Transport Committee on April 13th, 2010

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

By this government.

Thank you very much. Those are all my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You say 15 years is too long, and I think the committee would agree. Do you have a number that might be reasonable to you?

[Wendy Tadros]

I think if you streamline the process you can bring that number down considerably. I wouldn't want to hazard a guess at an exact number of what's reasonable and what's not reasonable, because I think that's an incredibly subjective thing.

The other thing that regulators can do is put in interim measures, as they did with fishing vessel stability. You put in interim measures that are not necessarily legal requirements until you can get the legal requirements in place.

In aviation, there are similar tools in airworthiness directives and such.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

We're on the final round. Mr. Volpe.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Madam Tadros, I hope you'll forgive the slight levity of the last couple of interventions by government members. They take a great delight in trying to colour everything according to partisanship, but sometimes they succeed in injecting humour.

We're on a serious plane here, and since you gave an indication that governments have given you a sense they will act on about 60% of your recommendations, those recommendations keep coming up over and over again, so there must be some recommendations that are palatable and some that are not.

I said in a light moment that the issue about the runways surely is an easy one to fix. If something is falling off the runway at Pearson airport, get a few hundred cement trucks and extend the runway. That can't be all that difficult. What regulation is impeding that easy solution? After all, all kinds of infrastructure money is looking for a home.

[Wendy Tadros]

I don't think it's all that easy. When you come to TSB recommendations, they're never the easy issues. If they were the easy issues, they would have been fixed a long time ago. These are the vexing problems that need to be grappled with.

In terms of our recommendations, 67% are rated as fully satisfactory, the response. About 6% are unsatisfactory. But it's that middle ground, about 27%, I believe, where we have agreement with regulators but the action has been far too slow.

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

I'd like to draw your attention to three of those issues. Please allow me to highlight them for you, and then you can respond.

The first one is on the foreign-flag vessels, the ones that purport to provide both the tourist experience and the training experience for Canadians but fly under flags of convenience. We find that Canadians are lost at sea and end up in port whenever or wherever, and some even result in fatalities. I'm wondering about your perception in that regard.

The second one is on seaplanes and float planes. It's an issue that keeps coming up with greater and greater frequency, especially on the west coast. I noticed that in one of the investigations back in January, the issue about an escape portal on some of these seaplanes for civil use was unavailable. Yet military planes of a similar nature must have an escape portal. I wonder if you can address the reason why we would permit a different type of equipment for civil purposes.

Finally, I mentioned earlier the issue of fishing vessels and the frequency with which they are engaged in accidents, in part not because of the weather but because the equipment is incapable of handling the weather conditions in which they operate.

I'm wondering if you could address those three issues for me, please.

[Wendy Tadros]

The first issue you raised has to do with sail training vessels. We did a full investigation of the Picton Castle and reported our findings to the Canadian public on that investigation. There's another ongoing one on the SV Concordia. We will do a full investigation of that accident, which involved young Canadians, and we will be reporting on that.

In terms of float planes, we have an ongoing investigation, as you're probably aware, in Lyall Harbour, Saturna Island, and that investigation is going to be looking at all of the survival issues relating to float planes, including the issue that you raised.

In terms of fishing vessels, we have many investigations--probably far too many each year--into fishing vessels. This is a vexing problem. Recently we decided as an organization that we were going to do what we call a special issues investigation that isn't focused on one particular accident but is going to look at all of the issues in fishing vessel safety, because despite efforts, the number of deaths just is not coming down.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

You're right on time, Mr. Volpe.

Monsieur Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Tadros, you mentioned in your report that there were twice as many incidents in which aircraft went off the end of a runway in Canada than elsewhere in the world. During your study, did you verify whether there are air traffic controllers on most runways at airports in other countries? That's not the case in Canada, for example, because, for a number of runways, there are no controllers. The controlling is done remotely. For the various cases in which aircraft run off the end of runways, did you study the possibility that the lack of air traffic controllers was a factor?

[Mark Clitsome]

When we conduct an investigation, we look at all the standards that are in place, such as the international standards, the regulations, and the number of factors involved in an overrun.

A number of factors are involved in a runway overrun. Some of them have to do with the aircraft travelling too fast on landing. Some have to do with mechanical problems with the aircraft, some with weather problems, tail winds, for example. Some of them have to do with runway surface conditions, ice and snow, unstabilized approaches, air traffic controllers. Every accident is different, and we look at all those symptoms.

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

Allow me to interrupt you, please.

On that subject, the NAVCanada people are restructuring everything and some control towers will be closed. Control will be done more remotely. There is an extensive operation in that regard.

Are you involved in the discussions? When the NAVCanada people decide to do that, do they talk to you about it, or is your role limited to reacting when accidents occur? Are you currently in discussions with NAVCanada?

[Mark Clitsome]

We participate in some meetings but we don't sit on their panels. We just look at the accident afterwards.

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

The control tower at Mirabel is closed, for example. When there were air traffic controllers, a CF-18 just missed colliding with a small aircraft.

Are these near-accidents reported to you or do you know nothing about them? You intervene only once an accident has happened. However, are people required to report this kind of situation to you?

[Mark Clitsome]

We have regulations that require aircraft operators, air traffic controllers, and pilots to report incidents as well as accidents. We investigate serious incidents as well as accidents. So if we feel there is a threat to safety, we will investigate that accident.

[Wendy Tadros]

We track them as well.

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

So, since the control tower at Mirabel was closed, if there is a problem or an accident, do people turn to the Transportation Safety Board?

You know a lot of discontent is arising among the businesses there, in particular Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney and L-3 Communications, which does maintenance on the CF-18s. If anything happens, will they turn to you or is there a procedure?

[Mark Clitsome]

That's a level-of-service issue. There are rules and regulations in place for aircraft all over Canada to land at airports without air traffic control towers. If NavCanada decides a level of service is not required, they would do a study in-house to determine that. Our role is to investigate after an incident or an accident to determine if that was an issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You have 30 seconds, if you would like.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I mainly travel in the north. Most of the runways, the one in Chibougamau, for example, are controlled from Quebec City. Not very long ago, a King Air plane crashed in Chibougamau. We don't know whether it was because of a lack of experience on the part of the pilots or because of weather conditions that frequently change in the north. In addition, there was no controller on site.

Could the fact that no one can see the usable length of runway for the aircraft that is preparing to land be a factor? When control is done from Quebec City, they see what's going on in the air, but not on the runway.

[Mark Clitsome]

That investigation is ongoing. Until we have determined the actual facts and come up with some causes and some findings, I can't report on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I want to go to the challenge you see with the rest of the aviation industry in achieving SMS. Of course, the government has delayed the implementation of these systems for the small carriers. As a person who travels in many remote locations with small carriers, I have great concerns about this as well.

I've talked to a variety of aviation businesses, and they tell me the problems they have with training people to be their SMS managers. With very limited resources, many times they train these people and then they move on. So the continuity of SMS as a culture is very important to the whole idea of SMS, and yet really, with these small operators, I don't know how that culture's going to be maintained in the present aviation industry in Canada. In the small carriers industry in remote locations people are moving constantly; transient employees are the mode, not the exception. I think this is a real issue.

You've certainly said that you're going to pay special attention to this and that you've dealt with aviation safety issues in the small carriers. What do you think about this? What do you think about how we're going to implement SMS with these small carriers? Whether we delay it for 18 months or not, are we going to get what we want in 18 months?

[Wendy Tadros]

Do you want me to take that?

I think the board has been clear that safety management systems are the way to go, but I think it's going to require a very careful hand from the regulator in terms of the implementation of those systems to the smaller carriers for all of the reasons that you outlined, but also because SMS is a cultural change. It doesn't require that you go and make this bolt a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller; it's a cultural change within a company. Those kinds of cultural changes are always difficult.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are you examining the government's decision to postpone for 18 months? Do you sense this is something that should be made permanent, that we should look at SMS in a different fashion for small operators? You're not going to put these people out on their own. You're going to have to create a culture for small operators. Small operators are not going to create an aviation safety culture on their own. There's going to have to be some kind of continuity within the small operators industry to provide that, don't you agree?