Public Accounts Committee on June 5th, 2008

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Different competencies.

[Merlin Preuss]

If you're in a compliance-based system, a checklist is basically all you need. “Is the tire pressure right?”, the deputy minister has asked many times. But what happens if you want to understand why you found or why it appeared that all of the tires had low pressure? That goes beyond that. It goes beyond that, to maybe something the organization isn't doing correctly. Maybe it goes to some human factors elements.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Regarding this integrated human resources plan, the way we typically operate, we'll come out with a report and probably ask for a timeline on that. When will that plan be ready? We need a specific date, as opposed to saying we need to—

[Merlin Preuss]

Specifically, it will be the fall of 2009 when we'll have a comprehensive document; that's our forecast right now. What I'm saying is that by the fall, I could come back here and say, here are the types of things that we've already identified more concretely, now that we have a PAA to work under.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

We're now back to Mr. Julian, for four minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Let's come back to the flight inspectors. How many positions exist across the country—not actual physical bodies, but positions?

[Merlin Preuss]

There are 871.

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

So there are 871 positions.

I had asked earlier—and I hope you've had time to check this—for the actual numbers of bodies of full-time flight inspectors currently in their positions, as of now. I ask this because the Auditor General's report didn't give precise numbers, though there was a table basically dating back to last fall. So if we talk about today or this month or the last figure available—maybe it's last month—how many of those positions would be filled with somebody who is actually actively working, not on leave?

[Louis Ranger]

Do you have that?

[Merlin Preuss]

The latest data I have that's relatively fresh is that there are 134 vacancies right now.

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

So we've gone down to about six....

[Merlin Preuss]

I would also point out that all vacancies aren't created equal, so in the high-risk area where you're dealing with airlines and large severity implications if you have a problem, our numbers there are more like 6%.

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

They are fewer than 650, right now, of the full-time flight inspector positions.

[Merlin Preuss]

Isn't it 871 minus 134, which is 700-and-something?

[Marc Grégoire]

It's 737.

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

Okay, it's 737 flight inspectors, and that has not changed, in fact—

[Marc Grégoire]

They are civil aviation inspectors; they are not all flight inspectors.

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

Civil aviation inspectors.

Over the last five years, the number of commercial flights would have grown by what percentage?

[Louis Ranger]

We've covered that already. I would say 3% to 5% a year, easily.

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

So up perhaps 15% over a five-year period.

[Louis Ranger]

Absolutely. Traffic is going up.

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

This is an important point. I have some sympathy, because what we've essentially seen is the government's starving Transport Canada of resources. It's kind of a foolish logic. If you don't provide adequate funding in the health care system—you don't hire nurses and doctors—you don't go off and say, “Well, patients, you go out and operate on yourselves.” You provide adequate funding to actually support that system. Here we have a systemic problem that is in a sense obliging Transport Canada to try to implement a system that, to many people's minds, is fraught with problems.

I'd like to come to the issue of safety audits then. Over the past 12 months, there's been no safety audit done on A.D. Williams, even though there was loss of life in that crash, and I think there would be concerns. In the past, there certainly would have been a safety audit. How many safety audits on Canadian airlines have been performed in the past 12 months?

[Louis Ranger]

First of all, Mr. Chair, I do not accept the statement that the government is starving us of resources to do our job.

What the government has asked us, what the Auditor General asked us, is whether our programs are cost-effective: is this the best way to spend the dollars we have? The professional answer is, over time, no. There's a better way of achieving that objective. Actually, we could improve on that objective if we do things differently, and we have the world authority on civil aviation matters supporting us on that and validating that process. It's very different from saying.... We're not being starved by the government.

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

You made the point that this was an additional system. I am making the point that there is no additional overlay of SMS on top of a well-functioning inspector system. There have been dramatic cutbacks in the number of flight inspectors, at the same time as there have been significant increases. So I think we'll have to agree to disagree. To many people's minds, there simply isn't the type of support of the system that we've had, which has functioned well.

I come back to my question on safety audits. How many safety audits have been performed in the last 12 months, full safety audits with civil aviation—