Transport reform law passes, hiking ownership limits for airlines, CN Rail

Ownership limits in Canadian airlines and the country’s biggest railway will rise this week after the wrangling over a controversial transport law finally came to an end.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s sprawling reform of transport laws, known as Bill C-49, passed final votes Tuesday by both the House of Commons and the Senate. The bill had ricocheted between the two, but the Senate eventually abandoned its opposition to avoid what one senator called a potential constitutional crisis. It means the bill, first proposed a year ago, will become law as soon as it receives royal assent. Key portions would kick in immediately, Garneau’s spokesman Marc Roy said. These include raising the foreign ownership limit in airlines like Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. to 49 per cent, from 25 per cent now.

Another would be raising the individual ownership limit in Canadian National Railway Co. to 25 per cent, from 15 per cent. The only person near that limit is Bill Gates, who owns a combined stake in the railway of about 15.9 per cent between his investment company, Cascade Investment LLC, and his family’s charitable trust. In addition to the ownership changes, there are substantial new rules governing rail shipment, including the creation of a “long-haul intershipping ” system aimed at helping rail customers served by only one line. The Senate originally sought changes to beef up powers of users, such as farms and mines. It’s these shipping rules that had delayed the bill, as critics had wanted stronger powers for shipping customers in fights with railways.

“I say to shippers: take heart,” Conservative Sen. David Tkachuk said before the vote passed. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will lose in next year’s election “and these measures will be reintroduced,” he pledged, referring to changes rejected by elected lawmakers.

The wrangling had been unusually fraught, stoked by changes Trudeau has made to the Senate, once a sleepy rubber-stamp institution that now more often spars with its elected counterpart. The Senate had twice changed the transport bill, which would have become law earlier this month if not for procedural wrangling.