Toronto, 04 June 2009: ARTA Canada's resolve to bring sorely needed changes to TICO is beginning to pay off. With virtually no direct notice to stakeholders, TICO posted an advisory on its web site on Tuesday announcing a postponement of the June 2009 Annual General Meeting until some time in the fall. Key among the reasons stated by TICO for the delay is interest expressed by Ontario's Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services to change the composition of TICO's board.

ARTA Canada has been calling for board restructuring at TICO for quite some time, in particular, removing all patronage appointments by the industry to board seats in favour of fully elected positions. Instead of allowing four industry organizations, none of which are direct TICO stakeholders themselves, to appoint the majority 8 of 11 industry representatives to the TICO board, that instead, member travel retailers and wholesalers should elect representatives to these board seats.

In addition to proposing the change to fully elected positions, ARTA Canada has written to Minister Harinder Takhar asking for more consumer representation on the TICO board, including a consumer chairman at TICO and that industry representation should be structured on a ratio basis more reflective of the number of retailer versus wholesaler registrants.

ARTA Canada board member Simon Parry, president of Helen Thompson Travel, put TICO on notice last week that the agency plans to introduce a wide range of discussion issues and applicable motions at the next TICO AGM to include:

1. Changes to the structure of TICO’s board of directors;

2. Details and progress of TICO’s "third party review" into the One Step Travel matter and to further discuss the results of the Ontario Court of Justice proceedings of the One Step Travel case which TICO mentioned at 2008 AGM;

3. TICO’s position and role when wholesaler registrants do not abide by the terms and conditions published in their brochures and on their web sites regarding the right to a full refund, said rights having been disclosed by retailer registrants to their customers;

4. Amendments to the Travel Industry Act, 2002 and Ontario Regulation 26/05 to incorporate the following suggested changes:

a. Specific guidelines and reasonable timetables for financial non-compliance remediation should be established to assure a swift curing of financial and other regulatory irregularities;

b. Requirements should be established to assure that products and services sold below cost are protected with the difference between the selling price and the actual cost being deposited into the registrant’s trust account along with the costs of any "at risk" products or services not sold;

c. A new payment regime should be established to assure that end-suppliers are paid in full before travellers depart;

d. Retail travel agent commissions should be fully protected in the event of a wholesaler failure;

e. Increased monitoring and reporting should be established for registrants which exceed certain levels of financial transactions and sales volumes;

f. A guarantee and assistance system should be put in place to assure that "in destination" travellers have access to both TICO and government resources in times of need;

g. Amendments should be made to TICO’s confidentiality provisions to allow for complete transparency in all TICO’s activities, except where confidentiality is needed to protect personal or business information of specific registrants in accordance with existing privacy laws.

ARTA Canada is also concerned that the closure of Conquest Vacations and the financial reports released by the bankruptcy trustee cannot be reconciled with TICO's assertions that Conquest was fully on-side with its trust accounts. Something doesn't add up, and ARTA Canada suspects that there must be other issues which have yet to be ascertained leading to the wholesaler's failure and TICO's inability to determine what truly happened.

In a related matter, ARTA Canada board members will be meeting at the end of June with Ontario Ministry of Finance investigators to share their concerns regarding TICO's handling of the One Step Travel closure and to underscore the findings of the Ontario Court of Justice which was so critical of TICO's lack of proper scrutiny over the travel company.  

ARTA Canada will fight against any attempt by TICO to increase registrant contributions to the compensation fund as a result of TICO's own failure to properly safeguard the fund from failures which could have been prevented with more effective scrutiny.

ARTA Canada will continue its efforts to bring change to TICO's structure and operations so as to improve TICO's implementation of its consumer protection mandate, including a move, as soon as possible, to a consumer-financed compensation fund.