Transport Committee on Feb. 12th, 2007

[Merlin Preuss]

Let's see if I understand what you're asking me here. You're referring to Judge Moshansky perhaps?

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

Yes.

[Merlin Preuss]

Okay. I haven't had a chance to speak with him, and to my knowledge he hasn't discussed any of the intricacies of the safety management systems with any of my officials. He certainly hasn't discussed it with me. So I'm not sure exactly on what basis he's making the comments he's making. But I'd be more than happy to speak with him if he wishes to do that, and we can go through it all.

The whole system, in our experience to date, is one where our impact and our integration into the company's operations is much more detailed, much more in depth than it ever was before. We are finding things through this process that were never evident with just the direct supervising of activities approach.

The whole business about more resources.... In fact, at the point of departure, when we started eight years ago to look at what was out there to improve the safety and performance, we realized...and this is also vouched for by specialists like Professor James Reason, who said to me personally that if you add more inspectors into the system without approaching the whole problem differently, the cost benefit just simply won't be there. You will not achieve a higher performance than you have right now. Our performance is second to none in the world, with the airlines as an example.

So how do you improve on our already very, very safe system? As I indicated in my opening remarks, you have to get into the human factors. It's not just the policeman on the corner who says to me, “Please don't speed, and if you speed, I will do something about that”, and then by reducing my speed, by punishing me, I will then maybe not do that next time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much for being here.

This is tied in with the inspectors. If we look at the number of flights and the passenger volume in 2007 compared with 2001, we have roughly the same number of inspectors. Could you comment on that, please?

[Merlin Preuss]

The system on which we base our risk profile is one that's based on activity levels. So what you're referring to is that there has been an increase...well, there was a decrease as we went through the tragedy of September 11, and then an increase, and we're about back to the same levels we were at on September 11, through that period. I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but there has been no calculated reduction in personnel. So I would suggest that what you're indicating to me would be a perception that because we've had these consistent increases, somehow we haven't kept pace, and I think to a large extent we have.

Of course, when you take a look at what we're trying to put in place, and without losing the capability to deal with the individual operations, by approaching this at a systems level and actually having companies that comply—and of course, if they don't, we'll be back to where we are and we'll be demanding more resources to go at them in that other compliance-based way. But if their systems work, and we have all kinds of data that's available today and will be available tomorrow to determine whether or not that's happening, we will be able to deal with growth in a very important way, because if you're looking at a system that's in place to take care of 100 pilots and it grows to 110, there is no impact on the manpower at that particular point. But again, we have to be ready, as others have said, to go back in there and take care of the problems if we're finding some shortfalls in the system.

This industry has not done this before. It's in the nuclear industry. The power generating plants have been using this for a long time, as well as Shell Oil, the oil companies, to avoid the big spills, and it's the same thing with the chemical industry. So we're taking this step by step, using what their experience is and our experience and building on that.

As I mentioned, our friends to the south are now embarking on this, and so is the international civil aviation authority, as a regulatory requirement.

So, yes, we're a little bit ahead of some countries, but this is not a new idea, and it's certainly not one where the idea only sits here in Transport Canada and Canada.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

We had a tragedy in British Columbia that you're aware of, of course, and that was with the ferries.

I have a document here, a sworn statement by the former director of safety, health, and environment at BC Ferries, Mr. Darin Bowland. As you are aware, BC Ferries has had a safety management system in place for some time. Yet, according to Mr. Bowland, BC Ferries was plagued by rampant safety problems. He believes these deficiencies led to the sinking of the Queen of the North and the death of two passengers.

In an era when Transport Canada has a hands-off sort of approach and air operators or regulators are now forced to rely on the good graces of airlines to police themselves or turn themselves in, the first question is, aren't you afraid that your plans to go back out of aviation safety oversight and rely on safety management systems, or SMS, with its self-reporting and non-enforcement, will create similar conditions in aviation?

Secondly, could you please tell me and the committee what kind of comparison Transport Canada has done with other safety management systems in Canada and around the world?

Lastly, how does the safety management system that Transport Canada is proposing for aviation stake up against the safety management system, for example, that BC Ferries operates?

[Merlin Preuss]

As a general comment—and again I've said this publicly quite often—if I could roll the clock back eight years, I would never have used the term “SMS”, because it has now become a buzzword.

Comparing safety management systems quite often is a comparison of apples and oranges. So I have no knowledge of what BC Ferries' SMS looks like, but I will tell you that it may or may not be the same as what we have here.

The other thing that comes into play when you are talking about the comparisons of safety management systems and how we've compared them otherwise is, what exactly are the bases or the principles they're using? You will find some divergence there.

When we built this system—and as I mentioned, we started eight years ago with the experts at the time, such as Dr. James Reason, who came to our executive—we spent three days looking at all the options and then we built on that, looking at what the chemical industry has. They have a very good reputation.

I think the oil industry certainly has a good reputation. In fact, we've taken the advice of people who work for Shell, dealing with the SMS that Shell demands. For example, if you wanted to contract your aircraft to Shell Oil, you'd have to demonstrate a certain safety management system. Again, the requirements are somewhat less stringent than ours, but it would give you all the basic principles.

So we're quite confident that what we have is as demanding as anything that's out there. We believe we're taking a step-by-step approach to it, so that if we are picking up errors and problems with the system, we'll be able to correct them before there are any downstream effects. Even the regulations that were put in place a year and a half ago are not active. In other words, what we've done is to say, “Okay, this is your starting point”, and then we put in place an implementation of two or three years, again so we can watch what's going on. So far, the results have been positive.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Jean.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm actually going to pursue pretty much the same line of questioning, just so I understand it. First of all, we have one of the safest, if not the safest, aviation systems in the world. Is that correct? And we're actually going to take that safest aviation system in the world and those regulations and leave them as is--actually, make some improvements to them--and then put another layer on top of that, this SMS system.

Coming from northern Alberta, I know that many of the plant sites in that area have a safety management system and an emergency response crew, etc. They seem to brag a lot about them, and they've had them for some period of time. So I was curious when you mentioned Shell Oil. I think they even have one in their Albion plant up there.

I understand as well that this act is going to bring in some more tools to force compliance or in essence more regulatory tools to make sure that they do follow the letter of the law. Is that correct? Everything from a letter of warning, more or less, to a restriction of operations is...

[Franz Reinhardt]

It will go from letters of warning to assurance of compliance agreements with companies, that if they don't comply with the regulations the fines will be doubled up, to the suspension or cancellation of certificates. So there will be more requirements and more enforcement tools in the tool box in the future if we accept those proposed changes.

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

So we actually have the safest aviation system in the world and we're putting more tools and in fact another system on top of that. Okay.

I understand Australia and New Zealand have adopted an SMS system and have had it for some period of time, and now the United States looks like it's adopting it. I even understand the ICAO, or the International Civil Aviation Organization, has actually adopted an international standard, and, from my understanding of that organization, most countries will probably adopt that soon.

Is that fair to say?

[Franz Reinhardt]

That's correct, yes.

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

Are there indeed other organizations such as that that have come forward in support of this SMS system you have put forward?

[Franz Reinhardt]

Other organizations other than aviation, do you mean?

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

No, including aviation, the Air Line Pilots Association and people like that.

[Franz Reinhardt]

We have many associations that are actually supporting the proposed changes to expand safety management systems--major pilots unions, manufacturers, and transport associations.

[Merlin Preuss]

In fact, when we started the effort with Air Transat some years ago as a pilot project, we spent a lot of time with ALPA, which represents the pilots of that company and of Jazz. I don't know what is the percentage of pilots they represent here, but I can tell you that ALPA International was very active, and continues to be very active, in the United States in promoting safety management systems there. I think they had a role, and perhaps even a significant role, in changing the FAA's mind in terms of how soon and in what form they would implement SMS, so especially that type of a group. ACTA, of course, is of the same mind. We're working with them these days to implement it.

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

So in fact these other jurisdictions that have adopted this type of management system, a self-governing one in essence--who have passed the regulations--have had good success with this. Have they had a lot of self-reporting?

[Merlin Preuss]

The self-reporting thing actually shows up in two different ways. There's one where there's a jeopardy involved, and of course we're trying to remove, in a certain way, the personal jeopardy so that it gives them some freedom to come forward. There are the normal things that would be there anyway, that you'd pick up one way or another.

But to the point of how successful they've been, the Australian example is a good one. This was such a good idea down there that they thought everybody would participate, and of course what happened was that 80% to 90% of the industry that is generally compliant and really wants to do the right thing all the time complied, but they didn't regulate it.

So we learned from them and we said, if we're going to get at those people who don't want to be part of the partnership, who don't want to be part of the team that promotes safety across the board, then we're going to have to make sure we regulate it across the board, and that's what we've done.

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

So, in essence, we will avoid the problems they've had in some other jurisdictions? This SMS system actually sounds like a management system to prevent accidents before they're about to happen over the long period of time. Would that be a fair assumption?

[Merlin Preuss]

Yes. The idea is to identify the small problems before they become big ones, and that of course means delving into the human factors areas, delving into the root causes. Of course, when you're dealing with people, they have to be willing to come forward; they have to be willing to tell us what the issues are.

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

So they'll put forward things they may have hidden before because there's no real penalty in the small ones.

[Merlin Preuss]

That's right.