Being unable to run your operation in -15 in January in Toronto is NOT a weather delay. Full stop. It's incompetence that goes unaddressed because the airline gets to pass it off as weather and not take any financial responsibility.
Extra staffing would help, but not solve all the problems. The question I have, are pax willing to pay for the extra staffing? This could add $20+ to every segment.
AC operates 1,600 scheduled flights per day or 584,000 per year. Are you suggesting it would cost at least $11,680,000 per year to have a fully staffed customer service desk at every AC hub during all hours that flights are departing? How much money do you think an AC agent makes?
Or perhaps you meant $20 per passenger, which would be a whopping $960,000,000 based on AC's 48 million annual passengers.
Passengers do not choose to pay for any specific part of the airline operation. The airline presents an all-inclusive service, of which "actually operating as planned during normal winter temperature conditions" has not yet been un-bundled, and the customer buys it assuming that the service will be provided with reasonable effort. Air Canada management, not the customer, makes the decision of how to staff and manage its operations.
How much do you think we ought to pay extra for fuel trucks that work in the winter?