Evidence of meeting #40 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transport.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
That's the way it has to be, yes.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
There's a lot of misinformation that we've heard in the past. I know that some have suggested that Transport Canada is abandoning the enforcement mechanism, but that wasn't done. There was a directive, but that directive was to have enforcement done by individuals directly assigned to SMS-governed companies. The reason, I understand, was that there needs to be different training for those people who are looking at SMS systems and those people inspecting the SMS systems. Is that correct? Does it require different training?
4:30 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
The first question was on the delegation of certain functions to the industry. Again, it would be a first. There's not much experience on that on a worldwide basis, so whether it will work or not is an open issue. In theory, it should work; we'll see.
As to the second question, I suppose that if you know safety management systems, you know safety management systems.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
But indeed the traditional inspectors, let's call them people who have been inspecting for years--I think you called them touch and check inspectors--would have to receive additional training to comply with SMS.
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
Absolutely. Yes.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of training they would receive or that you would suggest they receive?
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
Go back to the fundamental point. Inspectors are used to trying to capture life as it should be and they should be training to capture life as it is, with the understanding that we all know that out there in the real world it is not always possible to follow the book, and that is not necessarily bad because they are learning lessons there.
We're capturing those lessons today through the informal rumour mill. One of the things that SMS does is it provides a structured process to capture those lessons. So I don't have to say, yes, I knew about that, after the accident, but rather we can capture that information before the accident. And that really requires a change in mindset in the way that traditional flight inspection has been carried out.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Are you aware of the new SMS assessment and evaluation protocol?
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
No, sir, I am not.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Were you aware that this particular program was the one that replaced the national audit program?
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
No, sir, I was not.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Are you aware of the Dryden incident that took place some years ago?
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
Very well, sir.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I wonder if you're surprised or not to hear that when Justice Moshansky was asked the question, he said that if indeed SMS was in place at the time of the incident at Dryden, it's most likely that the incident itself would not have taken place. That surprised me, but it doesn't surprise you because I see you're nodding your head. It surprised me especially because I understand the accident was about icing, about not de-icing the plane.
Can you expand on that a little bit? I don't understand, quite frankly--and I think a lot of people don't understand--why he's so confident that it would not have happened if SMS would have been in place at the time.
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
I think it's a brave statement to say that if such things would have happened, that accident, or any accident, would not have happened. I do not believe in these linear relationships--
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
And Monday morning quarterbacking is an institution in aviation.
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
I wouldn't know about politics, sir.
Dryden I know very well. It's quite likely that many of the latent conditions, of which three were failures by individuals, would have been identified had a safety management system been in place at that particular point in time. But saying that having a safety management system in place in March 1989 in Canada would have avoided Dryden is really a stretch of the imagination I think.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
But you're not surprised that Justice Moshansky said that, though. Do you agree with that?
4:35 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
No, not necessarily.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Mr. Jean, we are over time, and Mr. Zed has relinquished his time to Mr. Bélanger.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Zed and Mr. Bell.
Mr. Maurino, I want to quote a paragraph in the letter, the same letter I was quoting before. This is a letter dated March 14, 2007, from the Honourable Justice Moshansky concerning the previous set of questions you just heard about Dryden:
I therefore wish to make it clear, beyond any possibility for misinterpretation of my position, that, based on the Dryden experience and evidentiary record, I do not for one second believe that SMS, without effective regulatory oversight, would have prevented the accident at Dryden.
That needed to be read to set the record straight as to what the judge is effectively saying, sir.
Now would you care to comment on that?
4:40 p.m.
Coordinator, Flight Safety and Human Factors, International Civil Aviation Organization
I agree with the statement that SMS without a regulatory foundation is like building a castle in the air.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
All right.
I wanted to bring you back to this touch, see, hear, and look, because that is essentially the nuts and bolts of regulatory oversight. If one shifts from one system that we currently have to another one that's done by someone else and where you see paper, that seems to be where we're having a difficulty. How can you be so sure that the delegation of regulatory oversight, since Canada is at the forefront of this according to you, is not a mistake? How can you be so sure of that?
You may be right, but I want to know what makes you sufficiently satisfied that you assert that indeed delegation.... But you put some qualifiers on it. In the time I have left, I'd like you to explore that, because those are some of the concerns we have. You know as well that when this was presented to us, it was said that the SMS will be “in addition to”. Since then we've heard—and we'll hopefully wrap that up at the end—testimony saying that this is not quite the case, because we're delegating it.
You're right. That is the nub; that's where we are. So your comments in terms of that evolution, as you call it, would be useful.