Transport Committee on Nov. 30th, 2009

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

And is it true?

[Marc Grégoire]

No.

We have made some agency savings in civil aviation. We have reduced a few director positions, but that's about the extent of the reduction. And as far as I know--and I hope so--there are no reductions ahead.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I would like to be clear, though, that the union does not oppose SMS. In fact, they do believe in SMS, according to their particular statement here. They are simply worried about the way it is being implemented, but they do believe in safety management systems.

[Marc Grégoire]

That is what they told me face to face as well.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you.

SMS was first proposed by the Liberals in Bill C-62 in 2005. Is that correct?

[Marc Grégoire]

Well, actually, for aviation it was mentioned through the discussions around the Aeronautics Act. But we have been talking about SMS for many, many years at Transport Canada, since the mid-nineties, actually. We started consulting in aviation in the year 2000, and we implemented the first regulation on the rail sector in rail safety in March 2001, I believe.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

All right.

And the inspectors for rail and marine are quite a bit fewer than that. In fact, rail safety has about 100 inspectors and marine safety has about 300 inspectors. Is that fair to say? There are a lot more inspectors for aviation safety in Canada.

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes, in civil aviation the total group is about 1,400 employees, of which 878 are inspectors. A few hundred are certification engineers and other kinds of engineers. So those 1,400 people make civil aviation the biggest group, to a large extent, than any other group within Transport Canada.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I don't know if you remember Justice Moshansky coming before this committee. Were you here for his testimony, Mr. Grégoire?

[Marc Grégoire]

No, but I think I came before and after.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Okay. Did you have a chance to review the testimony when Judge Moshansky was asked if safety management systems had been in place at the time of the crash he investigated in Dryden?

Where was the crash? Was it in Dryden?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

If it had been in place at that time, it would be likely the crash never would have taken place because of the SMS requirements for de-icing and also the review. Do you remember reading that?

[Marc Grégoire]

I believe that is what he said, yes.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, sir.

Those are all my questions. If I have any extra time, I will give it to Ms. Hoeppner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You don't.

I'm going to go to one round of one minute each, to finish up, so I would ask you to be brief.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Grégoire, I guess we're not going to go into a conversation, but I'd like to perhaps give you an opportunity to respond to the following, because SMS was supposed to be an additional layer. Read the word “additional”. It was supposed to be accompanied by whistle-blower legislation that would give greater authenticity to the proactive measures to which you attribute reporting by companies.

It was supposed to be attached to a stable number of inspectors, if not an increasing number of inspectors. And today you tell us there are 98 fewer inspectors. That's probably in excess of $10 million cut from a budget. It was supposed to be accompanied by additional activity by the regulator, that the regulator--meaning Transport Canada--would be very much in place with regulations to ensure that there would be remedial actions if they in fact found that the audits were not being respected. Remember that your department was going to be looking at a paper trail and trying to establish a culture of self-regulation. It's clear that the culture of self-regulation is not yet a part of the aviation industry, notwithstanding anyone's efforts.

In the absence of those four measures, do you still stand by the fact that the SMS system is working?

[Marc Grégoire]

Absolutely, sir, more than ever. I have read some of the documents that were produced following the assessments of the big airlines. With the old system, there is no way we would have been able to go so deep or so far in the assessment of the culture of a company. Sure, the tools you pretend we have abolished have not been used a lot in the last year, we will admit, but that's because we were assessing all the carriers at once. We will use those tools as we did before in the coming years.

To comment on the vacancies and the 98 inspectors, we often hear it's because of budget cuts. But it's not because of budget cuts, and we are staffing those positions at this point in time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Go ahead, Mr. Laframboise.

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

Nevertheless, there continues to be some problems. As I said earlier, an article was published in this morning's edition of La Presse. I'd like to read part of it to you:

Captain Daniel Slunder, the union's national chairman, stated in a press release that “Transport Canada is to be commended for recognizing there are serious problems with its aviation SMS program.” “This postponement is absolutely the right thing to do. However, the problems this decision acknowledges are undermining the safety of the big airlines. As a result, we no longer are confident the major carriers are compliant with safety regulations.”

The representative of the federal pilots union works with these carriers every day. What are your thoughts on his statement?

[Marc Grégoire]

I don't quite understand how the decision to postpone the SMS roll-out to small carriers can be linked to the situation of large carriers.

I don't see any direct connection between the two. We met with Mr. Slunder on two or three occasions. We said we wanted to work with the union to improve the Safety Management System and in particular, Transport Canada's oversight role. I don't see this as an admission of the system's failings, but rather as proof of the parties willingness to work together to improve the system.

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

You have not issued—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I just want to go back to the whistle-blower. You talked about large interviews with personnel within the different aviation companies. Wouldn't that be with the managers and people engaged in the SMS programs within those?

[Marc Grégoire]

No, it includes people everywhere in the company. For instance, in an airline it will include pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics. Of course, it will also include interviews with the management of the companies, starting with the CEO and the vice-presidents.