Transport Committee on May 14th, 2007

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Very well. You've clarified it for me.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bélanger.

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

Gentlemen, I want to go back to Mr. Danford, to your comment on this matter of TRINAT. I'd like you to elaborate. How many people were involved in that? What was it? How long did it go on? You say you don't know what happened to TRINAT after you left. We can ask these questions, but I need to better understand. You say that of the 20 Canadian crashes--and I don't know what all of those were--25% had the root cause of lack of regulatory supervision according to the safety board.

Do you care to elaborate a bit?

[Hugh Danford]

When I was asked to join the work group, there was me and another pilot, Jim King, and the name of the leader of our group was Susan. She was a librarian, and she was in charge of it.

We met with the Americans in Mexico twice, and we met with them here, in a room. We went over every investigation. After I wrote a letter to Transport Canada, international aviation, saying that I didn't think, given our track record, that we should be trying to help the Mexicans out so much, I was removed from the board and replaced by another fellow.

I've searched the web; I've gone on the TC website, and I've never been able to find anything about the TRINAT. But I have all the documents. I have the memos and everything. It did exist, and we had a lack of regulatory supervision 25% of the time.

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

Fair enough.

I just want to thank both of you for taking your time to come here today. Some of the testimony I've heard, we've heard, was rather startling, to say the least. I don't know how it will impact on what we have to do next, but we'll see.

[Hugh Danford]

Well, I don't think you can...if this was an automobile, this pilot wouldn't have a driver's licence. He'd either be insured out of the business--his insurance rates would go up so much--or we'd finally decide some guy shouldn't have a driver's licence.

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

I'm going to ask questions on something that's perhaps unrelated to what you said; it might eventually get related. It's a question I've had as a result of testimony we've heard, and that is on the testing of pilot proficiency. What we've been told, my information that I've heard here at committee, is that Transport Canada has now gone to two years, that every two years pilots are subjected to this proficiency test, whereas international standards may be somewhat more strict. Am I connecting here in terms of information?

Mr. Carson, perhaps.

[Hugh Danford]

I'll pass that over to Paul.

[Paul Carson]

Again, this is something I didn't really want to get dragged into. If you read the educational stuff in my submission, you'll see that pilot proficiency checks are spot checks. They're like going out to make sure that pilots are following their standard operating procedures and are maintaining current knowledge of their airplane and this kind of stuff.

Right now there are a lot of company check pilots who do that. In fact, I'm ACP-qualified myself. I have done a few check rides, but not many because I do other kinds of work.

I think it's debatable. But whether it's safe to say we don't need to do this any more is something on which I don't really feel qualified to comment. I know my association feels fairly strongly that it's perhaps something for which we have to maintain some kind of visibility. You know, we do monitor rides at lot of times. We did watch other CCPs--company check pilots--doing check rides on their pilots, and then we'd monitor them.

I think for a company we knew and understood, and for which we understood that the principal operating inspectors were doing a good job, perhaps there would be some let under which we wouldn't need to have as many monitors. But for other companies that weren't doing as good a job, maybe we'd want to go in and continue to monitor the CCPs on how they were doing their job.

It's a difficult one for me to answer. I'm not that knowledgeable in that area, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Monsieur Carrier.

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

I'm done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I'm sorry, yes. That was five minutes.

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

Oh, that went fast.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for joining us here today.

Mr. Carson, in your presentation, you stressed the importance of creating professional pilots associations and drew a comparison with your own association of engineers. I'm an engineer myself. Can you tell me what prompted you to make this recommendation? Is it a question of compensating for the lack of regulatory oversight at Transport Canada, as mentioned by Mr. Danford earlier? Would you like to make up for this by establishing a professional association that would provide better training to professional pilots?

[Paul Carson]

To answer your question, yes. I just think that after all these years--and we've been flying airplanes since Kitty Hawk, for a hundred-plus years--that being a professional pilot.... We use the words “professional pilot”. We call ourselves that, but are we really professional in the sense of other professions? The answer is no.

You're an engineer, sir, so you know that when you got your degree as a graduate, as I did, that was a degree. It didn't allow you to practise engineering until you became a PEng. Professional engineering is self-regulating and self-governing, and it's empowered by provincial acts. Audits are done by the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers. Pretty much every three years they'll hit every engineering school in Canada.

It is done that way because it means that the people who do the work control those who are doing the work. So if you've been an engineer for 20 to 30 years, you will then get involved in controlling the people who are actually going to follow behind you.

To my mind, it's time that aviation come of age in some ways, grow up.

I stood in front of a dispatch one day with a director of flight operations. It was 80-some years into aviation, and I just turned to him and said, “Sir, don't you think after all this time we'd be a little bit further ahead than we really are?” We were having a bit of a discussion over some winter operations question.

I think with a self-governing, self-regulating association for the people who are licensed to do the work, in the long run, if we started now, then 10 years from now we would see a different environment out there, and you wouldn't have to talk to people like me. You just wouldn't. That's my wish.

I don't think self-governing, self-regulating professions are the be-all and end-all, but when we look at the way we do business in a democratic country like Canada, I think it's the way to proceed. And then the words “professional pilot” will actually mean “professional”.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Would the new professional association that you are proposing also include the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association and other airline pilots? In your opinion, would pilots be better trained by members of their own profession? In addition to the inspection of federal pilots, would pilots regulate their own industry? Is that the reason why you are proposing a new professional association?

[Paul Carson]

All pilots now are federally regulated. They're licensed by the federal Department of Transport. So the answer to your question is yes. If we say we're going to aim in that direction now in the business of professional flying--those who fly for hire or reward and have a commercial pilot's licence or above--eventually we're going to aim to self-govern, self-regulate, and it would include all pilots.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I would simply point out that for now, we must rely on Transport Canada to ensure our safety. Until such time as a professional association is created, it's in our best interest to see to it that Bill C-6 provides for the best possible flight safety in Canada.

[Paul Carson]

I would agree, but I gave a similar talk to my own association because I was looking for their support for my ideas. They listened and basically said, “Yes, but not now”. I've come to the conclusion that if not now, then when?

I agree with you that there is nothing out there. There are a number of trade associations out there that I'm aware of. But if we're going to mandate a system like SMS, perhaps in the future we will need to look at mandating what I'm talking about for the licensed people who do the work. If we don't begin now, then we will never start the process.

There are people in Transport who would understand very clearly what I'm talking about. In fact, I know of a group in the United States that is talking about similar ideas of professionalism. I think that's one way to go.

I believe that Seneca College has an aviation program for pilots and maintenance people for basic licences and basic engineering qualifications to do maintenance. I believe the college has just obtained accreditation to get degree-granting status.

So it's a start. I'm saying it needs a push. It needs somebody to say, “Hey, let's get on with this. We may not get it right away. Yes, you have an issue today to deal with, but what about tomorrow?” That's what I'm here talking about--tomorrow. Hopefully I'm giving something to people who follow after me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Carson and Mr. Danford. I appreciate your input.

As stated earlier, you're the last to present on this bill. There's a package of amendments coming forward, so hopefully some of the things we've heard today will be reflected in these amendments.

Thank you.

[Hugh Danford]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

The committee will take a short recess. Then we'll come back to start clause-by-clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Welcome back, everyone. Basically we are going to....

Mr. Julian.

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

Mr. Chair, before we start the process, I do want to raise an issue. That is, I know everybody has been working extremely hard to get in amendments, and the legal drafters have been working extremely hard. I have noticed that there are some inconsistencies, sometimes in translation, sometimes in terms of where the amendments actually should be located within the bill, and the copy that we received from the Ministry of Transport does not have the pages numbered, so it becomes a little more difficult to follow as well in the clause-by-clause analysis; the clause-by-clause analysis doesn't have page numbers.

So what I would ask of you, to begin with, is that we be very methodical about this and correct our slight inconsistencies or unclear elements around the amendments as we move forward. I know you've been very good in the past bills that we have gone through in being very methodical. I'd ask you to continue that and perhaps be even slower to make sure that as we're moving through we're catching what I think are inevitable minor errors, just given the sheer scope of the bill and the number of amendments that needed to be brought forward.