We fully agree with you that SMS is good--and everybody else agrees--but we also need to have safety oversight. We have safety oversight now, and many of the people who have testified may not have seen what we've done since we established SMS. We now have new policies, and there are other ways of inspecting, auditing, assessing, and validating all those carriers and their systems. So we recognize that legitimate concern.
When Minister Cannon testified two weeks ago, he told you we were coming forward with at least three specific amendments. The first one is to reassure the Canadian public that there will be continuous safety oversight by using inspectors to carry out inspections in the field. That's something that is coming.
From my understanding of this committee when I listened to all the testimony and questions from members, the designated third party to certify is a concern. We realize that. We already gave our commitment verbally that it was never our intention to ask the Air Transport Association of Canada to certify Air Canada or WestJet. Now we have to put our money where our mouth is. We're going to put it in writing, and Minister Cannon has announced that we will make an amendment saying that there will be a safety study. He believes it will have to be a very low-risk activity---and also non-fare-paying air transportation of passengers. So I think this will go a long way.
The next concern was on the protection provisions for the internal SMS reporting, as well as the universal voluntary, non-punitive reporting process. The pilots' union asked us to give them more protection than we were giving. I've heard some other unions, more labour-related unions, asking for no protection at all for whistle-blowers. We believe we have struck the right balance. We even brought forward a couple of new amendments there.
In an SMS environment we want employees to work with employers. My colleagues and I feel that a whistle-blower program, where people could tattle-tale willy-nilly, without really having substantiated information against their employer, would be negative. That's the danger. We want people to work together, and unless the whistle-blower program made very important punitive provisions against people making false reports, or things of that nature, I believe it would be difficult. So we're not favouring that approach.
With the protections we're giving, we believe that people will bring forward as much safety information as possible. We don't think having a whistle-blower program would add to that information. On the contrary, I think it would turn off the tap and less information would come in between the employer and employee. It's not because we're against it; we just want to get the best system possible.