Thank you.
The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, UCTE, is the national union for most government transportation employees. We represent transportation workers at Transport Canada, Canadian Coast Guard, Transportation Safety Board, Canadian Transportation Agency, airport workers, Nav Canada, and others.
At Transport Canada, UCTE represents the majority of unionized workers: 3,116 of 4,698. We represent approximately 1,000 inspectors in the aviation, rail, marine, and road safety divisions. In aviation safety, UCTE represents 50% of the inspectorate. Our members are the technical inspectors and aircraft mechanical engineers responsible for maintenance and engineering inspection.
Our members are classified as technical inspectors, TIs, a broad classification in multiple government departments and agencies. When applied to most transport inspection functions, this broad classification is inappropriate and completely out of date. This outdated and irrelevant classification results in situations in which inspectors who are doing the same job are paid vastly different wages, as well as situations in which our members are supervising people who make a lot more money than our technical inspector supervisors.
Today there are approximately 115 vacancies in the aviation inspectorate at Transport Canada—and that figure comes from senior management attending a civil aviation meeting just 10 days ago. One of the reasons we have such significant shortages is that Transport Canada has been preying on its aviation safety management systems to reduce safety budgets. In fact, over the past few years and in estimates going forward, Transport Canada has been capturing most of its 5% program review cutbacks from aviation safety budgets. We will send this committee part III of the Transport Canada estimates following this meeting. Another reason we have significant shortages is that most inspectors are recruited from the aviation industry, and the wages paid by government are up to 25% less than those in the private sector.
We urge you to consider Transport Canada's SMS in the context of the listeriosis crisis. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency introduced a similar self-regulation model into the meat industry prior to the crisis. It's also important to recognize that Transport Canada's aviation safety management system is unique in the world. Canada's implementation of SMS is far ahead of any other nation's, and some of the processes and systems in place in Canada are not being replicated elsewhere, nor are they recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.
UCTE and our members do not oppose SMS. However, we believe there are aspects of Transport Canada's SMS that are wrong and need to be changed. UCTE is not suggesting reform in a vacuum. In fact, we are working with Transport Canada at the most senior levels to promote our perspective and to communicate openly with Transport Canada on these matters of deep interest to all travelling Canadians.
Our discussion paper, “Implementation of the Transport Canada Aviation Safety Management System: What's Not Right and Why Change is Necessary”, has been distributed widely at Transport Canada and to many other stakeholders, including members of Parliament.
UCTE's recommendations for change originate from the inspectors themselves. The people in the field doing the inspections, working for Transport Canada, are the people who are driving our campaign for change.
This is a critically important fact that parliamentarians need to keep in mind: inspectors no longer inspect aircraft. We hear this from all inspection regions. All inspectors do now is check off airline reports. Many inspectors do not even leave the Transport Canada office. They spend their time verifying the airline safety management reports. Don't get me wrong: SMS check-off is an important feature of SMS program verification and it needs to be done. However, airline reports may not be sufficient to protect the travelling public. Airline reports may not contain a sufficient amount of oversight, or may not contain the full facts with respect to internal accident corrective actions.
This leads us to a first important recommendation. Inspectors need to return to the practice of direct and sometimes random audits and inspections, without prior notification to the airlines. The intensity and prevalence of these random inspections should relate to risk, including whether or not a carrier is SMS-licensed or not. At the end of the day, the inspector must have the discretion and the authority to inspect randomly and without notification. This is the only way the Minister of Transport can be assured that his statutory obligations are met.
Second, we do need whistle-blower protections. You will hear about some of the serious problems in airline employee reporting and lack of protections from management reprisal, and lack of oversight and oversight definition from Transport Canada. Similar problems arise with the inspectorate. When inspectors have a complaint or a safety concern that they cannot address due to management or systemic constraints, they write up this concern and post it to the civil aviation issues reporting system, CAIRS, which was referred to by the previous group.
I have seen many of these reports and I've seen the Transport Canada responses. Nothing comes of them. It is simply an exercise of “I said, you said”. It is similar to an employee telling their boss they are not doing a good job. Well, you can imagine the response from the boss. And you can imagine the response from Transport Canada management.
The U.S. has not even implemented SMS, but on September 23, 2009, the Obama administration announced that the Federal Aviation Administration was clearly working for the public, not the airlines. The administration created an independent office out of a separate central agency to oversee aviation whistle-blower protections. This office will oversee the FAA Administrator's Hotline, Aviation Safety Hotline, Public Inquiry Hotline, Whistleblower Protection Program Hotline, and the safety reporting system, which is similar to our CAIRS. UCTE believes that Canada needs to follow the U.S. lead and establish an independent aviation safety whistle-blower office, attached to an independent agency such as the Transportation Safety Board or even Treasury Board.
UCTE does not believe Canada should delegate aviation safety to trade associations. There is a clear conflict in doing so. Canada is the only jurisdiction in the world to delegate aviation safety to trade associations. Transport Canada calls these delegations “safety partnerships”, but the name is a misnomer. Canada is delegating oversight and inspection to the very trade associations that depend on the airlines for their existence. Trade associations collect membership dues from commercial operators. The chief executives of the airlines sit on the boards of directors of the trade associations and run and manage the affairs of the association. It is a clear conflict of interest for an association run by the airlines to be responsible to the travelling public for aviation safety.
It is important to differentiate between professional associations and trade associations. Professional associations for pilots and engineers have a legitimate interest and responsibility in ensuring certifications and standards are applied to the professions. There is no conflict of interest when the professions are empowered to ensure the highest level of professional competence. Transport Canada has delegated SMS oversight to the Canadian Business Aircraft Association, known as CBAA. This association represents private commercial aircraft operators. An application from the Helicopter Association of Canada is also being considered. It is only a matter of time before an application from the association for Canada's largest airlines is also considered and accepted.
Last month the Transportation Safety Board published an aviation inspection report for an accident involving a CBAA-certified operator in Fox Harbour, Nova Scotia. The TSB report contained a lengthy discussion of the CBAA program and Transport Canada oversight. It contained the following facts: CBAA directors were concerned about liability and constructed a system whereby independent consultants were exclusively responsible for implementing the SMS oversight program; CBAA operators were free to choose their own consultants and frequently used the same consultants over and over, leading to the strong possibility of regulatory capture; UCTE members report that CBAA operators sometimes retained the same consultant responsible for CBAA oversight to develop the protocols for the operator SMS; Transport Canada audited the CBAA program and recommended significant changes to that program, but Transport did not follow the recommendations of the audit.
Our view is that a system that gives inspectors the authority to inspect will ensure redress of systemic problems such as lack of action in addressing the CBAA audit. Our view is that trade associations are in a conflict of interest when they are responsible to the public for aviation safety while accountable to airline management for their existence.
To summarize, UCT does not oppose SMS. We oppose the way Transport Canada is implementing SMS. We recommend a policy of direct and unscheduled audits and inspections by Transport Canada inspectors. We recommend an independent office for whistle-blower protection. We oppose SMS delegations to trade associations--it's a clear conflict. We welcome the motion of the committee and are interested in any opportunity to privately and publicly share our views on this matter of national importance.
We look forward to further discussions.
Thank you.