Transport Committee on April 27th, 2010

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

That means, from what I gather and from what I've interpreted as what you and others have said, that you want a greater presence by the regulator. In fact, you actually want the regulator to come back into the collective agreement, especially as it relates to the issues about pilot fatigue and the number of hours you're allowed to travel, to be on call, and to do all kinds of things.

It's troubling; I think the general public might be tempted to ask you a question. It sounds a little flippant, but it's a legitimate question. You have a room full of documentation about the perils of pilot fatigue. I'm assuming you also have a room full of information regarding other threats to security. How serious is one relative to the other? Which is more a danger to the travelling public: pilot fatigue or the risks that are documented, in part by the popular press and in part by a government determined to spend more money on national security?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

I don't think we should incite public alarm. Our industry is one of the safest on the planet, and we take a lot of pride in that. I think we've contributed a great deal to where the industry is today.

You refer to industrial activity. Again, I would like to make it clear to the committee that this organization would never presume to use the pulpit of this committee to drive an industrial agenda. Perhaps there are others who would, but we would never do that. We are here because we feel there are several important public policy issues that need to be addressed.

That said, we are the subject matter experts, as my colleague Captain Wiszniowski has told you. In that respect, I don't think there are many Transport Canada regulators, as you call them, who are about to come and observe our line operations and comment with the same level of expertise or experience that every one of our 3,000 pilots already has. I don't think that's where we're looking for increased regulatory presence. What we're asking the regulator to do is to regulate the structure within which we operate. There seems to be, given the timelines, as you've been apprised, some institutional inertia within the directorate around these issues. That's why we're here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You have 10 seconds....

I'll come back to you.

Monsieur Laframboise.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before the committee.

Captain Strachan, the fatigue issue is very important. Transport Canada was working on reports on that subject, but they have been set aside and are not a priority. We were told that there is a shortage of pilots. Is there really a shortage of pilots? That is hard for me to believe after you and Mr. Adamus talked about all those shutdowns earlier. A number of airlines have ceased operations. Is there a shortage of pilots in Canada?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

Go ahead.

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Worldwide, yes, there is a shortage of pilots. In Canada and North America we're holding our own. It seems that every time we get to the point where perhaps we need to start hiring, another airline goes into receivership. So right now, I'd say in North America we're holding our own. However, the future does not look that good. On one of the driving forces behind this, a representative from IATA spoke at a conference we had over in northern Africa a couple of weeks ago, and indicated that one of the main reasons young individuals are not getting into this industry is because of the remuneration and the fact that it's not the job that it used to be, with the longer hours.

So it's just not an attractive industry to be in. You could make a lot more money getting into other professions that take a lot less schooling.

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

That's good news. I am glad that you have the numbers to back up your claims. Transport Canada wants to start discussions in June and wants a report to be drafted within two years. Captain Strachan, you say that you would be prepared to submit to the committee the studies you have on fatigue. Is that right?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

Yes, absolutely, Mr. Laframboise. We are eager to bring these matters forward and to support the activities of this committee or any other government agency in forwarding those key agendas.

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

Wonderful.

These are no doubt very lengthy studies, so you will naturally need some time. It would be easy for me to ask you to submit them to us, but you probably need to explain them first. Do you have experts working for you who would be able to come and provide us with an explanation of the studies?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

Yes, I believe we could provide excellent expert support to any government effort, and we're eager to do so.

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

For the other countries, we...

Yes, Mr. Wiszniowski.

[Capt Barry Wiszniowski]

Thank you, sir.

Part of the ICAO recommendations at the working groups were that the flight and duty times be based on scientific data. As Captain Strachan mentioned earlier, our flight duty times were written in 1965. There was a slight change when the ANOs came into effect in 1969 and again in 1996, when the change to the flight and duty times came about.

With reference to the CARAC process for flight and duty times, I pulled off the Internet yesterday the CARAC working group status from 1994 to present. In section III, the flight and duty time working group was established in 1996, and there has not been a final report presented to the CARAC decision-making group. There are no regulatory initiatives tabled to the technical working group, and the file remains open.

An e-mail that I received last week from Transport Canada says that the CARAC file 2100-51-6-3, dated December 1996, will be removed from the website during the next scheduled update because it doesn't pertain to a national deliberation working group.

On June 28 of this year, the CARAC process is reinitiating the flight time working group, but we want to make sure that we recognize that our rules do not have any scientific base to them as they are today. You can see that by the 14-hour flat line on the top of the graph, because it doesn't account for circadian lows, backside of the clock, or time shift. A number of parameters aren't there.

We've been collecting the data. Our data is based on what Air New Zealand has been doing. We're attending international conferences and working groups trying to move this forward. As Captain Strachan said, it doesn't affect our association, because we're basically following the bell curve of every other jurisdiction in the world except Canada.

In a meeting we had last week at which ICAO and IFALPA were present, we saw that Canada's regulations are better than those of only two other countries in the world: one is Bulgaria and the other is Gabon, in west Africa.

So where are we? We have to move our regulations forward, and that's what our purpose is here.

There should be one level of safety. Whether you get on an Air Canada flight or a northern carrier flight, whether you're someone working off the coast or anywhere in Canada, every Canadian should expect to have the same level of safety.

We know that accidents are going to happen; we don't want another fatigue-related tragic event to occur before we say we should have done something. Our association is doing as much as we can, and now we're putting it back to your expertise and the government's expertise to see where we're going to move from here.

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

Okay.

So you are saying that nothing has been done to remedy the situation since 1996.

[Capt Paul Strachan]

Yes.

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

So, you do not have confidence and do not wish to get into discussions because you want results. Is that it?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

There is no confidence in the CARAC process.

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

Clearly, our committee feels that a way to proceed in this matter would be to start a study right away that would produce results. That is what you suggest.

[Capt Paul Strachan]

We need an expedited process. We're not reinventing the wheel, Mr. Laframboise. The data are there and the science is there. Almost all other jurisdictions have already moved on this; in some cases, they did so years ago. It's a glaring shortcoming in our industry right now. It's widespread knowledge not only here within Canada, but also around the world.

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

Mr. Adamus, you are saying that if we were to solve the problems of work schedules or fatigue, young people would perhaps feel more inclined to become pilots. Is that what you are saying?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

That's certainly a possibility. The actual profession itself is not a profession that young kids aspire to anymore. It used to be; when I was growing up, I wanted to be a pilot from the get-go, but that doesn't happen anymore.

We were talking about the CARAC process and how Transport Canada is going to be looking at flight and duty times. The U.S. recently did the same thing. They have a rule-making process as well, which takes a number of years, but instead of putting it through that normal process, they saw an urgency to it, fast-tracked it, and wrapped up their deliberations within eight weeks. We're still waiting for the FAA to come out with a new rule, but they did their studies in eight weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming here.

In some ways it appears that we're playing one thing against the other here. We have a security charge going in, $7 or $8 per passenger per flight. At the same time, we're slowing down the implementation of these very needed regulations to deal with pilot hours.

What's the best investment for the government to make? Is it to step up the regulations on pilot flight and duty times, or to invest in doubling up our available security system with these scanners at the airport?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

Thanks, Mr. Bevington.

We're sensitive to economic realities, as is this committee and certainly the government, but in respect of these two issues, I don't think there's an option. I don't think there's a choice. I mean, safety and security should not be economically driven issues. Although we have to be sensitive and find the smartest ways to implement the things we need to implement, I don't think that implementation is an option.

We need effective ways to do both.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

You've said that you're disadvantaged by the costs of security. In Canada, our security system is very expensive compared with the other countries in the world. Where are the options that we have to reduce those costs and provide effective security? That's what we're trying to do here with that.

In terms of the safety on planes...which I consider to be the highest priority. You just have to look at the statistics to see how many Canadians have died as a result of safety issues on aircraft vis-à-vis security issues on aircraft. So what we want to do for safety is very important as well.

Why would we not put our efforts into increasing the safety on aircraft?

[Capt Paul Strachan]

I can't imagine one, but I will defer your question to my colleague Captain Manuge. I think he has some creative ideas. You asked about possible contingencies, what sorts of things we can look at. Tim, I think, has some ideas that might well interest you.