confidential, unless the complainant and the carrier otherwise agree.

Now, airlines are not going to agree to make things public, he said.

Theyre trying to create more smoke and mirrors, he said.

Lukacs also highlighted language stating that compliance officers shall deal with complaints in the manner that they consider appropriate, and argued that stricter guidelines should be imposed on the regulators.

Moreover, he said there is nothing to ensure that the safety loophole around flight disruptions will be closed.

The National Airlines Council of Canada, an industry group representing four of the countrys biggest carriers, said the government should focus on other priorities such as airport upgrades and warned that the cost of tougher passenger protections could trickle down to travellers.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra first pledged in January to strengthen the four-year-old passenger rights charter with legislation.

He also pledged an additional $75.9 million over three years to reduce a complaint backlog that has ballooned to nearly 45,000, more than triple the tally from a year ago.

The new amendments overlapped with some of the measures in a private members bill put forward last month by NDP transport critic Taylor Bachrach. But the legislation did not go so far as to adopt automatic compensation for travellers whose flights are delayed or cancelled.

Bachrach had called for higher penalties and more rigorous enforcement.

The fines in the legislation as it currently stands are insufficient to act as a deterrent. As long as the cost of following the rules is higher than the cost of breaking them, were going to see airlines operate outside the rules as a course of normal business, he said in a March 17 phone interview.

Agency chair France Pegeot told the transport committee in January that clearer, stronger rules would lead to better enforcement.

But she qualified that the agencys role as a quasi-judicial tribunal handling complaints is priority No. 1, while its mandate to penalize violations comes second.

The first thing we do is that we really focus, first of all, on complaints, because this is what puts money in the pockets of consumers, Pegeot told the committee on Jan. 12.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

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Liberals table legislation to overhaul passenger rights charter ... - Terrace Standard

Susan Holt is leader of the New Brunswick Liberal Party. Image: Submitted

The Liberals swept three provincial byelections in New Brunswick on Monday allowing the provincial party leader to finally take a seat in the legislature.

Susan Holt, who was chosen leader of the Liberals last summer, took her riding of Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint-Isidore with 2343 votes compared to her nearest rival Serge Brideau (Green Party) who captured 1411 votes, while Alex White (NDP) garnered 227 votes.

The Progressive Conservatives decided not to run a candidate to allow the opposition leader to win a seat in a riding formerly held by longtime Liberal MLA Denis Landry.

Voter turnout was barely 35 percent.

In the Dieppe riding, Liberal candidate and political newcomer Richard Losier easily won with 2424 votes over rivals Chantal Landry (Green Party) with 651 votes, Dean Lonard (Progressive Conservative) had 298 votes and Cyprien Okana (NDP) had 96 votes.

Liberal MLA Roger Melanson vacated the seat last fall for a job in the private sector.

Voter turnout was even lower in Dieppe at 31.4 percent.

In the riding of Restigouche-Chaleur, Liberal candidate Marco LeBlanc won with 2462 votes, Rachel Boudreau (Green Party) came second with 1541 votes, Anne Bard-Lavigne (Progressive Conservative) had 771 votes and Alex Gagne (NDP) had 95 votes.

Liberal MLA Daniel Guitard previously held the seat.

Voter turnout was about 43 percent which was the highest among the three byelections.

The Liberals now have 16 seats in the provincial legislature, compared to 30 seats for the Progressive Conservatives and three seats for the Greens.

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Liberals capture three N.B. byelections - 91.9 The Bend

Within the past year, YouGov has explored the industries that Americans have positive and negative views of, as well as the industries Americans think should be more and less regulated. In both instances, we've found that political identity plays a large role in shaping Americans' views on various sectors of the U.S. economy, with Democrats and Republicans holding vastly different opinions on industries such as mining, higher education, and news media.

In our latest poll of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens about economic sectors, we look at how Americans perceive the political ideology of workers within American industries. We asked whether people in the U.S. employed in 30 sectors are very or somewhat liberal, very or somewhat conservative, or equally conservative and liberal. The results show that workers in certain sectors such as cannabis and entertainment are viewed by most Americans as predominantly liberal, while workers in other sectors such as firearms, oil, and gas are more likely to be viewed as conservative.

The five sectors from the list of 30 whose workers Americans are most likely to say are "mostly liberal" or "more liberal than conservative":

The five sectors from the list of 30 whose workers Americans are most likely to say are "mostly conservative" or "more conservative than liberal":

We also find that a person's own ideology shapes their views on the ideology of workers in various industries, with Americans generally being more likely to say a sector's workers belong to the ideology opposite to their own. For example, Americans who identify as conservatives are more likely than liberals to describe sectors as either "mostly liberal" or "more liberal than conservative," with the largest gaps in perceptions existing for news media and government.

Americans who describe themselves as liberal, on the other hand, are more likely than conservatives to say workers in certain sectors are "mostly conservative" or "more conservative than liberal." This is especially true for banking and finance, as well as health insurance and pharmaceuticals.

Despite some large differences on the magnitude of their estimates, liberals and conservatives generally agree on their ranking of sectors by the political ideology of workers.

Related:

Carl Bialik and Linley Sanders contributed to this article

See the results for this YouGov poll

Methodology: This poll was conducted online on March 21 - 23, 2023 among 1,000 U.S. adult citizens. Each respondent was asked about a randomly selected sample of 20 of the 30 sectors. Respondents were selected from YouGovs opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondents most recent answer given prior to March 15, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 28% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.

Image: Adobe Stock (diter)

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Which sectors of the economy do Americans think are liberal and ... - YouGov US

OTTAWAPierre Poilievres Conservatives are the reason the interim ethics commissioner quit, Liberal House Leader Mark Holland said Thursday as the government remained on the defensive over its ethical track record.

Martine Richards appointment to the post drew criticism late last month after it was revealed shes the sister-in-law of Liberal cabinet minister Dominic Leblanc.

Still, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended the choice, noting she joined the office under the previous Conservative government, was second-in-command and there are procedures in place to guard from conflicts.

But the Opposition Conservatives insisted putting a family member in the position tainted the work of the office, which has found Trudeau and several cabinet ministers in violation of ethics laws several times since 2015.

On Tuesday, the Conservatives had successfully passed a motion to study the issue at the ethics committee and have Richard as well as Leblanc appear.

Then on Wednesday, her office announced she was stepping down, effective immediately.

They gave no explanation and said they would not be answering further questions.

During question period Thursday, as the Conservatives needled the Liberals with questions over not just that but Trudeaus controversial winter trip to Jamaica, Holland lay the blame for the fact the job is now vacant at their feet.

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What happens when they attack people and they engage in these partisan attacks is, yes, those people do leave, he said.

Richards office noted that without a commissioner in place, there are decisions in the office that simply cannot be taken, though they did not elaborate.

In the meantime, all they can do is give guidance on how to follow the rules.

One piece of guidance they gave recently was to Trudeau regarding a trip his family was taking to Jamaica over the Christmas holiday.

This week, it emerged that trip was to an exclusive luxury villa resort owned by long-time family friends of the Trudeaus, who are also donors to a foundation set up in his fathers memory.

The Conservatives argue that amounts to people paying for access to the prime minister, and Trudeau has been under pressure to pay back the cost of the rooms which rent for upwards of $9,000 a night during peak season.

So far, he has kept saying he was with family friends, and had ensured ahead of time that would be in keeping with ethics rules. There are no prohibitions on accepting gifts from friends, provided the friends paid for it themselves.

So, who will the prime minister ask advice from the next time he wants to vacation with rich friends? Conservative MP Luc Berthold asked in French during question period, noting the now-vacant job.

In response, Innovation Minister Franois-Phillippe Champagne said the Tories focus is misplaced.

The Conservative party is completely stuck on issues that actually, Canadians dont care about.

The Liberals have committed to filling the post as soon as possible.

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Whos to blame for the ethics commissioner quitting? Pierre Poilievres MPs, say the Liberals - Toronto Star

I well recall watching, as a staffer on a small television in the office of Kevin Rudds chief of staff the result of the 2009 Liberal leadership contest being read out. The battle had been a shemozzle. There were no good options. We had thought Joe Hockey the biggest threat and most likely victor . Malcolm Turnbull was too sharply, recently damaged. Still, when Tony Abbott triumphed, we were stunned. Then we grinned. This, we thought, would be easy. History records it was the opposite.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis.

Observing, at close quarters, Liberal crisis and resurgence made me sceptical about claims of a partys impending collapse. And yet, returning to Australia, I find myself becoming sceptical of my old scepticism. The weight of evidence is accumulating.

Byelections dont mean much, but the Aston result seems different. The party machine . This was the type of seat . And oppositions very, very rarely lose seats in byelections.

Duttons counter-intuitive counter-offensive was to announce his party would oppose a policy that . Duttons opposition to the Voice was probably inevitable, but had he kept this a personal decision he would not have become the protagonist of the fight. The decision to bind the frontbench turns this into a clear Dutton-Albanese battle. . It has tied the party to regressive social policy, will keep attention off the economy, while reinforcing the perception that Duttons strategy is simply to oppose things. Resolve polling now suggests voters . He may yet succeed in the referendum, but I tend to that it is a no-win proposition. A Yes vote will harm him; but a No vote will make Australians want to forget the whole affair, including Dutton.

The problem for Liberal Party optimists is that repeating itself is not the only thing that history does. Time brings change. And over the 20-odd years that both Albanese and Dutton have been in parliament, the clearest change is the gradual decline in support for the major parties. If that trend continues, one or both of our major parties will either drastically change or collapse. Neither party can afford to ignore this; but the Liberals, facing serious decline among both women and young people, far less so.

Dutton, to his credit, has been surprisingly honest about at least one dimension of the partys problems. Talking to The Australians Paul Kelly, for a long article , Dutton admitted the party had not stood for any substantive policy formulation since Tony Abbott was removed. As a result, we allowed ourselves to be defined by our opponents. This was a failure of leadership but it was not only that, and this is where Duttons honesty ends.

Both Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison found themselves trapped, unable to move for fear of repercussions from their increasingly feverish party. Journalist James Campbell : if the Liberal Party adopted policies that reflected the actual values of its members it would be smashed at the ballot box. Why should Dutton find this dilemma any simpler than his predecessors?

If the single dominant fact about politics right now is the crisis in the Liberal Party, the most important question is: what will the Albanese government do with this rare opportunity? It is unclear it will do much.

This means that the defining feature of the contest between the two parties still at an early stage, to be fair is that each is promising to be something different from what it currently appears to be. Each expects us to give it the benefit of the doubt. Dutton has done absolutely nothing to alter the Liberal Party he inherited, but promises he will.

On the other side, Anthony Albanese holds out the prospect of progressive government. As an of observers , in most areas schools, health, taxes, arguably climate this remains an article of faith rather than demonstrable fact. Now we can add to that the cold water the government last week . Perhaps this is exactly the way to make change stick by doing it slowly or perhaps this is what happens when Labors left takes power, with all the compromises that inevitably entails: who does that leave to prod the party back in the direction of its ideals?

Still, for both leaders, their implicit call for patience is probably reasonable significant change takes time. Christmas, with the Voice vote out of the way, is probably a fair time to take stock. (This will be no comfort to those trying to survive on JobSeeker.)

In 2009, Abbott took an issue which seemed both to divide the Liberals and make them seem outdated and turned it into a formidable political weapon. Fifteen years later, the damage that did to Australia is clear. At the time it seemed good, at least, for the Liberal Party; with hindsight even that much is unclear. It will be fascinating to see which elements from history recur. As was the case then but as too many at the time forgot much more is riding on this than the electoral fortunes, or even the long-term future, of a single political party that, after all, has existed for less than a century.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. .

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The problem for the Liberal Party is that history doesnt always repeat - Sydney Morning Herald