Transport Committee on March 30th, 2010

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

And what do we say to people who have had accidents and people who have lost loved ones in accidents caused by fatigue? Do we say we're sorry? Is that what we do?

[Marc Grégoire]

No, just listen. As I said, we take all the Transportation Safety Board's recommendations very seriously. In the case of the accidents mentioned on the Enquête program, the Régionnair accident at Sept-Îles, for example, the recommendations did not mention fatigue. Both recommendations concerned the ban on approaches when ceilings are too low. That is where Transport Canada put its emphasis and the regulations were changed. In the program, the pilot admitted voluntarily that he had greatly exceeded the allowable number of working hours. A pilot in the industry is permitted to work 120 hours per month. The pilot admitted that he had flown for 181 hours that month.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for coming here today again. We're very pleased to have you in front of us on this particular issue.

Last fall I asked a question in the House on aviation safety, and the Minister of State at the time wanted me to apologize for bringing up the issue of aviation safety. He said the system was very secure. That's not the attitude of the minister's office now.

Where has the direction come from? Has it come from the department, saying that we need to adapt the systems we're using, or has it come from the political bosses down to you? Where has the action come from?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

Let me just start the answer to that question. First of all, our aviation safety system in Canada is secure. As my colleague has indicated, our accident rates are low, although I must say that every accident is one too many.

With regard to our inspectors and work with the unions, all initiatives have come from the department. Our minister--and I can speak for myself, since I've been here eight months--since my first briefing with him on these issues, has been very diligent in making sure we do the right things and we improve our systems and processes.

Mr. Chairman, I believe the honourable member is aware of a number of announcements we have made over the past few months regarding aviation safety. Not all of them are related to what is on the agenda today, SMS, but he has heard from his colleagues, he has heard from the stakeholders, he has heard from us, and he has taken action.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So the department fully supports the move out of safety management oversight by Canadian business jets? You fully support backing off from the implementation of SMS for small-sized carriers, in the 704 range? That is fully bought into by the department?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

Sir, we're here. We're the department. We are fully supportive of taking the regulatory oversight functions back from the Canadian Business Aviation Association.

Let me just be very clear, however, that we have put a freeze on the implementation of SMS for small business aviation, for small planes, basically. That is, we have put in a one-year pause because we heard from our inspectors on the ground, as well as from the people we're regulating, that the system wasn't ready. We took that into account, and that's what we have done.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

You've been engaged in developing this system for what, a decade?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

I believe so.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So now it's only in the last six or eight months you've decided that feedback from the people who are actually doing the work on the ground is required? Wasn't this process set up in a fashion that provided ongoing feedback from the people who are doing the work for you, the safety inspection?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

I'm sure that the department, on a regular basis, works with the front lines. I can speak for myself and for my colleagues here that we have decided it was important to take stock, and that's what we have done this year.

I believe the committee will support a department that is evolving, and that is improving its processes, and that is trying to do the best thing for the safety of Canadians.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay. When we talk about surveillance--because this is an interesting new word, and I hadn't heard it in the vocabulary, as my colleague pointed out--knowing that the work we're concerned about is the oversight, does this mean that with the large carriers, for instance, you'll be going back to systems where you will actually have operational audits, where you will actually go on the ground with the companies on a random basis to determine their adherence to the systems that they have laid out for themselves?

[Marc Grégoire]

The bottom line is yes. However, we're not necessarily using the same vocabulary that you just mentioned. But we will do all of those activities, and that's what I tried to explain in the introduction, that certainly some of you and some of our inspectors thought that we were out of that business, and that's because we were in the implementation phase.

I certainly reassured--and Gérard did the same--all the same inspectors we met that this is not so and that we will continue to do that. Risk management will play a key role, and the risk analysis and more data analysis on the safety practices of airlines. Not knowing exactly what it will be in the future, I asked the team in Ottawa, certainly for the major airlines, to tell me what component of traditional oversight would we do in the coming year, and it turned out to be approximately 30% of traditional inspection work, if you want. Some of it will be unannounced, ramp inspection and others.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

My understanding in talking to industry is that their sense is that they don't want to see this go back this way. Do you have a conflict with the industry in terms of ensuring that they understand that you will be engaged in more complete oversight in the future?

[Marc Grégoire]

That's certainly the message we passed to all industry members we met. But certainly this misconception was not only among our inspectors but also among some portion of the industry. It is clear that they will see us, but again on a risk basis.

A company that is operating very safely, while we will oversee and do some monitoring of their operation, will not see us too often. A company that has unsafe practices will have us in their face far more frequently.

When I was there yesterday during the various ICAO presentations, ICAO indicated that in the way they are moving forward to audit various countries they will use exactly the same process.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Will you consider an anonymous tip line?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here today on this very important issue.

I think I'm going to pick up on a portion of Mr. Bevington's questioning. One of the things I have discovered is that when you want to know how something you're doing is working or whether it's being implemented properly you should talk to the people who were involved with it, whether it is people who were involved in implementing it or whether it is people who were affected by it.

I come from a very agricultural riding. When I want to know what is going on in agriculture, I go talk to farmers. I also have a lot of tourism in my riding, and when I want to know what's happening in the tourism industry, I go speak to people who are operating the various tourism products. I think you get the idea that the most important thing is to determine what the effects will be on those people directly affected by the changes being made.

I would like to just hear a little bit more from you in terms of what you've done, and what you plan to do going forward, in terms of consultation and speaking directly with those most affected. Obviously they are the inspectors and the people who are actually on the ground involved in implementing changes, but also those who will be affected by them, the operators.

What have you done in terms of consultations? What is your plan going forward with that?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

Thank you very much for that question.

I will start, and my colleague who's the responsible ADM will expand on the consultations and discussions that he has held.

Since I started as the Deputy Minister of Transport, I have crossed the country at least once, if not twice. Every time that I have been in one of our regions, I have spent time with our inspectors without any management present. So that's what I have been doing. Now we are going to take that to the next level. We're instituting an advisory group of inspectors to the deputy minister, so we will have our front-line inspectors as advisers to me so that I get to actually hear the front-line issues and the concerns as they hear them. We feel that this is an important avenue for our front-line staff to have access to senior management.

We have been working with the unions. Our union meetings are not only at the specific branch and responsibility area level, but department-wide. Our executive group meets with the unions, all our unions, now every four months. Actually, this afternoon we're having our meetings with the unions. We met with them previously, I think, in the last couple of months. So an enhanced engagement with our unions is important.

Regarding the industry, we work closely with industry within the rules and within the clear understanding that we are the regulator and we regulate them. However, safety is not the responsibility of just one party. It is the responsibility of the government, it is the responsibility of industry, and it is the responsibility of the travellers. We have to make sure that all these pieces come together so that Canadians have the best safety in the world.

Maybe my colleague can give you a sense of what he and his staff have done, but also the general conclusions that he has brought home.

[Marc Grégoire]

Thank you, Yaprak.

First of all, if I go back to both of your questions, we have communicated extensively over the last ten years both with industry and our inspectors. But what we haven't done enough is perhaps distinguish the role of the inspector, or the oversight role, versus the SMS philosophy. What we realized in the past year is that everybody bought into the concept of SMS, the philosophy of SMS, but the issues were all around the actual implementation of it or the role of the department within SMS.

I should have said that one of the factors that helped me understand this is when I read the listeriosis report and I tried to make analogies between what happened in the food sector versus what we were going through. The bottom line is that implementing a safety management system is a major cultural change both for our employees and for the industry.

I was an inspector in the department. I started a long time ago as an inspector. I value the work of our inspectors tremendously, and like you, I agree on the importance of going on the ground to listen to the concerns of those affected, both our inspectors and the airlines.

In terms of the air carriers, smaller operators and airlines, we have held a lot of conferences on the subject. We have gone around the country with SMS sessions, inviting, in some cases, 300 or more participants. These are owners and operators of companies learning how to implement SMS in their company.

In regard to the fact that we're slowing down the implementation of SMS, we are doing it mainly to catch up with our own inspector workforce, to bring them the appropriate training and tools to do their job, but I've heard from many air carriers that they're sorry about the delay because they're anxious to be regulated under regulations 703 and 704.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Often when we make changes like this, they are obviously very important changes, but we sometimes can forget about smaller organizations, smaller companies, and the effects that it can have on them. When government imposes certain things on organizations and companies, the cost, on a percentage basis, to comply with certain things can be quite onerous on smaller companies.

What have we done specifically to deal with that? How are the smaller organizations affected, and what thought has been given to that?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

We always know who we're regulating. We have to understand their circumstances and their realities.

However, because we're talking about aviation safety, certain things are not particularly negotiable. Safety of the passengers on an airplane is not particularly negotiable. How we approach them, how we regulate them, I think there could be flexibility in the system. But if a company is going to operate airplanes, they have to account for safety. That's where we're coming from.

I think Mr. Sherritt has some things to add.

[Don Sherritt, Director, Standards, Civil Aviation, Department of Transport]

One of the advantages of delaying it is that it has given the associations an opportunity to become more engaged. What we're seeing is associations like ATAC are starting to work with their membership and are coming up with common tools, combining their resources. I think that's quite encouraging when you start to see the associations starting to step up to the plate and starting to work with the regulatory requirement and their members to try to add value and to make the road easier for their membership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good Morning, Deputy Minister and associates. Welcome to the committee.

The Union of Canadian Transportation Employees suggested to the committee that we establish an independent aviation whistle-blower office. Do you agree with that?