Transport Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Laframboise has made an allegation that has not been proven at this table. In fact, Mr. Preuss has made it very clear that whoever heard those remarks, the secretary in the union leader's office in fact misunderstood those remarks, and he never had any intention of implying what Mr. Laframboise has just suggested he implied.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Laframboise.

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

Mr. Chairman, documents, witnesses' affidavits, letters and newspaper statements have reported on Mr. Preuss' conduct. It is wrong to say that there are no documents to that effect. I will not dwell on the matter, but I do want to stress that this gentleman has made statements. He has delivered speeches on safety—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Laframboise, I'll just suggest that it's not a point of order, but I do think we do have to be very careful when we're making suggestions that they're not allegations without any proof.

Please continue.

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

Suffice it to say that we are far from certain, minister, that you will not be scaling back regulatory oversight. You say that you are prepared to make amendments to the bill. Would you be prepared to make some which would guarantee regulatory oversight is maintained in the safety management system?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

In fact, I don't want to stand here today and defend the previous regime. However, I would like to make a clarification on the 1,400 inspectors you mentioned earlier on. In simply want to point out that the reduction in this number is the result of organizational changes within the department. With the creation of NAV Canada, a number of inspectors went there. Moreover, another group went to airport services. So, in a general sense, the number of inspectors has not decreased, colleagues.

Am I in a position to specify the nature of the amendments currently being considered? No. However, I am perfectly prepared to listen and work in collaboration with the colleagues around this table to meet the objectives you shared with me here today and at other times. With respect to the number of inspectors, I believe it is indeed incumbent upon us to make sure there is some continuity.

The theory according to which the management system will, in 5, 6 or even 10 years, replace what has existed and should normally continue to exist is, in my view, incorrect. As I mentioned a few moments ago, the objective is to sustain civil aviation safety and make sure these standards are complied with and well understood throughout the country, and that they are a source of pride for us throughout the world. The goal here is not to rob Peter to pay Paul. On the contrary.

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

All the more so since according to ICAO regulations you must conduct regulatory oversight. So, you don't have a choice.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Indeed.

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

That is why, when the trend is to maintain and enhance safety, it is difficult for us to listen to officials say that they want to see cuts to staffing.

With respect to the reduction in the number of inspectors, Judge Moshansky is the one who referred to that, and I tend to believe him. We cannot forget that there are more aircraft in the sky, and far more people flying. As has already been stated, there have been no employee cuts, but the risks have increased. We want to make sure that regulatory oversight is maintained.

I would suggest to you that you look into this matter with your officials and include all of these recommendations in the bill, so that we can all agree, and so that the bill not only suit officials, but also politicians, Minister.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Your concerns are perfectly justified, Mr. Laframboise, and I've already said that. We need to look into drafting an amendment which would reflect these concerns.

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

With respect to companies like DaxAir Inc., have you taken note of their concerns? You probably know that these companies, these small corporations, feel they've been left to their own devices because they feel there is less oversight on the ground. They want to respect the law, but they see the competition not doing so. Have you noticed their concerns? Someone wrote to us claiming to be fearful of reprisals from Transport Canada. It would seem to me that that says volumes, for a company to decide to write to the committee, given the pressure being brought to bear on witnesses that they not appear before us. This person claims to be concerned about the industry. You could offer reassurance by saying that you've heard the message and that no one at Transport Canada will unduly put pressure on these people—these rare people—who have come forth to tell the truth.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Far be it from us to want to intimidate people, Mr. Laframboise.

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

Tell that to Mr. Preuss, Mr. Minister.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

You know that neither the department nor I would wish to do such things; you know me well enough by now. I would ask Mr. Reinhardt to respond to that specific question.

[Franz Reinhardt, Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport]

We contacted DaxAir Inc. several years ago. We received information from the company concerning allegations of misconduct on the part of other small air carriers. We inquired with the regional office in Toronto, which covers the Ontario region, and very vigorous monitoring was done following DaxAir Inc.'s requests. Recently, in fact, when we received a letter from DaxAir Inc.—it was the first contact between us since the previous time—we wrote to the co-owner, Ms. Brazier. We expressed our interest in the information, or evidence that she or her company may have concerning the other carriers, so as to pursue law enforcement action.

I think that if you were to speak to DaxAir Inc. representatives they would say that we have been in frequent contact with them. Moreover, I would like to say that this company is not subject to the SMS, the Safety Management System, for the time being. This type of company will not be subject to the SMS for a few years because we first want to progressively establish the system for large carriers and move to smaller ones thereafter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for coming forward today.

I have a couple of comments to start.

First, Mr. Minister, I think you've confirmed in a very real sense that there has been a diminishing number of safety inspectors. If we have more and more airlines and more and more air miles being travelled, essentially by holding the line at the same number of inspectors there is diminished ability to follow up with the inspections.There's no doubt about that. My concern is that the figures you've cited include positions, but they don't actually include bodies who are filling those positions on a full-time basis.

Second, you said very specifically in your comments that this isn't about reducing inspections. My concern is that every single witness who supported SMS in theory was also very clear that inspections, audits, need to be carried out.

When Mr. Preuss appeared before this committee, I requested that the risk assessment around SMS, which was done prior to putting SMS in place, be released to this committee. We know through requests for information that this risk assessment has now been released. It says very clearly that there is potential to reduce safety and that we need a focused inspection program to ensure there is not an increased safety risk. Mr. Preuss signed off on that risk assessment. It did not allow that mitigating factor to be brought in, did not allow that extra protection for Canadians.

I want to ask, Mr. Minister, do you support not having that focused inspection program that your department's own risk assessment indicates is extremely important to not reduce safety?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

First of all, I thank you for your comments, colleague.

Mr. Julian, you spoke of attrition. Clearly, we are responding in terms of replacing those people who will leave the service of the Government of Canada because they are at the retirement level. I think you should be reassured from that perspective.

In terms of the risk assessment, I'm going to let Mr. Preuss respond to that. I think he's better—

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

Well, my question was to you, Mr. Minister.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

I know it is, but I'm going to let him respond to it. It's my choice, colleague.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Preuss.

[Merlin Preuss, Director General, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport]

Thanks, Mr. Minister.

There's been a general theme throughout the sessions that I've either been sitting on as a witness or listening to; it's an underlying belief that this is about reductions. The budgets haven't changed, as the minister has said.

The speech to which Mr. Laframbroise referred was about our expected retirements. The fact that we even know we're looking at a 46% potential retirement by 2013 is enough indication for us to start taking action to make sure we replace the people we need.

On focused inspections, risk assessment is a rather technical document, and the recommendations in that—as Mr. Julian rightly said—have been signed off by me and will be put into effect. In fact, the whole protocol we're using as we transition to the SMS—and as I mentioned before, it's a three-year program and we're doing this very cautiously—is well developed right now.

If I had the full staff instruction in French I would be presenting it today, but this gives you an idea. No, I didn't pad it. It's a very in-depth approach. We're going to be questioning officials and individuals in the companies, and if there's any doubt about what's going on we'll be following up. If there is any indication that we need to get more information from doing the classic inspection programs, we are more than equipped and able to take that into account, and we will be doing it.

This is a more rigid regime than the one before.

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

That does not reassure me. The reality is that the risk assessment from the department says there's increased risk. The mitigating factor that was recommended was rejected, and that is on the record. I think it's very important that we stress that the risk assessment from the department indicated increased safety concerns.

I have two other questions for you, Minister Cannon. In your opening speech you made reference to assuring that we meet all the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization, which requires annual safety audits. We don't have annual safety audits; we don't even have biennial or triennial safety audits for certain airlines. So how can you say we're meeting the requirements, when very clearly we are in violation of ICAO's most important requirements?

Second, in November 2006, while you were minister, you signed off on what was essentially a directive to close all enforcement investigations into safety violations being committed. How many files were closed? What is the extent of the safety violations? What broken safety rules were swept under the carpet? What is the extent of what was simply swept under the carpet last November?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

On the second question, I'll get Mr. Reinhardt to answer.

[Franz Reinhardt]

On closing enforcement cases, this is not exactly what happened. We had enforcement files with the new enforcement policy. We developed a new policy that states clearly that intentional violations will be seriously pursued. For other types of error-based violations we will be working with the companies, with the certificate holders, to allow them to prepare proposed corrective measures. If they do prepare corrective measures that are acceptable, then we will carry on with those measures.

The thing is, we close specific files in order to convert them into other types of files to be carried out by other inspectors in Transport. If you look at tab 39, which was referred to many times here—and it's on the web—there are policies, procedures, and even bridging documents to explain how those things are done.

Clearly, if people say we closed the file—yes, it looks dangerous.