Transport Committee on Feb. 19th, 2007

[Nick Stoss]

I do not have any figures allowing me to comment at this time.

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

But, if there had been any improvement, you would say so. In fact, if the system had led to any improvements, you would not hesitate to say so.

However, you cannot say so. Since you have to look at the figures, that means that the improvement is not obvious. As a politician, that is what I have to conclude.

I understand your position and I don't want to embarrass you but since there is no evidence of improvement, you cannot tell me that the implementation of the system has been beneficial as far as safety is concerned. You are not able to draw that conclusion.

[Nick Stoss]

I can tell you that our investigations have not revealed any weaknesses in the safety management system.

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

I am not definitely opposed to the implementation of a safety management system if it can really improve safety and if it is transparent, as you said Mr. Wing.

One thing keeps bothering me. I still want us to have an inspection system meeting the expectations of the public.

I know there have been cuts in the budgets for training the inspectors. We will have more information about this when other witnesses appear and there will be evidence of those cuts. It is important for all of us to understand that the department wanted to make cuts and to save money.

Mr. Wing, can you confirm that today or are you going to give us evidence about this later on?

[Michael Wing]

What I can do is provide information that the department is already on the record as stating. This is why SMS is coming into place. It is really giving industry the responsibility for ensuring the safety of the system, despite the fact that the act itself requires the minister to—

It was interesting to have an opportunity to have a number of discussions with Transport Canada. In assuming that SMS was already in place, at a meeting earlier last year, their focus was already turning to how they would ensure that the public would understand this, so that when an accident does happen, Transport Canada won't be the one that is blamed. How would they make sure that industry is the one that is blamed and not the minister?

I have news for the minister: the Canadian public is going to hold the minister accountable for public safety. It doesn't matter if there's an SMS in place or not. It is going to be the minister. It is going to be the government that is held accountable and asked why this has been allowed to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We'll go to Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to read for the record the comments of the ADM from last April 25. He said: “There must also be a willingness on the part of the regulator to step back from involvement in the day-to-day activities of the company in favour of allowing organizations to manage their activities and related hazards and risks themselves.”

That's the direction the government is going.

Mr. Stoss, how many derailments occurred in Canada in 2005 and 2006?

[Nick Stoss]

I'll have to bring you back the figures and provide them to you.

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

How many reports would TSB have published on derailments in 2005 and 2006? You would know that number.

[Nick Stoss]

Again, I would have to come back for the precise number, but--

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

Would it be three? Four?

[Nick Stoss]

I would suggest that it would probably be in the neighbourhood of five to ten, but I would have to come back to you.

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

There would be five to ten, and we're looking at probably a couple of hundred serious derailments. Right?

So when the TSB is analyzing, and you stated for the record that there was no evidence of safety management systems actually having an impact, you're talking about, at best, maybe 2% of accidents occurring in 2005 and 2006 on which the TSB has actually published a report. So the TSB has not done an analysis of safety management systems. Am I correct?

[Nick Stoss]

Again, our general approach is that if we find out that there is a deficiency someplace, we'll find the underlying cause that contributed to it. In a particular case, if we found out that the inspection cycle was not being adhered to, we'd be able to make a finding on that issue.

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

That's not what I asked you. I said that you have not done an analysis of safety management systems, even in that small percentage of railway accidents and derailments on which you have actually published reports.

[Nick Stoss]

All I can say is that for each individual investigation, we would go down to find the contributing factors. So we have done them from an individual investigation point of view, but we have not--

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

But you have not done an analysis of safety management systems. Am I correct?

[Nick Stoss]

That's right. We have not done them by occurrence, that's right.

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

Thank you. I just wanted you to be on the record on that, because it's very important.

So you can't really give your opinion of the TSB on safety management systems, because the TSB has not done an analysis of the safety management systems, even in that relatively small percentage of reports that you have done on accidents that occurred in 2005 and 2006.

I'd like to come to another issue, because—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

If I may, just to clarify for the record, I think the question that Mr. Stoss was originally asked was whether the SMS had been seen as being a fault or a reason for—He replied, strictly, that in the reports they filed, they didn't identify that as the issue.

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

I understand that, Mr. Chair, but the point is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I just think it should be clarified, for the record, that he was asked a specific question about the SMS.

Please continue.

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

Yes, and my question was in terms of the overall analysis. And I have my answer. There has not been an analysis done by the TSB, and that is important, for the record.

The TSB has said in the past, and I'm actually citing a speech that was given in 2005 by Charles Simpson, that it is very important to communicate extensively. Charles Simpson said, at that time: “Recently, we've been working hard to make our findings and data more accessible and more transparent. We publish and promote all our reports, in a very public fashion—”.

In that sense, then, the TSB has always felt.... Your reports are very good; I read them whenever I get the opportunity. You have the principle within the TSB, and that's continuing, that these reports are public. Am I correct?

[Nick Stoss]

Yes.

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

So that's an important principle.

The issue some of us have is if we transfer that responsibility to companies, there are companies that may not take appropriate action. I'm going to cite from the Toronto Star series that Mr. Wing talked about in his introduction. Pilot Ed Huggett worked for a company called Sonicblue Airways, and according to the newspaper report, his family and friends said that Huggett's “opinion of his employer soured as his list of safety concerns grew”.

He complained to his father that his plane had blown a tire landing in Kamloops. Huggett told his father the company instructed him to inflate the tire and fly the plane back to Vancouver to be fixed. When he refused--worried a flat tire was a sign of more serious damage—he told his father the company asked him to fix it himself, even though he wasn't an approved mechanic. Huggett was so vocal that fellow pilots elected him as their representative on the company safety committee. But around Christmas, the young pilot's attitude changed. He was no longer just concerned about safety, he was scared, his father recalls. —Huggett confided to a friend that if problems at the airline weren't fixed, he felt someone was going to die. Nine days before the crash, Transport Canada investigators had visited Sonicblue's offices and found that six planes had missed mandatory inspections. Investigators discovered Huggett's Caravan was more than 270 hours past due for an inspection of the struts that hold up the plane's wings.

This is a situation where you had a young pilot who very clearly raised concerns with the company. He wasn't listened to.

How do you deal with that kind of situation? I'll ask all our witnesses to comment on that. If we're handing over--and that's certainly what the ADM said—taking that step back to allow organizations to manage their activities and related hazards and risks themselves, how then do we deal with situations like that? We've seen it in the railway industry. Obviously, there are concerns that we would see more of these cases in the airline industry.

Perhaps, Mr. Wing, you could comment first.