The Conservative Government has announced that airlines in Canada will be required to disclose the full price of airline fares by the end of 2012 (including airport taxes and additional charges) (see: Airlines forced to advertise true cost of flights, including taxes, by Christmas 2012).
Cabinet Minister Steven Fletcher announced that new regulations would be drafted under the Canada Transportation Act, further to changes made in 2007 (Bill C-11), to require airlines to disclose the full price of flights:
“Our government is committed to enhancing consumer protection while promoting fair competition by ensuring greater transparency of advertised airfares for Canadian travellers … This will allow consumers to easily determine the full cost of airfares in order to make informed choices.”
The proposed introduction of sector specific airline advertising regulations has been criticized. For example, in the Canadian Bar Association’s 2006 submission on Bill C-11, the CBA said:
“These proposed changes are yet another example of needless and undesirable industry- specific regulation. It is not clear why special regulation of airline advertising is required when these practices, if misleading, are already within the scope of the general misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act. The effectiveness of these provisions was enhanced in 1999 by adding a non-criminal enforcement track (see Part VII of the Competition Act)
Additionally, the provinces have exercised their jurisdiction to respond to consumer protection situations in the transportation field. In our view, the federal government should not, through regulation of aviation, attempt to reach beyond its jurisdiction in an area where the provinces are already exercising authority.”
See: The Canadian Bar Association, Submission on Bill C-11 Canada Transportation Act Amendments.
Airline specific rules have also been recently removed from the Competition Act on the basis, among other things, that sufficient competition regulation of airlines exists under the general provisions of the Competition Act, and that sector-specific competition regulation of airlines is unnecessary.
In this regard, for example, the “general” misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act already apply to most businesses and industries in Canada (see: misleading advertising).
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