Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

[Anita Biguzs]

We have not cut any front-line inspector positions.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

In your opinion, have the measures through DRAP in any way at all put the health and safety of Canadians at risk?

[Anita Biguzs]

No, they have not. We have put our focus on administrative measures—in streamlining, reducing travel expenditures, in accounts payable systems, in consolidating certain administrative functions—but they have not affected the front-line service regulatory requirements that we have to fulfill. We have not reduced any of that.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Byrne was perhaps leading in this direction. We have talked a lot about high-risk areas of the sector and risk in general. I suppose the higher-risk companies are profiled. I just need to get an understanding of this. How can Canadians know that the companies that aren't being inspected are safe? Is there any confidence in that? Can Canadians have confidence in that?

[Gerard McDonald]

First of all, I should clarify that no companies that are carrying fare-paying passengers are not being inspected. We have established a risk-based system that will assign an inspection interval of between one and five years for a company, based on the detailed risk analysis that we have done of that particular company.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Yes.

I want to get a little better understanding of the inspection process, and specifically inspection tools. What are in place? What are they about? Have they changed as a direct result of the Auditor General report, or is there a reason to consider changing them? Are they the best in the industry? Are you still searching for better inspection tools?

If you could elaborate on that for me, on the inspection tools and the whole inspection process, I would really appreciate it.

[Gerard McDonald]

That will be a real challenge in the short time we have available.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Just do your best.

[Gerard McDonald]

Very quickly, have we improved our tools? Yes, we have. As a result of the AG's report? Obviously. The AG's report has helped us inform ourselves as to the areas that we need to improve.

We have also improved them as we move to a system-based methodology. We had to change the methodology that our inspectors used to undertake the inspections. We have a very comprehensive set of instructions for our inspectorate on how to undertake various inspections, whether it's an assessment, which is a large audit of a system, or whether it's a program validation inspection, which is a fairly comprehensive review of a particular program of an area, or whether it's a process inspection, which is looking at one particular thing in an organization.

Martin, I'm not sure if there's anything you want to add on the inspection process.

[Martin Eley]

We've developed a surveillance plan that looks at the intervals and also the right tools to use. Maybe you don't need a major activity, such as an assessment, a program validation inspection, or a process inspection for the very simple operations. The five-year plan we've put in place in the last year brings a combination of the risk exposure and the appropriate tools to use. We believe we're reaching a fairly good stage of maturity in having a complete tool box and instructions on how to use it.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

This is in fact an audit. You're auditing whether the company has these processes in place. Are you speaking to staff and management? Help me with that a little.

[Martin Eley]

We've found that in dealing with the companies and looking at the systems and talking to staff, we've learned a lot more about the culture of the company. This has given us insight into that proactive piece, as opposed to focusing purely on the compliance piece, which was the past practice. In a lot of companies we have a much better sense of when they're doing well and when they're not doing so well.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Apparently Canada is world-renowned in terms of health and safety. Again, and this was part of my initial questioning, how do we know that your inspection tools are the best in the industry? What have you done to analyze yourselves versus other companies in terms of best practices?

[Martin Eley]

That's a work in progress. Certainly looking at the surveillance program is the focus of the quality assurance we're introducing this year to see how well people are using it, and then the results. We're focused on the first two pieces at the moment, but certainly we have a lot of sense and feedback from other authorities that what we're doing is progressive. We've yet to prove that. It's one of those things; if we're successful, it's going to take a long time to prove it, but we're working toward that.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

We'll move over to Monsieur Giguère. You have the floor, sir—sorry, my apologies. I made a mistake. It was Mr. Byrne.

Mr. Byrne, you have the floor.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Just a few moments ago, the Auditor General told us that the OAG audit found that “risk-based planning lacks rigour” at Canada's civil aviation authority, and he said further: “For example, information for assessing the risk indicators that Transport Canada uses to identify the high-risk aviation companies that should be inspected is not always available or kept up to date.”

You were not able to provide me with an answer, but I've asked you a very basic question on a very basic piece of information, which is how many civil aviation companies in the Canadian jurisdiction are assessed by Transport Canada as being within that high-risk category that the department itself uses to determine who should be more actively engaged in surveillance for compliance. Can you now give me a short answer as to how many companies are under surveillance as high-risk?

[Gerard McDonald]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I don't have that information available to me at this point.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much.

I'll move to another topic. The Auditor General pointed out that in 2008 a very specific recommendation was made by the OAG, which was accepted by the Government of Canada and in particular by Transport Canada. It was that the national human resources plan for the oversight of civil aviation should and must specify the number of inspectors and engineers needed to perform the role.

The department agreed to provide that in 2008, but as the Auditor General pointed out again this morning, it has never been done. The human resources plan does not specify the number of inspectors or engineers and put that as an accountable standard for Parliament to determine whether or not Transport Canada is meeting its obligations.

Will you refine and rewrite the national human resources plan for the oversight of civil aviation and include a specific number of inspectors and engineers that are needed to do the job, yes or no?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, certainly our plan is based on identifying how we will allocate our resources to meet our responsibilities, and in that regard we are prepared to indicate the number of resources we require, including human resources, to be able to fulfill our functions.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

So we will see these figures, as pointed out by the Auditor General, in a plan that will be tabled before us very shortly. When can we see that plan?

[Anita Biguzs]

I'll get back to you on the timing, Mr. Chair. We would be happy to share that with the committee at the soonest available opportunity.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much.

Finally, I'd like to reiterate that we take this matter very seriously, because human health and safety are at risk.

I'll ask the Auditor General, and maybe your colleagues, Mr. Ferguson, about the civil oversight.

We've had issues with civil oversight, which has basically been sent back to the companies involved. We've had a major issue with XL Foods in terms of food safety. We have major issues with aviation safety when we see that two-thirds of all inspections that are planned for high-risk companies are not conducted.

Is there any key insight you could provide as to whether this kind of passing of the buck or delegation of authority is working or not? Are there any recommendations you could give us about this particular practice?

[Michael Ferguson]

This audit was not intended to answer the question about whether this approach is the right approach or not. What we identified was that the approach was consistent with what the international community was recommending. It was also taking into account, in this instance, that for Transport Canada to have the responsibility to go in and check every single item itself rather than having this type of a system would be onerous.

In our estimation, the most important thing is that if this is the approach that is going to be used, then the way it's put in place needs to be rigorous and in accordance with the framework, so that all of the necessary inspections are done.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

When you delegate this authority, the companies themselves have to use their own resources.

I'll ask the associate deputy minister a question. If there is a sudden economic downturn and the civil aviation industry faces a negative impact, therefore creating an incentive not to do the necessary inspections, do you have the capacity to respond immediately by staffing more inspectors? The risk obviously increases as a result of that. When an economic downturn increases the risk and inspections are not occurring, it's your responsibility to ensure that happens.

Do you have the capacity built into your plan to respond immediately by getting more than 880 inspectors?

[Anita Biguzs]

Mr. Chair, in terms of the risk-based process, it's an evolving process. We are continuously looking at companies. The profile of a company may change from one month to the next, because we look at different criteria. We look at management practices. We look at labour difficulties. We look at their product line, facilities, turnover, key personnel. We look at this. We are always adjusting the risk profiles of companies, and we're trying to provide clarity to our inspectors to make sure they understand what that means.

If we identify companies that are falling into a category of high risk or higher risk, we have various measures we can take not only in terms of our inspection activities but also in terms of enforcement. If we became aware that there was an immediate threat, that a company was basically in a higher-risk category, there are various powers we have under the legislation and the regulation. We can either cancel the certificate, issue a notice of suspension, call for corrective action plans, or suspend operations. There are a number of measures we have in the tool kit for addressing these kinds of issues.

Mr. McDonald, would you like to add to that?