Bill C-6 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment deals with integrated management systems and authorizes the establishment of voluntary reporting programs under which information relating to aviation safety and security may be reported. It also authorizes the designation of industry bodies to certify persons undertaking certain aeronautical activities. Other powers are enhanced or added to improve the proper administration of the Act, in particular powers granted to certain members of the Canadian Forces to investigate aviation accidents involving both civilians and a military aircraft or aeronautical facility.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay. I'm advised that Bill C-6 wouldn't apply to your particular company as a one-operator company.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

No, I'm not asking that you tear it apart. What I'm suggesting is that even though the discussion around this table is about C-6, in fact your company and your industry—the smaller operators, the air taxis—aren't covered under Bill C-6 at this time. Is that your understanding?

[Kirsten Brazier]

Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on Bill C-6, so I can't tear it apart, if that's what you're asking.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Brazier, I have a very quick question. You've been here and you've told us some of your concerns about Transport Canada. We talked a bit about SMS. It's too early to implement it in your particular industry. Have you reviewed Bill C-6?

[Richard Balnis]

In the documents you will see, though we did not put this forward, that the regulations were passed June 15, 2005, without waiting for Bill C-6, under an existing authority. The very same day, the regulations were exempted.

The document that is in tab 5, if I'm not mistaken, was then used as a three-year phase-in period, and each carrier has to do certain things to meet certain milestones. Transport Canada goes in and involves themselves in the process to make sure they have done this or that. If you fail to meet a milestone, they will threaten to suspend.

Within each company the company sets up its own process. We at Air Canada were involved at monthly meetings, but we haven't been involved for the last year and a half, because we raised uncomfortable questions.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I'd like to thank you all for coming forward today.

These are, along with those of Justice Moshansky and the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, the best presentations we've heard on Bill C-6.

We've had two types of presentations. We've had ones about the much more profound operating concerns you've all raised today, and they're much more in depth. We've had some presentations that are very theoretical, as you mentioned, Mr. Balnis, ones that simply talk in theory about SMS. But every single in-depth presentation has criticized this government's reckless bent to diminish air safety, and it's a matter of concern to us. Thank you for being so detailed.

I would like to come back to the issue of inspectors and ask you this, Mr. Balnis, because we've had some playing fast and loose with figures around flight inspections within the Canadian airline industry. The government unfortunately made a kind of mistake this week in publishing a moving-forward document where they actually talk about an attrition rate of 32% to 50% over the next few years. I think they obviously have confirmed what everybody has been raising as a major concern, that we are lowering the number of inspectors and lowering the surveillance around safety. Do you have any comments about inspections, inspectors, and the attrition rate that is so clearly identified in this document this week?

[Ken Rubin]

Yes, it is.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding, because you have to really understand what clause 43 of Bill C-6 means. You have to turn back to section 24 of the Access to Information Act. What you have in the Access to Information Act are the principles of the act; then people can apply, and there's a set of exemptions, sections 12 to 26. There's commercial confidentiality and there's policy advice. Section 24 says, listen, there are certain statutory provisions passed by Parliament--and this would be one of them--confidentiality provisions within the statute, as laid out in clause 43, including the confidential reporting system, the tape system, the military plane system, and the medical doctor system, which I have less of a problem with. Those things are statutory confidentiality prohibitions that are to be totally excluded from the act. There's no injury test, there's no time limit, and there's no public interest override possible, because they fall within that section.

That's a lot different from putting in the checks and balances. I get...regulatory audits whether I agree or not. I've appealed on some, where there are commercial confidentiality citations or there's personal information or whatever. At least I get a separate report; I don't get nothing. Maybe that's fine in terms of income tax material, but in safety matters, no, it's not fine. That's what I object to. Put it under the ordinary provisions of the act.

They're putting this up God-like on a pedestal and saying confidentiality is so important, we're obsessed so much with it, trust will break down. It's not true. I've see many an access request where initially the parties have a confidentiality agreement, or claim they do, but under the Access to Information Act it isn't the case because there are other provisions that take precedence.

Really, in the end, that full and frank discussion can still occur and things can be done. But to say right from the start, sweep it away and we'll never hear anything any more, ever, is just a touch too much, so to speak.

[Ken Rubin, Public Interest Researcher, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

As a public interest researcher and frequent access user, I've spent 25 years battling to get various air safety reports made public, including going all the way to the court of appeal.

My concern is that air safety public reporting is being ambushed and essentially eliminated under Bill C-6. The reasoning is that confidential reporting is needed under a safety management system and therefore officials with airline companies believe they must end having publicly available inspection reports done. This secrecy focus must immediately be challenged and changed in the interests of the public and the travelling public.

If left intact in Bill C-6, the effect is public mistrust in air safety. There will be no more publicly available Air Canada, or WestJet, or any other audits. It will also skew Transportation Safety Board accident reports, and, possibly worse, safety errors, because there is too close a reliance on a confidential reporting relationship between airlines and Transport Canada.

The public's right to know about air safety, from repair maintenance to engine problems to human error, is in jeopardy. Fliers must feel safe on planes and be able to choose the best carrier based on up-to-date reliable information.

It is most serious that Transport Canada opts for a veil of secrecy in our skies, airports, and repair facilities.

Bill C-6, clause 43, places air safety reports in a permanent secrecy category via schedule II, section 24, of the Access to Information Act. It's being placed in the same category as tax information. Even cabinet confidences are only 20 years, and security intelligence information doesn't get exempted forever.

There are exemptions, there are public interest overrides, there are injury tests, but not in this case, and that's wrong.

Section 2 of the Access to Information Act says that the laws of this country are extended to try to open up and disclose information. Section 24, things within the act, eliminates any possibility of ever getting that information.

Part of the study of the accountability act, on which I was a witness, had this very discussion of whether we should have a public interest override section within the Access to Information Act, and even whether section 24 should be abolished. It wasn't, and this is going to be the end result if you go down this path.

Already, the effect of the SMS system is felt on access because I've already been denied the first SMS report on Air Transat done in 2003. I got documents, which were dated November, from Transport Canada. They said that as of then there were already 200 secret SMS investigation reports that the public will never get to see, however serious some of the infractions may be.

I noticed in the committee that the minister and officials came to you and said there were only 100 files. Where are the hundreds of SMS reports? When are they going to be made public?

Dozens of regulatory audits were stopped in their tracks, which I or any member of the public could have applied for, but no, they're gone because they've now been transferred, in part, to SMS. This is a power play of the worst order.

It all sounds familiar to me, though, because back in the 1990s, Transport Canada tried to implement a confidential reporting system in partnership with airlines. But when I discovered that from 1990 to 1994 they had done dozens of these studies with the industry, they immediately, once I applied for them under access and I had given the clerk the cancellation order, cancelled them in October of 1994.

Now Transport Canada has ordered that all public regulatory audits be cancelled so that work can “proceed in confidence”.

The gravity, Mr. Chairman and members, of the changes in Bill C-6 can be further illustrated by another past experience. Transport Canada tried to hide from me another confidential air safety post-accident safety survey for which I had to go all the way, for seven years, to the Federal Court of Appeal, the Nationair report where 14 Canadian crew members and 240 Nigerian Muslim pilgrims lost their lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 11, 1991. That crash occurred after takeoff and occurred because of an improperly serviced DC-8 Nationair plane.

Transport Canada at the time argued against me that revealing the Nationair report would affect the trust relationship with all airlines and any chance in future of getting confidential materials.

Well, that report, when it was revealed--and I shared it with next of kin and the media--catalogued many serious past maintenance and other deficiencies at Nationair. It also revealed that there were problems known to the regulators well in advance of the crash.

Under Bill C-6, I would never have gained access to the Nationair report. Under Bill C-6's sweeping confidentiality reporting systems, I would never get the reporting system being promoted. I would never get the cockpit tapes from the Swissair crash off the Nova Scotia coast, or any other black box tapes, so crucial for understanding what happened.

There are four fatal myths associated with this 100% confidentiality SMS reporting system that the Harper government and many in the airline industry seem, for some reason, to support, when it's going to come crashing down on them too.

One is that the airline industry will always report and always tell the truth via a confidential voluntary reporting system. I think it was Justice Dubin who destroyed that myth many years ago.

The second assumes that Transport Canada itself will maintain a healthy distance from the industry and will be diligent and always do its enforcement job in secret.

The third myth assumes that there's no need for whistle-blowing provisions because the reputed positive benefits of an immunity-based industry-government cooperative reporting system will eliminate any need for people to tell the truth.

Finally, there's a bit of a myth that there'll be more substantive records created through Transport Canada's changing to this confidential system. It's going to be like check-offs of performance standards, and not what you think is going to be the real substantive material.

The underlying problem, by way of conclusion, is that Transport Canada's minister, under the Aeronautics Act, has a dual role: one part is to protect the public when it comes to air safety and one part is to promote the expansion and commerce associated with the airline industry. In my opinion, the transport minister's primary function under Bill C-6, which should be revised, should be on air safety.

Regular, much improved, substantive, and regular air safety regulatory audits need to be done and released in a timely fashion. Air safety reporting by the industry must be transparent, must be made publicly available in objective government summary form, and must be subject to coverage under access legislation. Whistle-blowing protection guarantees must be incorporated too, under a revised Bill C-6.

Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon cannot claim that he and his officials, as they said in front of the committee, are simply adding, via an industry-government confidential non-punitive SMS reporting system, just another protective layer to improve air safety and are implementing a system far removed from airline self-regulation. Rather, they are attempting to circumvent public scrutiny and abdicating their public regulatory responsibilities.

I wouldn't feel this strongly if I hadn't got the Air Ontario regulatory audit a month after the Dryden air crash, which showed what a poor maintenance record that airline had. If that had been reviewed beforehand under access, maybe those people wouldn't have died. But you know what? Under Bill C-6, I'd never get that kind of stuff.

Bill C-6 needs to be seriously amended to bring in proactive disclosure policies and tougher air safety inspection and enforcement reporting to Transport Canada.

Thank you, members.

[Kirsten Brazier, President, Operations Manager and Chief Pilot, Dax Air Inc.]

Thank you all for the opportunity to speak here today. We must apologize if it seems we have little documentation to present, for we only recently found out that our request had been granted.

What we offer you is our own experience and frustration in dealing with the present regulatory system.

My name is Kirsten Brazier, and this is my partner, Gerry Whalen. Together we own and operate Dax Air, an air taxi service operating under CAR 703 and an approved maintenance organization. We presently operate a Beech 18 on floats. Our work involves tourism, service to the northern communities, and transporting trades and utility people to remote areas.

We are representative of many small operators located across the country who do similar work, and as we stated in our letter to the committee, we are the most underrepresented and the most affected by Bill C-6.

Prior to starting our company, both my partner and I have had experience in operational management positions, so we are both familiar with navigating through and understanding the regulations. While we feel the CARs were a hand-me-down from 705 and not specifically tailored to 703, the regulations in general are, for the most part, fair and logical. It wasn't until we began the process of certifying both our AMO and air operation, and later doing work for other companies, that we began to see major discrepancies between the CARs and how they were being interpreted and applied by Transport Canada.

In certifying our own company, we wanted a clear and concise set of manuals that met the CAR, the standard we must meet in order to operate. Because the manuals are legal documents, we did not want the extra liability and confusion from unnecessary policies and procedures. We feel there is no such thing as a lesser or greater standard in the CARs. One either meets or does not meet the standard.

Other operators were interested in our approach and asked for our help in ridding themselves of unncessary and excessive policies and procedures in their own manuals.

There seemed to be a general confusion about what the actual standards were. We discovered that individual inspectors in various regions had different interpretations of the regulations and accordingly had differing policies to deal with these interpretations. We discovered that the regulations are not being applied equally and fairly across the system.

When we tried to resolve our concerns as they came up, we discovered a complete lack of due process within Transport Canada. The existing complaint resolution system is ineffective, inaccessible, and lacks an independent arbitrator. We also discovered that there is no protection in place for operators, who are often bullied by individual inspectors, or in some cases departments, to meet individual and regional policies not required by law.

When we started our company, we both agreed we would do our best to abide by the standards and operate safely and responsibly. We knew we were going to have a tough time because of the state of the industry we are in, where cutting corners is common practice. We are all faced with rising costs and a declining market, so to compete, many operators continue to overload their airplanes, cut rates, and push weather, basically getting more done for less.

While this “getting more done for less” philosophy may be attractive to the customer who must pay for the services offered, what the customer doesn't understand is the risk they are taking by supporting this attitude. This only serves to tighten the market further.

As an example, in our second year of operation, Dax Air was faced with this type of choice when one of our customers gave us an ultimatum: either carry the loads he wanted or he would find someone else who would. Since we refused, he found another operator.

We find ourselves in the position that many others have come to: either cut corners to survive and compete or go out of business. While we expected a few challenges in establishing our company and operating principles, we also expected that our doing-it-right approach would be supported by Transport Canada. We have found that this is not the case.

In trying to understand why these conditions exist, we began reaching out to other operators across the country; we discovered there were similar problems in many areas and that others were concerned that nothing was being done. Most of these operators are afraid to come forward for fear of reprisal from Transport Canada. In speaking publicly about these issues, we too are afraid of reprisal, based on our experiences with Transport Canada.

Speaking as a CAR 703 operator, we feel that a safety management system is a valuable business tool. However, given the state of CAR 703 as we described it, we feel there are root problems with 703. Until they are rectified, the air taxi is not ready for SMS. The culture of safety cannot be legislated.

Our research has shown that Transport Canada is using sanitized statistics to support their safety claims, as we pointed out in our letter of April 22. Transport Canada is telling us we have the safest aviation system in the world. They said the same thing ten years ago, in the SATOPS final report, yet many of the same issues discussed in that report continue to exist today.

If we are really concerned about safety and truly want to become the safest country in the world, then we need to start sharing information with a view to discussing and learning from our mistakes. Instead of sanitizing and restricting safety information--such as the service difficulty reports, Transportation Safety Board accident and incident reports, and the CADORS--we need to make this information more accessible in its entirety with industry so we can learn from it.

At present, this information is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain from Transport Canada and the TSB, who continuously cite privacy issues as the reason not to make the information available. As far as we're concerned, the day an operator receives the right to operate and provide services for the public, they become accountable to the public, to the government, to the industry, and to themselves for the way they operate.

In closing, there are many issues we would like to discuss to support our claim, but time being a limiting factor, we have prepared the preceding statement as an issue of priority that we as a 703 operator feel must be addressed. If given a set of clear and concise regulations to follow, if given fair and equitable application of existing regulations by Transport Canada, the industry will, we feel, become safer by default.

Thank you.

[Richard Balnis, Senior Researcher, Air Canada Component, Canadian Union of Public Employees]

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today on behalf of the airline division of CUPE.

You should have all been given a slimmer volume, which is our complete brief, in a tumble edition. The red side is English; the blue side is French. You also have two fatter companion documents in support of our brief. The red is the English only; the blue is the French edition.

The airline division of CUPE represents about 8,500 in-charge flight attendants and flight attendants at six airlines. Along with pilots and our passengers, we are among the first victims when our safety systems fail. Our brief is extensive. I would simply like to give you a quick overview.

Bill C-6 constitutes a revolution in how aviation safety will be addressed in Canada for years to come, as shown on page 1 of our brief. As summarized on pages 2 and 3, we have serious concerns about Bill C-6 and SMS.

We brought these concerns directly to Minister Cannon on November 7, 2006, urging him to retool Bill C-6 for safety before proceeding further. If these key amendments are not made, Bill C-6 cannot proceed, in our view. Our first preference is that the government actually withdraw Bill C-6. But if the government insists on proceeding, we urge you in the strongest possible terms to make the needed amendments to ensure that Bill C-6 is indeed viable and effective legislation that will actually improve aviation safety. Let me explain why this must be done.

First, we address the changing role of Transport Canada's regulatory oversight in an era of SMS in pages 4 to 7 of our submission. Despite efforts to discredit Justice Moshansky and the inspectors' unions, TC oversight of the aviation industry is changing. It is being dismantled today well in advance of aviation SMS being in place. We are only in year two of a three-year implementation plan for large air operators. We are five to twenty years away from when SMS will be fully functional. Professional and dedicated inspectors are there for concern. So is Justice Moshansky. So are flight attendants and pilots.

It is wrong to believe that Bill C-6 compels or requires a diminished role for Transport Canada's oversight and inspectorate under SMS. Rather, it is what the department thinks it can do in the absence of effective parliamentary scrutiny and legislative requirements that is the real issue. We believe we have a fix for your consideration. It is found in our recommendations 1 and 2 on page 7. We offer them for your consideration.

We next address, on pages 8 to 9 of our brief, the myth that the current regulations will remain untouched under SMS. This is the so-called regulatory box the government has been telling you about, the rock upon which the SMS castle is built--it's my fist here. The myth is that SMS is an additional safety layer, the umbrella over my fist. It's supposed to be the hand over the fist. This is too simplistic a view, for two reasons.

First, as the department has already told you, this regulatory box is undergoing tremendous change. On page 8 of our brief, this box will become more performance-based, vaguer, more flexible, and open to interpretation. We give you one recent example on page 9 and in tab 1. This is giving more discretion to air operators and others to decide how they will be safe. The rock is crumbling.

Secondly, what the government and the department have not told you, but witnesses like the Canadian Airports Council have, on page 9, is that the regulatory box will also get smaller. Transport is withdrawing entirely from large areas of setting the safety rules. The rock is disappearing. As the box shrinks, the actual level of safety will be determined more and more by the airlines themselves, using SMS. That's why they are so enthusiastic about it. When we move to the theory, as you can see on pages 10 to 13 of our brief, and as my fist becomes smaller and vaguer, SMS takes over more and more how the industry will run itself. And then the paper over the rock, as in the child's game, and we all know who wins.

That's why you, as our elected politicians, should be concerned. In our view—and we've presented you documents so you can look at it for yourselves, in tabs 2, 3, 4, and 5—we believe Canada's SMS regulations explicitly transfer the determination of the level of safety to the air operator who will decide how to manage their risks, including the level of risk they are willing to accept in their operations. This will be a different risk threshold than one set by Transport Canada.

Transport Canada's speaking points say that SMS is not a deregulation of safety. But it is precisely that, because it has transferred the determination of appropriate risk levels from Transport Canada to the airlines, or from the public interest to the determination and interests of private shareholders.

Beginning on page 12 of our brief, we can show you examples. Fuel requirements are being reduced and replaced with a risk assessment. Management can now use risk assessments to make a conscious decision not to do anything. The level of acceptable risk is being redefined upward.

We give several simple examples. Little flight attendant injuries are no longer being investigated. DEET protection against malaria, once provided to flight attendants, has now disappeared as a result of a management-only risk assessment. That airline has accepted the risk that its flight attendants would get malaria as a cost of doing business.

Please read Justice Moshansky in tab 7, as cited on page 13, where he talks about the emergence of a more permissive, higher-risk-taking environment that contributed directly to the Dryden crash.

Safety costs money, and sometimes managers won't and don't spend it. And they won't have to do that with the elevated risks under SMS.

Can you do anything at this stage, as Parliament? I have here a brochure from Transport Canada. It shows their implementation plan for SMS. It's all in place by 2010, regardless of what you do. The only way you can get Transport Canada to listen is to amend Bill C-6 to make its SMS provisions stronger.

Beginning on page 15, we offer recommendations 3 through 11 to improve the SMS.

Moving on, and mindful of my time and the patience of the chair, the concept of designated organizations has rightfully attracted your attention. We provide our analysis on pages 17 to 19 of our brief. We offer two options for the committee's consideration. But after speaking to the author of tab 10, which is the helicopter study, on Monday, we are learning that whatever Parliament does with this clause, Transport Canada thinks it can delegate these powers without even having to use this designation provision and even if this clause is removed entirely by you. We'll answer more in the question period.

We are also concerned about the encroachment of SMS on our rights under the Canada Labour Code. There is a long analysis on pages 20 to 26. We believe you can make the two pieces of legislation work together. As shown in tab 11, Transport Canada and HRSDC have found the way to do that. Unfortunately, ATAC and the air operators want you to amend the legislation to prevent this.

When it comes to occupational health and safety, flight attendants are beginning to recognize that SMS means “selling out my safety”. We urge you to look at recommendations 17 to 23 to help fix this problem. And on pages 27 to 29, we ask you to look at the issues of immunity and confidentiality. You must disentangle them.

Finally, you must address whistle-blower protection. On page 32 of our brief, Transport Canada cites CAIRS as their answer. CUPE recently used CAIRS to report the operation of an aircraft with less than the legally required number of flight attendants—for us, a serious issue. The report was merely acknowledged. There was no further response or assistance provided. It looks as though the issue was simply given back to the violating airline. There have now been two or three more similar incidents there.

Even if CAIRS worked, it is only half the story. We need the equivalent of U.S. FAA whistle-blower protection, and I have the language here.

I could go on, but I have tried the chair's patience.

As shown on page 42, we need your assistance in the following areas to amend this legislation. We need amendments to Bill C-6 and existing SMS practices to correct deficiency; we need to add whistle-blower protection for employees; we must rescind or limit the powers to self-regulate; you must coordinate Bill C-6 with part II of the code and other legislation; you must revisit excessive confidentiality and secrecy provisions; you should restore our right to flight time limitations; and you must maintain proper safety oversight.

We have offered you 37 recommendations, consolidated at the end of the brief.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear and to present our views. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. This is meeting number 48 and we are meeting pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, November 7, 2006, Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Joining us today, from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, we have Mr. Richard Balnis; from Dax Air Inc., we have Kirsten Brazier and Gerry Whalen; and as an individual, Mr. Ken Rubin.

I think everyone has been notified that we open the process with commentary. You have about seven minutes. We'll do all three and then we'll move around the table for questions from the groups here.

With that, I'll start with Mr. Balnis.

Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit a question of privilege concerning the intimidation by the director general of Civil Aviation, Merlin Preuss, a senior government official, towards witnesses that the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities would like to hear in the context of its study of Bill C-6.

Greg Holbrook, the chair of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on February 21, 2007. A few days before Mr. Holbrook's testimony, Merlin Preuss called Mr. Holbrook's office and had a telephone conversation with Kathy Marquis, Mr. Holbrook's assistant, regarding the testimony that he was about to give before the committee. In an affidavit, a sworn statement, Ms. Marquis said that, during the telephone conversation, Mr. Preuss said to her:

Tell him that if he plans to have any Transport Canada employees with him, I will have an issue with it.

Additionally, regarding the telephone conversation, she also said:

My clear impression from the words and tone of Mr. Preuss' communication was that he wished to discourage Transport Canada Inspectors from testifying before the Standing Committee.

This is extremely disturbing, because under the circumstances, I believe that it constitutes a breach of parliamentary privilege. I would like to bring to your attention citation 865 in the 6th edition of Beauchesne, which reads as follows:

To tamper with a witness in regard to the evidence to be given before the House or any committee or to endeavour, directly or indirectly to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence is a breach of privilege. Corruption or intimidation is not an essential ingredient in this offence. It is equally a breach to attempt, by persuasion or solicitations of any kind, to induce a witness not to attend, or to withhold evidence or to give false evidence.

The situation is especially disturbing since this is not the first time Merlin Preuss, a senior official, has behaved in this way. As proof, I have attached two documents: an e-mail dated March 7, 2007 addressed to “DL OTT civil aviation group” regarding a study by the Auditor General—in this case, the Auditor General was asking officials for information—and a letter dated July 10, 2006 to Pamela Sachs of the Canadian Union of Public Employees concerning an appearance by officials before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Chapter 3 of Marleau and Montpetit, which pertains to privileges and immunities, states on page 88:

—the intimidation of a committee witness was also found to be prima facie contempt by Speaker Fraser on December 4, 1992. The matter was referred by the House to the Standing Committee on House Management for consideration...In its report, the Committee reaffirmed the principles of parliamentary privilege and the extension of privilege to witnesses...“The protection of witnesses is a fundamental aspect of the privilege that extends to parliamentary proceedings and those persons who participate in them. It is well established in the Parliament of Canada, as in the British Parliament, that witnesses before committees share the same privileges of freedom of speech as do Members—”.

A few lines further on, the committee's report states:

“The protection of witnesses extends to threats made against them or intimidation with respect to their presentations before any parliamentary committee”.

This is essentially what Mr. Preuss has tried to do to various potential witnesses before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and people whom the Auditor General has asked for information.

On page 863 of Marleau and Montpetit, chapter 20, “Committees”, it says:

Tampering with a witness or in any way attempting to deter a witness from giving evidence at a committee meeting may constitute a breach of privilege. Similarly, any interference with or threats against witnesses who have already testified may be treated as a breach of privilege by the House.

Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to this breach of my parliamentary privilege. I would also draw your attention to the fact that I am raising this matter at the earliest opportunity. I am aware that the facts I am alleging go back two months. Please allow me to explain myself.

Following the aforementioned events, the committee discussed the matter and passed a motion to call Merlin Preuss before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Mr. Preuss appeared before the committee twice. The first time was March 28, 2007, and the second was April 23. The record of the evidence heard at the April 23 meeting was provided to the members of the committee this morning. I felt it was necessary to have a record of all of the evidence given by Merlin Preuss, a senior official, before raising my question of privilege. As such, I did so without delay as soon as the evidence became available.

If you should find a prima facie case of a breach of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

I've been listening to the testimony on Bill C-6 for a while here. Bill C-6, as a bill, is no surprise. What surprises me are the last-minute allegations that have been coming in the last couple of weeks or so.

Bill C-6 was preceded by Bill C-62. We already heard that in the last Parliament. As I understand it, there were pretty lengthy consultations prior to Bill C-62 as well, before it was introduced. No one raised concerns during that whole process about the inspectorate or the safety issues. The previous government, now the official opposition, didn't raise any caution flags.

As somebody listening to this and following this along and participating in moving Bill C-6 forward, I'm now confronted with hearing the “ifs” or the “might haves” or the “could” or “possibly”. I'm still waiting for some solid evidence that somehow SMS is either going to be a bad thing or that Transport Canada's not fulfilling its obligations, and I'm not hearing that.

SMS—and I've said this before to the committee—is not theory in Canada; it's actually in practice. We have something to look at, at least the beginning of a track record on that. Are we teaching others around the world about SMS? Are we showing others how SMS works? Can you tell us who? What other countries are learning from our experience? Because we have experience in it now; it may not be a lot, but we have experience in it now. Can you enlighten us a bit on that?

[Marc Grégoire]

What is being proposed here is enforceable. There are a number of provisions in Bill C-6 that would make the situation quite different from what it is in rail.

The Railway Safety Act does not provide for very stringent enforcement action. For instance, there are no monetary penalties, and there's no way to lift an operating certificate. The Railway Safety Act is under review now, and we'll have the chance to bring forward all the amendments we wish.

To come back to aviation, if a similar situation occurred in aviation, our inspectors, who would be in the numbers we discussed, would go in. But rather than do the inspection in the way they are doing it today or in the way they used to do it, they would specifically look at a detailed analysis of the safety management system. On the basis of the report, it would indicate that the SMS is not well implemented, and a number of enforcement actions could be taken, or we could decide to go in to do inspections and audits in the usual manner.

All the options are open, and we could lift a certificate or set a huge fine. You will have noticed that in Bill C-6 we are proposing to significantly increase the fines we would be able to set for airlines. All of those avenues and enforcement tools could be used.

It is fundamental in the SMS culture we want to implement that employees must report. It's a reporting culture. We really want to encourage everybody to report problems before they arise and before they become more serious problems. We think it's the best way to improve safety.

But if an employee is fired the first time he makes such a report, the system obviously doesn't work and must be fixed. It wouldn't meet the intent of the actual regulation, but we have all the provisions to address the problem.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

I had hoped to get a chance to ask the minister this question.

I noticed one of the key amendments or proposals outlined in this bill, which I gather is really an updated version of Bill C-62, under the previous government's introduction. One of things that I noticed in the outline, and it was mentioned in the discussion, was the provision to encourage employees of Canadian airlines to report safety concerns voluntarily, without fear of legal or disciplinary action.

On the question of the safety management system and the issue of getting employees to be able to report things in an open or protected way, when we originally started discussing this, I was somewhat impressed with some of the proposals under the SMS, safety management system, for the airline industry.

We had the experience of the reports that came through on the railway. Mr. Grégoire, I guess this would be overlapping your area. These two gentlemen specifically focus on the airline, and I'm going to keep to that.

The connection was that in the safety audit we had done and the safety management system appraisal we had done on CN's operations in rail safety, it indicated that although a safety management system was supposedly in place, one that was supported and advocated by management or even extolled by management, it wasn't necessarily enforced and followed through on. There was a disconnect between management and the employees, the supervisors and the mainline employees. It was something that was in fact reported in the audit and in those reports as being a serious flaw.

In fact, there were instances when employees almost lived in a culture of fear. If they reported things too often, they would be penalized in promotion, even to the extent of being able to maintain their jobs. That concerned me. It concerns me coming back now to Bill C-6 and the proposals.

What do you see as being able to prevent the kind of problem we saw for CN, with its safety management system and the ability of employees to feel they were able to do their jobs and report the deficiencies? How do you see it being covered in the case of what's being proposed here?