Transport Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[Merlin Preuss]

Not at all. It's ad hoc, totally. First of all, you have to have a partner willing to take on some responsibility. Then you have to have a need, and then you'll go forward. We are discussing with air applicators and we are discussing with COPA, as was mentioned earlier.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

What are high risks that will never be designated?

[Marc Grégoire]

ATAC, airline passengers; that's the obvious example.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Are there any others?

[Merlin Preuss]

Off the top?

[Marc Grégoire]

That's the highest risk.

[Merlin Preuss]

Yes, that's the area of highest risk. They cover about 98% of the passenger miles flown.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Go ahead, Mr. Laframboise.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Justice Moshansky, the pilots, the inspectors and the ICAO are in favour of the SMS. I am too. The only problem is that even the ICAO expects there will be adequate regulatory oversights. That is where we disagree.

Mr. Grégoire, I even had an opportunity to ask you at a committee meeting whether you could guarantee that there had been no budget cuts for pilot training. For two years now, I have been getting complaints from pilots whose hours of training have been reduced. I will tell you quite humbly that I thought this was a labour relations matter. I sometimes have trouble getting involved in labour relations issues. After two years, I realized that they were right: the nature of their work has been changed by the introduction of the Safety Management System.

The fact remains that for small companies such as DaxAir Inc., for example, pilots must be familiar with these systems. I agree with Mr. Jean that issues having to do with bolts will be easier with the SMS. However, there are some companies I cannot trust. I cannot trust new companies that will only be around for a year or two and which, for various reasons, because of a lack of money, even if they have a good SMS—The employees of companies of this type might be reluctant to file complaints, because they fear they will not get paid at the end of the week.

There must be an inspection system that will allow for random checks of any company at any time to see whether everything is in order. We should not have to wait one, two or three years—depending on the schedule you will introduce—before checking the SMS system. This is a service we need. And the ICAO has said the same thing.

After hearing Mr. Preuss, the pilots told us that by 2013, their numbers will be reduced by half. Today, you tell me that will not happen. Do you have any budget forecasts? As a manager, have you analyzed how much money you will need over the next five years to replace the pilots, or are you going to wait until the budget is introduced to tell us that?

[Marc Grégoire]

The minister has already said that there are no plans to reduce staff in civil aviation. You asked whether we have any budget forecasts? We do budget forecasts for a five-year period for this type of budget. However, we do have a human resources plan for the next three years. My team has a human resources plan for civil aviation, as for all other modes of transport. We have no intention whatsoever of making any cuts. You are concerned because some pilots or pilot inspectors have talked to you about a reduction in the number of hours of flying time. As I explained to you during the conservation—

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

That was just an example I gave you.

[Marc Grégoire]

I understand that, but I am having trouble making the connection between the number of hours of flying time of an inspector and the Safety Management System or the future inspection system.

Will inspectors have to do different jobs in the future? Of course, because we will have to give them a lot of training so that they can visit a company and do a proper evaluation of the Safety Management System. However, if at any time an inspector wants to conduct a traditional inspection or an audit, he will be able to do so, provided he has some doubts about the way the company operates. If the inspector is perfectly satisfied with what he has seen and if the company has mechanisms in place regarding the Safety Management System, he will not have to do that. If the inspector has the slightest doubt, he will be able to go to the company, as was pointed out in the training we gave our inspectors and as is stated in the instructions Merlin showed you earlier.

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

You understand why we will be ensuring that the bill contains a provision that states that the regulatory audit authorities will remain. There are all sorts of reasons for this.

[Marc Grégoire]

Absolutely.

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

You probably started your modernization work before the bill was ready. I am quite convinced of that, because you had already undertaken the Safety Management System and you had started making some changes before the bill was ready. This gave rise to a syndrome. Mr. Reinhardt is quite convinced that all of this will... Personally, I am having a great deal of difficulty—

[Marc Grégoire]

Mr. Laframboise, I am so convinced that this is the right thing to do that we are introducing it into all the modes of transport. As I explained to you in June—and we will be putting out a document next week that—

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

The Canadian Transportation Safety Board was unable to confirm that the SMS had helped reduce the number of accidents in the rail sector. Be careful of what you say. I have no problem talking about the other modes—

[Marc Grégoire]

The safety management systems are a philosophy. We are thoroughly convinced that this is the way to improve safety and reduce accidents.

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

Yes, but you no longer have any inspectors for rail transportation. No one is overseeing these individuals. We will have a debate about that some day.

[Marc Grégoire]

We are always prepared to discuss issues. We are implementing the SMS for all modes of transport, rail, marine and others.

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

You have been in the rail transportation sector longer than in the other modes of transportation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Julian.

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

This is not about beliefs. I am very uncomfortable hearing officials who are supposed to be introducing effective safety systems talk about beliefs. I am very disturbed when I hear people say that they believe something when the data we have demonstrates that the opposite is true.

I'd like to come back to the issue of the 100 or more files of serious safety violations that were closed with no further action to be taken. Previous to that, the national audit program had been killed.

Our concern, of course, is that we avoid the kind of carnage we're seeing on the railways. For members of this committee to say there's no evidence as long as there are no bodies is completely inappropriate. We've seen what happened in the railway industry, and we want to avoid the same thing happening with the airlines.

So we had 100 or more files of serious safety violations, and they were closed. The national audit program was axed, so there is no way of following up with those companies. My question is around the safety files. How many aircraft were impacted by this, and how has it been tracked by Transport Canada after the files were closed?

[Franz Reinhardt]

First of all, I can tell you that I'm answering your questions in good faith. I already answered a question earlier, telling you that the files were not closed. They were transferred to other inspectors, under the SMS system to determine whether there were corrective actions taken by those companies to ensure that the problem would not reoccur. That's what they did.

We have a database of old enforcement cases. In that database, yes, the files were closed. Then it was transferred to other inspectors, under the SMS policy, to determine whether there were corrective measures.

Mr. Julian, I'm in good faith. I've told you twice. I don't know what more to tell you. We did not close them. There is CAD 39 published on the web, which you can view. It has the policy, the procedures, and a bridging document explaining the transition on enforcement.

Everything was open and transparent, and they were not closed. The national audit program was cancelled. That was an administrative constraint. The way we did big audits in the past was to call upon the regions and HQ to work together. We've decided to eliminate that, because it was easier to implement SMS and ensure safety by eliminating this and putting more resources through the transition process.

There were staff instructions given. As I told you, we're in good faith. We're telling you that we have more safety oversight now, through the establishment of SMS, than we had ever before through the old NAP, and the NAP is only for six or seven carriers.

I don't know where you got your facts, but I'm giving you the straight goods, the facts in the proper context, in which you should have gotten them when you got them.

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

You are saying that none of those files were closed, that all of those files were transferred to other inspectors. Then you can tell us, for each one of those 100 files, exactly what the compliance mechanism is. And would you release that to this committee?