Transport Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[Franz Reinhardt]

We'll look at the information, and we will release all the information we have as to the disposition of those cases. There were cases for which there were corrective measures, and there may have been other cases for which there was no evidence or there was no significant evidence to prosecute. But there's always a rationale. When something is closed, there is a rationale.

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

I will look forward to getting each and every one of those files brought forward to committee, because we are very concerned about this, as you can imagine.

We're also concerned about the fact that we are not complying with ICAO requirements, and that is something that's very clear and has come out with testimony.

My next question isfor Mr. Preuss, because we weren't able to ask this last time you came forward, Mr. Preuss.

I was interested in knowing under which authority, in December 2005, while all of us around the table were engaged in a federal election campaign, an authorization—civil aviation directive 39—was put out. As well, at that time, the risk assessment for the reduction of regulatory audit activity during SMS implementation was done.

This was in December 2005. It was an issue, of course, that we were concerned about in this committee during the last Parliament, so I am very concerned about an agenda that seemed to be pushed forward during an election campaign.

[Merlin Preuss]

An agenda put forward during an election campaign? Those two items that you referred to were regular business, forecasted and processed for months in advance.

If you're asking me whether I even recognize the timing, I would have to say I did not recognize the timing. I'm a public servant. I do what I need to do, as quickly as I can do it.

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

So under whose authority was it, then?

[Merlin Preuss]

Under whose authority were they issued?

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

Yes, that was my question.

[Merlin Preuss]

It was solely mine.

[Marc Grégoire]

But that was supported by me, without any issue, because this had been discussed for months, if not years, before.

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

Certainly it had been, and with a great deal of controversy.

Do you feel it was appropriate to push it forward during an election campaign, in retrospect? Do you feel it was appropriate?

[Marc Grégoire]

It never crossed our minds. We never saw it.

[Merlin Preuss]

It never crossed our minds. Forecasts and risk assessments were done—all this work was done months and months before. The fact that it came out in December was just the fact that it came out in December. We were ready to put it out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, I never cease to be amazed at Mr. Julian's sense of imagination. Now we're dealing with conspiracy theories.

We need to get back to the facts. What's the evidence?

I'd like to back to Mr. Moshansky's evidence. Based on what you've told us here today, it appears that he may have been speaking under a misunderstanding of the facts.

First of all, regarding the national audit program, he decried the fact that it had been cancelled, but all of you have confirmed that indeed, the national audit program was replaced with a process that is even more rigorous and that is going to lead to improved safety.

The second aspect is still this issue of the 1,400 inspectors we supposedly had back in the late 1980s, of which there are now 873. You addressed that briefly earlier, but I'd like you to touch on that again. Exactly what happened to all of those supposed inspectors that have been let go or have retired and not been replaced?

[Marc Grégoire]

First of all, this 1,400 number includes three kinds of inspectors. They include inspector pilots, as referred to by Mr. Laframboise; they include technical inspectors, TIs; and they include engineers. In the early 1990s, the time Judge Moshansky referred to, or at the time when we had 1,400, the 1,400 were the 1,400 inspectors in Transport Canada. Since then, we have transferred the air navigation system to Nav Canada. A number of people, especially the civil aviation inspectors who flew aircraft, went to Nav Canada and continued to do the work they were doing, but that significantly reduced the 1,400 number.

Another big bunch of people counted are still with us, but they're not counted in the 866 because they work under another one of my organizations, the aircraft services organization located at the airport. These people teach the inspectors how to fly and they teach them how to do maintenance on the aircraft. So these people are still with Transport Canada, but they're located elsewhere in the organization.

So the core number of 866 we're talking about now, I could say without hesitation, was smaller in the nineties, because since the mid-nineties we have added. I know because I was the original director of civil aviation in the Quebec region, and I saw the number of inspectors I had increase between 1994 and 1997 and then further increase. When I took charge of civil aviation, I had about 130 inspectors in the Quebec region. When I left, I had 174 employees in total, so I had seen an increase.

The same thing occurred elsewhere, because after the Moshansky inquiry, the government decided to allocate additional resources to the regulatory program, as it was called before.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Can I get you to deliver those numbers to the committee, so we can see them directly?

[Marc Grégoire]

We cannot find the exact numbers. We did look recently, before I wrote to you, to find the exact numbers we had in the early nineties and we cannot find them in the documentation we have in the department.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All right. If you can do at least an approximation.... I tell you why. This has been a point of significant confusion at this table. In fact, Justice Moshansky made this statement about the aviation system: “Except for limited focused audits, it is being systematically dismantled under Bill C-6”. He relied on two assumptions, which now appear to be incorrect. One is that the national audit program had been cancelled. It had not been replaced with anything else. Now you've debunked that myth. Now we're hearing that the number 1,400 is an inappropriate comparison to the numbers we're showing today, being around the 860 or 870 mark in terms of inspectors, because other inspectors are performing their obligations in other organizations or divisions or departments. Am I correct in saying that?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes, you are. I really cannot remember, but we have looked for those numbers in the last few months and we just cannot find those exact numbers from the history of the department and we didn't want to induce the committee to error by providing approximates. But I can tell you that after the Moshansky inquiry, we did receive a significant number of additional FTEs--full-time equivalents--who were progressively implemented in the department in the nineties.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

And they've been maintained?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Fast.

Mr. Volpe, last question.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I want to thank Mr. Fast for attending one of my creative language classes.

Mr. Chairman, I have two very brief comments.

First of all, Monsieur Grégoire, the numbers you've given and the historical pattern of what has happened in the department might have been a very constructive way to start the hearing earlier. I don't mean to reprimand you on this, but it's certainly a little bit more instructive, now that we're closing off the meeting, than it was at the very beginning, because you're tracing for us where people are and what they do.

I'm looking forward to the report that you want to give, not only to Mr. Fast but I guess to all committee members.

Secondly, I remain a little bit confounded by the use of the word “closed”. Mr. Reinhardt, with all due respect—and this is why I think my colleagues and I have a little bit of doubt in our minds—on two separate occasions in answering questions to Mr. Julian, earlier in the afternoon and just a few minutes ago, you said that the files were not closed, and then you proceeded to say that the files were closed.

On the first occasion, I think it was Mr. Preuss who talked about files having been closed. On both occasions, I asked my colleague seated beside me whether I was hearing things or whether the word “closed” actually meant what I thought it meant in English.

I know that you gave a detailed explanation, and I compliment you on it. But you'll forgive parliamentarians and legislators for the confusion that arises when in one breath you say the files are not closed but are transferred for this kind of attention, and then you finish off by saying that when a file is closed, it goes someplace else.

The only place a file that's closed goes in my office is the shredder.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's the Liberal way.

[Franz Reinhardt]

It's a little bit like the cancellation of the national audit program with no additional facts. One might believe that we're no longer inspecting. This is not true. It's been changed to another process.

It's the same for enforcement. Yes, enforcement files in the enforcement management database, EMS, were closed and, yes, transferred to other types of inspectors under SMS to be pursued.

I'm sorry if there was some confusion. But if people who gave you the information had properly read on the website—

The witnesses who came first to say that files were closed actually—As Mr. Bélanger said, there are many sides to a coin.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Reinhardt, it's you who used the words.