Transport Committee on Feb. 14th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Welcome, and good afternoon, everyone. This is the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting number 35, 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 we have, from Transport 2000, Mr. David Jeanes, and from the Air Line Pilots Association, Dan Adamus and Art LaFlamme. We appreciate your coming out on a blustery day. I know there's been some discussion, but I think we'll start with the Air Line Pilots Association and give Mr. Jeanes a chance to get himself set up and organized.

Traditionally we give you about seven minutes to pitch, and then we'll go around the table and ask you some questions, if that's okay.

Please begin.

[Capt Dan Adamus, President, Canada Board, Air Line Pilots Association]

Thank you, Mr. Tweed, and good afternoon, members of the transport committee.

I'm Captain Dan Adamus, and I'm here representing the Air Line Pilots Association, International, or what we refer to as ALPA. I'm ALPA's Canada Board president and a pilot with Air Canada Jazz.

With me today is Art LaFlamme, ALPA's senior staff representative in Canada. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to express our views on Bill C-6.

The Air Line Pilots Association, International, represents more than 60,000 pilots who fly for forty airlines in Canada and the United States. Both as our members' certified bargaining agent and as their representative in all areas affecting their safety and professional well-being, ALPA is the principal spokesperson for airline pilots in North America. ALPA therefore has a significant interest in any legislation affecting aviation here in Canada.

ALPA supports this legislation, in particular the provisions to permit the effective implementation of safety management systems, known as SMS, in aviation companies regulated and certified by Transport Canada. ALPA has embraced SMS as the next great leap forward in advancing aviation safety. We see it as a comprehensive corporate approach to safety that involves both management and employees in the development and implementation of a company's SMS.

You may ask why ALPA is so strongly supportive of SMS and this legislation. We are for many reasons. It clearly establishes accountability for safety at the highest levels within a company. It provides for the reporting of safety occurrences and information without fear of retribution. It requires employee involvement and a formal risk assessment and decision-making process, to name but a few things.

ALPA views SMS as an umbrella framework over the existing safety regulations. Under SMS, no longer will a company be able to ignore a safety issue by saying they are regulatorily compliant. If a safety hazard is known or has been identified, a company is required to do a risk assessment and make a conscious decision on what mitigations are required to deal with it.

SMS clearly establishes responsibility for safety where it belongs: the aviation industry. It is the minister's responsibility to provide comprehensive and effective oversight and to take the appropriate measures where that responsibility has not been fulfilled. The traditional method of safety oversight based on detailed technical inspections can take on the role of operational safety assurance, and the aviation industry can lapse into thinking and believing that safety is the government's responsibility. ALPA believes this legislation clearly establishes where the responsibility and accountability for safety lies, and it provides all the powers required for the minister to take appropriate measures when required.

ALPA has not only accepted SMS in Canada, it has adopted it in the U.S. as the way forward. ALPA has been actively advocating it to the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, and with those airlines whose pilots are represented by ALPA. In fact, ALPA has been instrumental in achieving FAA buy-in to SMS, resulting in the FAA flight standards division issuing an advisory circular with standards for those airlines wishing to implement SMS.

As you are probably aware, the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, has adopted SMS, and it will become an international standard in 2009. In that regard, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association, IFALPA—of which we were a founding member—has worked closely with ICAO in establishing the ICAO standards and recommended practices and strongly supports this international initiative.

We understand the expressions of concern that have been made regarding the protection from punishment and for the confidentiality provided for in the draft legislation. We believe these provisions are absolutely essential to the success of a company's SMS.

We can explain our position as follows. To proactively address safety issues, data is required. Strategies to enhance safety need to be data-driven. In the absence of accidents, the right kind of data is required. Human and organizational factors create errors or hazards that largely remain undetected until the right set of circumstances result in a bad occurrence. An organizational climate where people feel free from negative consequences when reporting errors, deficiencies, and hazards is essential to obtaining all the data that is available. Therefore, a reporting program must provide confidentiality and immunity from discipline to be effective. Of course, exceptions would be a wilful or deliberate offence, gross negligence, or a criminal act.

In summary, ALPA believes a voluntary, confidential, and non-punitive reporting program is an essential element of an SMS and this legislation.

ALPA would like to comment on one other provision of this draft legislation, and that's clause 12, the power of the minister to designate organizations to act on the minister's behalf in certain areas. ALPA is of the strong view that this designation power must not be granted for commercial passenger and cargo operations. We note that the legislative language is quite broad, subject to regulations on which stakeholders are to be consulted, through the Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council, or CARAC. We have been advised by Transport Canada officials that this provision is meant to address only low-risk, non-air-transport areas of the aviation industry. We recommend that the committee obtain, for the record, such an undertaking from the minister.

We thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you, and we would be glad to take any questions you may have.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Jeanes, are you ready to go?

[David Jeanes, President, Transport 2000 Canada]

I am.

Thank you, Mr. Tweed.

First of all, I would say that we are appearing here on very short notice of only a day or so. We don't have a written brief. Unfortunately, I could not be joined this afternoon by my colleague Gerry Einarsson, who is our expert on air safety matters, but I have been extensively consulting with him over the past two days. I hope the verbal presentation I make today will be useful to you.

You may normally think of Transport 2000 as a consumer organization that is primarily concerned with urban transit and railway matters. We last appeared before you in October of last year to discuss matters relating to rail travel. But we have been strongly concerned, mainly from the consumer perspective, about air transportation for quite a number of years. In fact, we appeared before this committee back in November 1999, as part of a coalition of nine different consumer organizations that were very concerned about consumer issues arising from the merger of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.

At that time, one of the organizations that joined that coalition, along with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and others, was the Air Passenger Safety Group, which was a group of people with strong expertise in the air industry who were particularly concerned about safety matters. That group subsequently became an affiliate of Transport 2000, and with their expertise over the subsequent seven or eight years, we have been quite heavily involved in airline-related matters. In fact, we're often called on directly by the national media for comment, particularly when there is an air safety issue, when there is a major air incident. We do believe that we try to provide an informed and balanced comment that is useful, in the public interest, and helpful to people when it comes to understanding the circumstances surrounding various incidents.

One good example of this was the crash and burning of the Air France flight at Pearson Airport, where we were quite extensively involved. We were actually told by representatives of the Transportation Safety Board that they had found the interviews we were giving to the media to be quite to the point and appropriate. So that's just some background.

We do also participate quite actively, in a consultative way, with various groups in the administration of the aviation industry, with Transport Canada, and with airline organizations—for example, in CARAC, the Canadian Aviation Regulatory Advisory Committee.

When it comes to Bill C-6, we strongly support the principles of the amendments as they are identified here. Matters such as aircraft emission regulations and the ability of the minister to make emission regulations relate quite closely to our commitment to sustainable transportation and to transportation that benefits the environment.

I'll talk a bit more, but we are quite concerned about the ability of the minister to handle fatigue countermeasures. Whistle-blower provisions are crucially important.

The whole area of SMS and provisions for more self-regulation by the industry is a matter on which we certainly understand the economic importance, but we feel it has to be balanced with a concern not only for absolute safety—which is, of course, always a matter of concern for Transport Canada—but also for public perception. It is in the interests of the industry itself that the public perceives that air travel continues to have the very high safety standards and safety record it is well-known for. In fact, we believe this relates to improved consumer choice.

You can talk as much as you like about a free market, but a free market implies that consumers have the knowledge to make the choices within that marketplace, and knowledge of the safety measures, and even the safety records, of the air carriers is an important part of that informed consumer choice.

I know I have to try to be brief here, but with respect to SMS, we do believe it is essential for the department to continue to have enough resources to do the monitoring, surveillance, and evaluation of the safety programs. In other countries we've had too many examples of where responsibility for safety and maintenance has been devolved. A very bad example occurred in Britain, where maintenance of the railways was devolved entirely to the private sector and resulted in a large number of severe and multiple-fatality accidents. They needed to practically shut down the entire national rail network after one particular incident resulting from the maintenance decisions under a self-regulation environment. There was a subsequent need for the government to re-nationalize both railway infrastructure and railway maintenance after they had been privatized.

It is very important that as you introduce these SMS programs and self-regulatory regimes you retain the ability in government to understand how well it's working, because once it fails, it's very expensive and complicated and difficult for all concerned to rectify the problems and to take it back.

Public oversight is absolutely essential. There have been many incidents that could have been prevented if this kind of whistle-blower protection had existed. As a specific example, I can go back as far as the Dryden crash in 1989, which was a de-icing matter, where it was clearly established that had employees been able to speak without fear of reprisal, the 24 deaths in that accident could have been avoided. We learned from that, and in fact de-icing procedures worldwide have improved as a result of what we learned from those fatalities, but in fact the fatalities might have been unnecessary if whistle-blowing protection was available.

It's not a Canadian situation, but an Alaska Airlines crash that happened in January of 2000 again was a case where known maintenance issues had been suppressed because there was no protection for the employees who could have provided that information. The plane crashed due to failure of its tail assembly, and the 88 fatalities that resulted could have been avoided.

We understand that this legislation is being dealt with against the background of diminishing and decreasing resources at Transport Canada, and although that may be a reality, and there may be great difficulty as experienced inspectors retire and so on--difficulty in replacing them--that by itself isn't an excuse for downgrading the level of safety in the industry. If the resources are required for safety, they must somehow be found.

Finally, we found some very good remarks, which I hope the members of this committee will have read or be aware of--and if you aren't, then I recommend them to you--in the remarks made by Justice Moshansky last November. He did the original investigation of the Dryden crash in 1989. He made a speech in November that was still quite concerned about the state of the management of aviation safety in Canada, about lessons that had been learned but had not necessarily led to improvements being made. Particularly, he had strong remarks related to the problems of inadequate supply of inspection capability--inspectors at Transport Canada.

Yes, it is appropriate to improve the act along the lines that are requested here and to devolve in a way that maintains safety and Transport Canada's ability to monitor the adequacy of safety mechanisms, but also in a way that will ensure that the public continues to have confidence in the safety of the airline system and can make informed choices.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Jeanes. We do appreciate the short notice you had to deal with, and you made a good presentation.

Mr. Volpe.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Let me add my thanks to the witnesses before us.

Yes, I have read some of the comments by Justice Moshansky. I understand the committee is going to have him before us, so we'll have an opportunity to address him in person.

You indicated that Transport Canada, or whatever agency is going to provide the oversight, should ensure they have the resources so that public oversight will be effective and ever present. You must have a model in mind.

[David Jeanes]

The problem is that if the industry has the only expertise regarding safety, then Transport Canada largely becomes an outsider. If Transport Canada doesn't itself have in-house expertise that is at least equally capable of evaluating the mechanisms and the provisions the industry provides through SMS, then it's not possible for the government to know whether it's working or not.

I'm sorry to refer back to a different mode, but the British government had absolutely no idea how bad the situation was becoming in railway maintenance in the U.K. until the Hatfield crash and its associated fatalities, which revealed that virtually the entire railway network in Britain had to have very severe speed restrictions applied for many months while deferred maintenance problems all over the country were addressed.

The problem was that the national bureaucracy that had previously existed under a nationalized railway, with the expertise to deal with railway maintenance issues, had not been replaced with enough expertise to at least maintain a government oversight of how well the industry was policing itself. There was no longer the knowledge at the government level to really look critically at that self-regulation of safety and maintenance that the railways were practising.

The railways, when they were privatized, got all the experts. Those experts, over time, retired and were not replaced. The bottom line was the ruling factor; maintenance practices were downgraded, and the government didn't see it coming until it was time to mount a full-scale inquiry to find out why the country's rail network had collapsed.

Fortunately, the airline industry hasn't gone that way, and should not go that way. This must be done in a rational and controlled way that ensures that government oversight is maintained as you devolve self-regulation of safety processes.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Surely that's the reason you support the legislation: there's an inference to be drawn, and an implication that's very specific, which is that the government is suggesting very strongly--in fact, even saying--that in effect we don't need whistle-blowing legislation because there's going to be a voluntary reporting mechanism for the purposes of gathering data that might not otherwise be forthcoming. That data is going to be available for the agency that will provide the public oversight.

Is that not your understanding?

[David Jeanes]

We still see all of this legislation against the background of a declining level of ability to perform safety enforcement at the Transport Canada level. It's a problem of replacement of expertise; it's whether the department will even continue to have much of a role when it is devolved, whether it's devolved to airline companies themselves or to industry organizations, which I think is another part of the proposal.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That's an interesting perception, because it causes me to reflect a little differently on some of the statements you've made and some that Mr. Adamus has made as well.

I noted in your presentation, and here it is in writing, that even though you're very happy with the legislation, you have some concerns about clause 12, and then that you're “of the strong view that this designation power must not be granted for commercial passenger and cargo operations”. You didn't expand on your reasons; perhaps you would do that now.

You've also said something that, to my mind, is novel: you ask the committee to obtain, for the record, an undertaking from the minister. That's a rather strong position to take. Why would you do that?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Those are some very good questions.

I'll start with clause 12. Clause 12 has nothing to do with the SMS language. Clause 12 is setting the framework for the possibility of third-party oversight in certain areas of aviation. We don't believe it's a good fit for the airline industry, certainly not at this time. When we questioned Transport Canada officials on the issue, they assured us that was not the intent.

We understand that in legislation you don't want to restrict the language too much, and that's why it would be tough to put amendments in here; however, when it comes to the regulation, perhaps at that point they could make sure it's not intended for the air transport segment of the aviation industry.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Will we have some input at the stage where the regulations are being framed?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Absolutely, it'll be through the CARAC process, and we participate as full partners.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm sorry to have interrupted you in the middle of your statement. I'm still interested in hearing the rest of your response, specifically as to why you wouldn't want the designation of any of that authority to commercial and cargo operations. They have to be as equally concerned about safety management systems as anybody else.

[Capt Dan Adamus]

We fully support SMS. However, third-party oversight, which is a separate issue, is again something that we don't see as a fit for the transport side of the aviation industry.

It's being done right now in commercial business aviation. My understanding is that it's working quite well, but that is a totally different segment of the industry. We were told that this was put there for areas such as the ultralights or crop-spraying aircraft, but it was not intended for the airline industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thanks.

Monsieur Laframboise.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue in the same vein because we all have a problem. In any case, the bill poses a problem for me. We can agree to have a safety management system, but there are two major qualifications.

The first qualification is the fact that part of the oversight is being assigned to independent organizations. You tell us that you've been told we couldn't amend the act, that we have to wait for regulations. I'm telling you that, as parliamentarians, we can amend the act. We can simply decide to delete this entire part. We can make changes, amendments.

If you had any suggestions to make to us with regard to that, I think it would be time to do so. You can't do them today, but you could send them to us because we can very well make amendments.

So my first problem is that we want to ask independent organizations to monitor implementation in certain areas.

Do you think we should immediately make amendments to the act, if we have the power to do so?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Certainly a clarification on my comments is in order.

Amendments are up to you as a committee, and certainly that's your purview. What I meant to say was that you don't want the legislation to be too restrictive, so that it prevents the department from implementing the regulations that make good on the intentions of the legislation. That was what I was trying to put forward.

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

I understand you clearly. If we could do it while maintaining a certain leeway, you would agree; I understand.

My second point concerns page 2 of the brief that you tabled with us, where you say:

The traditional method of safety oversight based on detailed technical inspections can take on the role of operational safety assurance and the aviation industry can lapse into thinking and believing that safety is the government's responsibility.

So you're suggesting that the industry is somewhat responsible; that's why you're supporting this.

My problem stems from the fact that you cast doubt on the traditional inspection and oversight method. As you said earlier, Mr. Jeanes, the department must continue ensuring oversight. However, in this bill, there's absolutely nothing that reinforces the work of inspectors to ensure that this policy is implemented. It creates something new, but does not clarify the position of Transport Canada and the inspection service, inspectors, federal pilots and so on.

This approach troubles me. In your brief, you seem to say that what happened before and the systematic inspections are not a good solution, that that should be assigned to the industry. I'm very reluctant to assign this responsibility to the industry because that becomes self-regulation. I'm willing to believe that you discipline yourselves, but the idea of you being responsible to yourselves for implementing the regulations concerns me a great deal. I want you to do it, I want the industry to discipline itself, but I don't think it's up to the industry to decide whether things are going well or not. I think there has to be an independent inspection service that is maintained and reinforced, in order to ensure us and ensure the public that the service or what has been put in place is well respected.

[Capt Dan Adamus]

It is our understanding that Transport Canada will continue to have oversight on safety. There will be regular audits on company SMS systems that are in place. If they detect any irregularities, then it'll go back to the more traditional audit.

Transport Canada will still play a huge and very important role. I think they've done a fantastic job in the past in identifying areas where improvements could be made.

I think with today's technology, aircraft training systems have improved to a great degree. This will only enhance that, by being able to identify problems out on the line as pilots, without worrying about retribution. If we say something about what was done that maybe wasn't done the correct way, then this will improve safety. This is how.

I will use an example. One of the companies we represent in Canada has a flight that departs Toronto fairly late at night and flies to St. John's, Newfoundland. It sits for two hours and then returns. The pilots were continually saying how tired they were on the return trip. The company's response originally was that it's within the Transport Canada regulations, it's within the 14-hour duty time, and they were absolutely right. However, under the SMS system in that company, they sat down with the company officials and identified that the two-hour wait at 4:30 in the morning probably wasn't the best thing. Now they've rearranged their flight schedule so they don't have that sit.

That's an area where SMS works perfectly well. I know Transport Canada would certainly embrace that in that situation.

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

I understand that's the way it is in a world where the economy is going well and at a business that's running well, but we've often seen companies come and go in the space of two years.

I support the principle of the safety management system. However, we need an effective inspection service, with federal pilots, that is ready at all times to intervene directly with businesses that have not filed complaints, for all kinds of reasons. For example, that could be the case because the company is doing poorly and employees support certain things because they see that things are not going well within the company.

I'm concerned about public safety. That's why we need an independent system. Transport Canada has to maintain a high-level inspection service.

If the bill remains as it is right now, safety could even be turned over to independent businesses, as has been done in Great Britain. That's not what I want. Nothing guarantees me that there will be an independent inspection service of Transport Canada officials who can intervene at any time when they think that something is not right. Do you understand my fear?

Do you think I'm right to continue thinking that way?

[Art LaFlamme, Senior Representative, Canada, Air Line Pilots Association]

The Air Line Pilots Association strongly supports that Transport Canada should maintain an effective audit and inspection program.

What we were saying here is that under SMS, the nature of the inspections and audits might be changed somewhat from the more traditional methods, where inspectors look more closely at aircraft and things of that nature. As we understand it, they will be looking at the system as a whole and how effective that system is with respect to safety.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for coming forward today.

It's very important. This is a bill that has significant ramifications, as we're all aware, and certainly on this side of the committee table we want to make sure we do our complete and due diligence at every single step.

I'd like to follow up on Monsieur Laframboise's comments and refer to Transport Canada testimony that we heard on Monday. This committee was told on Monday that with Bill C-6, we would be in full compliance with international standards under ICAO, and that indeed Canada is in full compliance with international standards within the ICAO.

I wanted to ask you what the current ICAO standards are for pilot proficiency checks, and how often do those need to be undertaken?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

I don't have that information off the top of my head, but we could get the information.