Transport Committee on Feb. 19th, 2007

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Ms. Smith, can you give the committee some examples of how investigations of accidents involving civilian and military personnel were complicated due to a lack of authority on the part of the Minister of National Defence and the Transportation Safety Board?

[Faye Smith]

I'm sorry?

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I'm talking about when the Minister of National Defence and the Transportation Safety Board are lacking authority. Are there ever any delays when they're mixed together?

[Faye Smith]

That really doesn't affect the Transportation Appeal Tribunal, which is a separate tribunal determining cases related to licensing and enforcement of aviation regulation.

So something that was the subject of a Transportation Safety Board investigation might or might not go to the tribunal. It would only go to the tribunal if there were some infractions against the law that were subsequently determined, and the person wanted to appeal that. Otherwise we would have no interaction at all.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

In the Transportation Safety Board, or appeal tribunal, do you feel that you have abundant personnel to take care of the situations that arise within a given year?

[Faye Smith]

Yes, but again it's not the Transportation Safety Board. It's the Transportation Appeal Tribunal. It's a completely separate tribunal, a separate board from that of Mr. Stoss. He's with the accident investigation board, and I'm with the Transportation Appeal Tribunal.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Ms. Smith.

Before I go to Mr. Lévesque, Mr. Stoss, you mentioned, referring to Mr. Temelkovski's example, that a blown tire is reportable? Does that mean it may or may not be reported?

[Nick Stoss]

One of those occurrences—when you have a blown tire—would be reportable through the Transport Canada system, through, I believe, the SDR system, and depending on the impact on the operation, we would all see a notification of it in the safety board. For example, if the pilot declared that he had a blown tire and he sensed some urgency on the approach and said that he needed some help, that would definitely be reportable to us under our regulations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Is he mandated to report it?

[Nick Stoss]

Anybody who knows of an occurrence associated with an event such as that would be mandated to report it to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Lévesque.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am not a regular member of the committee and I am not aware of all the details of the Bill which is more the field of Mrs. Smith and Mr. Stoss. However, I understand matters relating to unions since that is my field of expertise. One always relies on the reports of others. In the present case, I represent an eminent colleague whose work is very serious.

My riding is in the north of Quebec. On a third of the riding, there are no roads. I have to rely on small airlines to go from one village to the next. I am talking about small airlines which, very often, are barely able to cover their expenses.

With Bill C-6, the airlines will inspect their own airplanes, which raises serious concerns for me. In such a situation I wonder if the inspector whose salary, even though very modest, is the only source of income will take the risk to tell his boss that there is a technical problem that has to be resolved before the next takeoff.

Furthermore, we have in our riding a company called Avionnerie Val-d'Or which modifies airplane wings with a technology called the Advanced Wing Technology. That business wasn't profitable and the company succeeded in getting close to 19 million dollars from the British Columbia government. Also, the governments of Canada and Quebec gave it more than 2 million dollars to build airplane wings. A pair of those wings was installed on a Beaver airplane which later crashed in the James Bay area. Fortunately, the two American hunters on board survived but, normally, in such a crash, they would not have survived.

I would like to know who gave a license to this company, Avionnerie Val-d'Or, to build and install those wings. Who granted it a license to modify an airplane which had been built on the basis of particular load specifications? As a user of small airplanes, I wonder if the company will eventually be found guilty and if the verdict will be sent to me posthumously. That is my concern.

[Nick Stoss]

Once again, I shall answer in English.

The questions you asked are very interesting questions and very technical questions, as far as the certification of aircraft is concerned. Within the transport sector, the responsibility for certifying an aircraft and the rules under which these aircraft are inspected and certified are the responsibility of Transport Canada, so I can't voice an opinion on those. All I can say is that regulations are in place that guide the modifications to aircraft. The construction of aircraft and the regulations guiding how that is done and how the modifications are approved are totally the responsibility of Transport Canada.

I can say again that we have conducted occurrences investigations and have had findings regarding certain installations or certain modifications, but we have not had any that deal with systemic aspects of how the modifications are done, how Transport Canada approves the modifications. That's the first part of the question.

The second part of the question deals with the technicians at the working level and their capabilities. For each one of the mechanics, the people who work on the aircraft, how they are qualified again is a matter for Transport Canada. They're the ones who establish those rules of conduct. Again, although we have had investigations that have found the maintenance actions being conducted on aircraft have not been done properly, we have not found a problem with the certification process of the individuals in those particular investigations. Occasionally we'll find a training issue has been associated with them. But again, we have not had any where we have made any recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Does anyone else care to comment?

Mr. Wing, very briefly please.

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

I was asking this question to know what would happen if a person was paid by a small company.

I will give Mr. Wing the chance to give his opinion.

[Michael Wing]

Monsieur Lévesque, if I understood your question properly, you were asking whether or not somebody who worked for a small private company would be able to deliver the same type of inspection as somebody who's working for Transport Canada. Did I understand that correctly?

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

That was a small company but, at the same time, I wonder what will happen with a large one such as Air Canada. If it pays the inspector's salary, would the inspector dare raising a problem preventing an airplane to take-off, for example?

[Michael Wing]

The further away the inspection is moved from Transport Canada, the greater the concern we have. If Transport Canada is going to be giving more and more of these functions to industry, as far as we're concerned, it's only going to mean a greater separation between Transport Canada and safety.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This is very important legislation that we have coming before us today. As I'm sure most of you know, Canadians travel 25% more than people in other countries do. The safety of Canadians, which this bill is trying to address, is extremely important.

I think one of the things we have to do is try to break some of the myths or fears that are being purported around the table here.

Mr. Stoss, first of all, do you feel it's fair to compare safety management systems across the rail, marine, and air industries as apples to apples across the industry in regard to the SMS and the regulations that have been put in place?

[Nick Stoss]

I have no information to suggest how these various safety management systems put into place in different sectors are different, but I can probably agree that they may be put into effect in slightly different ways.

The basic theoretical concept of a safety management system does, however, remain consistent. It is basically a concept, and consequently the safety management systems should mean the same thing within all the different modes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Do you see a significant benefit to adding that system to the aeronautics industry, as we're trying to do here?

[Nick Stoss]

I mentioned in my opening comments that I think a properly functioning safety management system will enhance the degree of reporting and the degree of response to the occurrences. To date we have not investigated an occurrence where we found a safety management system had deficiencies in the system itself.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much.

I think it's a very important point, especially when we look at some of the other witnesses we've had come forward to testify that it would only enhance the amount of reporting, on top of the fact that the way this SMS is being put in place is not a stand-alone system. It is being put in place on top of the regulations that already exist.

I think it's very important that we try to debunk some of the myths some of our colleagues are trying to put out there.

Mr. Wing, you said we've had a decline in inspectors at Transport Canada. The numbers that I have actually show that we had an increase in inspectors from 2000-2001.