Evidence of meeting #56 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sms.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
We are translating this, and it's a little difficult with two conversations.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
It's included in other acts, Mr. Laframboise.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Except that, for the rail sector, other acts theoretically should have provided that this report must be made public. The minister had to request that it be made public.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
I don't have any comments to make on that, sir.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
It's nevertheless true. You said it wound up being made public. I don't have a problem with the fact that investigation reports are made public in accordance with the Access to Information Act. Why don't we include a provision that investigation reports will be made public in accordance with the Access to Information Act? That would prevent situations such as those that have occurred in the rail sector. If these documents were automatically made public, we wouldn't need such a provision. Mr. Bell said that the investigation report had not been made public, whereas it should have been, in accordance with the Access to Information Act and in protecting certain information. The minister had to intervene.
Why do you refuse to have a provision such as that?
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
Mr. Laframboise, I don't disagree with you on the principle and I have told you why. I told you about the discussions we had with the people from the Department of Justice. They told us that, in view of the fact that such a provision was already in other acts, it would be redundant to put it in this one. That was similar to the discussion we had on the Canada Labour Code, dangerous goods and the Transportation Safety Board.
I'm not telling you I disagree with you on the principle, but I repeat what was confirmed to us from the legal standpoint.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
If we believe what the deputy minister, Mr. Ranger and Mr. Bell told us about the rail sector, sometimes it may occur that investigation reports are not made public, whereas they should be automatically made public.
I'm reaching out to Mr. Jean. We all agree that the investigation report has been edited and that the highlights have been given. In view of what has happened in the rail sector, there should be a clear provision to prevent that from reoccurring. It should also be clear that investigation reports will be made public in the case of air transport as well.
Why don't we introduce a friendly amendment that would suit everyone?
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
First of all, my references to rail are to CN and not VIA.
The question I have is on proposed paragraph 5.393(1)(b). I realize it is proposed to be added, but I go back to proposed subsection 5.393(1) and it talks about information from a flight data recorder.
What is the difference between a black box and a flight data recorder? Are they the same thing or are they two different things?
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
Actually, most of the boxes are orange, but they are called black boxes. It's an old media--
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
There are cockpit voice recorders and those are a continuous...well, they used to be 30-minute loops, but now they're a bit longer. Some are longer.
Flight data recorders...but that's not what we're talking about. Cockpit voice recorders are completely protected under the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act. If there is an accident, it's going to be protected under the CTAISB Act for the purpose of the accident. It's used for accident investigations, the main purpose. If everybody died, they would want to have records of the parameters of how the aircraft was flying, the altitude, the engine parameters, and all that.
However, people were very innovative in aviation and they realized that they could use this before there was an accident and take those parameters and monitor how our engines are performing, both from an economical standpoint and also from a safety standpoint, how our crew members are flying the aircraft, because they may be over-speeding the aircraft or doing things of that nature, so through those parameters they can monitor. They have more or less a readout, a picture, in numbers and IT, so they can see the performance and then correct, improve, or make some changes to their maintenance or their flight crew operations.
So that's what they're doing on their own, and they use this to advance safety. So now we're protecting them.
This is the same as the black box, yes. One part of one of those black boxes, yes.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
So the voice recorder is different. I guess what comes to mind was the recent case I recall where I think the argument was that the family of the pilot who died felt they had the right to hear what happened to that pilot.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
There was a Supreme Court decision regarding ATC tapes, but with respect to the cockpit voice recording, there's a balancing exercise that a judge can undertake if there is a motion filed for that purpose, and the judge will balance the interest of protecting information against the interest of using it for.... It is in the CTAISB Act, and I have the section here. I can give it to you, if you want.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
This doesn't relate to that. This doesn't involve an accident. This involves just the SMS on a regular basis, the information coming through.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
Exactly.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
There's no reference here, then. This is the flight data recorder, which is the IT data as opposed to the voice cockpit recorder.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
It's clear. When you see FDR, it's not the CVR.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask Mrs. Stanfield if she could present us with a legal opinion for next Monday on what aspects of ATI actually are covered and what are excluded by the bill. What we have is a difference of opinion here on the access to information and what is covered within the bill, so if you could present us with an opinion on how the access to information actually applies to Bill C-6, that would be helpful for all members of the committee, I think.
Director, Regulatory Services, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport
Can I...? No? It's up to you.
Legal Counsel, Department of Transport
I need to consult a colleague before I can answer that question.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Certainly. Okay.
I'll come back to some of the testimony that we heard, Mr. Chair.
We heard from Kirsten Brazier, and she said:
If we are really concerned about safety and truly want to become the safest country in the world, then we need to start sharing information with a view to discussing and learning from our mistakes. Instead of sanitizing and restricting safety information--such as the service difficulty reports, Transportation Safety Board accident and incident reports, and the CADORS--we need to make this information more accessible in its entirety with industry so we can learn from it.
That was in her testimony on Bill C-6.
And there's Ken Rubin's testimony:
Already, the effect of the SMS system is felt on access because I've already been denied the first SMS report on Air Transat done in 2003. I got documents, which were dated November, from Transport Canada. They said that as of then there were already 200 secret SMS investigation reports that the public will never get to see, however serious some of the infractions may be.
I noticed in the committee that the minister and officials came to you and said there were only 100 files. Where are the hundreds of SMS reports? When are they going to be made public?
Dozens of regulatory audits were stopped in their tracks, which I or any member of the public could have applied for, but no, they're gone because they've now been transferred, in part, to SMS. This is a power play of the worst order.
I could go on and on, Mr. Chair. This is something that witnesses have continuously cited: the issue around secrecy being not in the public interest.
So we'll await a legal opinion, but I think it would be disingenuous to say that the ATI applies to information that's contained throughout this. This is information for which ultimately there have to be doors. There has to be a system of checks and balances, and essentially what we've been doing today, regrettably, is taking away those checks and balances by not addressing some of the worst problems in Bill C-6 as presented.
We fixed a whole host of other sections of less weight and less impact on Canadians' lives. This is why I can't understand why we're not fixing probably what are the greatest concerns that have been raised by witnesses coming before this committee.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
We're going to move to NDP-10, page 48. Again, I would draw the committee's attention to the similarities back to NDP-9.
I would ask Mr. Julian to present.