Transport Committee on April 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I'm sorry, Mr. Volpe. Thank you.

Monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Smith.

I am intrigued by the fact that, as part of SMS, the bosses take reprisals against employees who blow the whistle on a safety problem. Could you tell me why bosses act that way? It has serious consequences in the long run. Something is not being done right. An inspection plan for the aircraft should be submitted. A boss who is not happy would simply have to make changes to the aircraft. I am not exactly sure where the problem lies, but there certainly are some flaws in the way things are done.

[Ron Smith]

Because there is no protection for the individual who reports an issue of an aircraft that has a problem being released for flight, let's say, an aircraft that should not be released but is released under pressure from the employer. The individuals are afraid that they will be sent home without pay or treated in a different fashion, or that they will be disciplined. This is and has been different in different companies, in different areas of Canada.

If I tell you that I know this aircraft left and wasn't fixed, and I put my name to it, what's going to happen to me? Now, if I submit a report and don't tell you who I am, then it can't be followed up by anybody to find out if what I've said was true and accurate and if it in fact has been corrected prior to the aircraft departing.

Those are all issues--as even Transport Canada will tell you--that centre around a safety management system. In SMS and under the Canadian air regulations, you can only report something I did and get immunity. If I blow the whistle on somebody else, while they may not punish me today, I might walk around in the hangar with a little target on my back for the rest of my career at that company.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

How are safety problems reported in other countries? Personally, I think safety is very important. And we do not currently have a system in place to protect people who fly. If you find a defect during an inspection but you are not allowed to say so, there really is a big problem. We will have to change our system. People are going to have to get together and talk about it. I am assuming that employees are giving 100%. If an employee says there is a problem, the problem should be solved. Is that not what should be done?

[Ron Smith]

In the United States they have a program called ASRS, whereby people can confidentially report to an independent company or group.

I believe it's part of NASA, is it not, Richard?

They do the investigation. They strip the individual's name off the investigative report. They investigate it. They report back to the individual and to the FAA on the outcome of the investigation.

Transport Canada started to do this a number of years ago. I was involved in some of the preliminary discussions with Transport Canada. Then the whole thing came off the rails. Why? A large part of it is cost. You need systems and to do it is not cheap. The British do the same sort of thing with a confidential reporting system.

In Canada we have SECURITAS. It's still part of the TSB, which is overwhelmed and can't cope with it. But it needs to rest somewhere outside of, necessarily, Transport Canada, where someone can look at it, and if the issue or the problem lies with the regulator, that being Transport, or the air carrier or the air carrier operator with them, action can be taken to correct it. We don't have that system here. We started down that road. We stopped. It hasn't been implemented.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

We are talking about people's safety. That is very important to me. A missing bolt or a missing part is as dangerous as a terrorist on board. In both cases, the plane can crash. In one case, the terrorist blows the plane up and in the other case, the plane blows up on its own. We really cannot let those things slide. We take great security measures against terrorism, but we let people get on a plane with defects that might lead to very serious consequences. Whatever the case, we certainly have to do something about it.

[Ron Smith]

Generally, as we all know, flying is safe. The maintenance people who we represent, the maintenance people in all the airlines, do the best they can with what they have to do their business.

But again, let's face facts: humans are humans and sometimes there are errors made. Mistakes are made. It's about finding out why the mistake was made and how to make sure that mistake does not happen again so the plane doesn't leave with that screw missing, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to direct my question to Mr. Balnis. I appreciated his comments regarding the deputy minister and the leadership she is showing with regard to getting on the ground level and getting some input. I think that's going to be great. This committee is going to work with the department and listen, and then we're going to be making recommendations.

But ultimately you have to lead the people you represent, when we finally come up with something, and you have to show leadership too. There has to be a buy-in. If there isn't, it's not going to work, and it doesn't matter what we come up with. There's no way that we're going to mitigate all risk to aviation, but I think we really have done a great job in this country as far as mitigating the risk and the record that we have in aviation are concerned.

When they first came out with SMS, was there a buy-in? Did you support a buy-in to see if this thing would work? Could you give me an idea of just what you did do to see if you could make it work? I know there are problems, and we recognize that, but what did you do to try to support the government in what they were trying to do?

[Richard Balnis]

The SMS concept was first raised in 1999 at a CARAC technical meeting. There was a series of meetings. We proposed amendments to improve the process to have greater involvement from workers. All of those proposals were rejected.

In fact, in the Canada Gazette, Part I, in 2005, when the CARs 705--the aviation regulations--were gazetted, an amendment that we thought would ensure effective worker involvement in the development of SMS was stripped out at the last minute. So we believe that SMS has been imposed without key amendments to include worker involvement.

I want to add to what Ron said in response to Mr. Volpe's question about the issue of how employees buy in. Employees are expected to give reports and the employees expect feedback. They now get acknowledgments only that say thank you very much, we've risk-managed it, we've done a risk assessment, we believe that six injuries in a particular jump seat on an aircraft is an acceptable risk, and thank you for your concern. I don't know if I would put in a report again.

Buy-in from the bargaining agents is one thing. We have participated vigorously throughout the CARAC and Canada Gazette processes, and this process in front of this committee. But when our members on the line put in a report and get an acknowledgement saying thank you, but the injuries will continue, I think that's the problem. That is because there is no worker involvement within the SMS.

So we tried, sir, but we were rejected in 2001, 2003, and 2005. We tried, sir. Now we think the process is out there, and because of that management-only risk management where they decide, “You're right, we cannot eliminate hazards, but were the bars being set too high?”, our members look at that and say this system is not working for them.

So it's on the front line that we're having problems with the buy-in, because they're responding by saying thank you, but we're doing nothing. People say they cannot live with that. That's the problem, and we're reflecting it. If SMS had been constructed better, perhaps it would be different for us, but it was not constructed in a way that included worker involvement, as part II of the Canada Labour Code did. We tried to propose amendments to ensure there was worker involvement, but there was not.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I'll direct my next question to Mr. Smith.

In my past life, I sat as a board chair that dealt with all the CUPE negotiations. They were good people and good employees—don't get me wrong—but I don't think there was ever a time we dealt with the union that they didn't want more people and more money. When you say you really don't know what levels of staffing are needed, it concerns me, because there has to be a level established to make sure the job is done. But we also have to recognize, once again, that you're not going to mitigate all risk.

Have you put together any statistics or any information we can look at and say, okay, this is reasonable?

[Ron Smith]

We don't have access to the statistics from Transport Canada as to how many inspections should be done--how many unannounced inspections or any of that. As Richard said earlier, the Canadian Federal Pilots Association, which represents a large number of the inspectors, the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, which represents another portion of them, and even PIPSC, which represents some of the technical and engineering people, would have a better idea of that.

We are, sir, a user of the system, not unlike an airline itself. Our members utilize the system and utilize Transport Canada the same way that Air Canada, Jazz, or any other airline does. We don't have the access to or the intricate knowledge of what it takes to do these inspections. I still have some friends over there because I came from Transport Canada, where I started working in 1979 as a flight service specialist, but I have no idea of the workload, how much it takes, or who does what. Other than looking at government documents as to what they're supposed to do, sir, I could not tell you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Volpe.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm at a stage where, rather than pursue questioning, I'd like to make a couple of observations, because I think this has been very helpful despite the fact we had a very vigorous first exchange.

One of the things that appears to have come out of the responses from Mr. Smith and Mr. Balnis right now is that we need to speak with some of the unions that represent the inspectors. That's number one.

Also, we need to speak again with the officials entrusted with implementing SMS, because I think we need to get a better understanding of how many people are required on the ground for the kinds of operational parameters they operate under.

Finally, why is it that the observations by employees, or those who report, haven't been dealt with in a fashion that demonstrates a two-way communication system? On that score, I just wondered whether Mr. Balnis would make available to us those recommendations that his union proposed to Transport Canada in 1999 for the implementation of the SMS system.

[Richard Balnis]

Off the top of my head, we made a major submission when the Aeronautics Act was being amended. That is in English only. I think it was a very detailed submission of about 40 pages. We'll dig it up. With respect, I will send it to you for you to translate into French and distribute. We can also get our amendments in from the standards... I can do that, sir. But just so you're aware, it will be in English only because we wrote it in English.

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

That's fine. If you just let members know where they can access it, then you don't have to distribute it.

[Richard Balnis]

I'll give it to the chair.

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

That's fine. Then he'll be concerned with it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Volpe.

If you have a website that we can go to and get it, that would be even more convenient. You could submit that through the chair if you have it.

[Richard Balnis]

Yes. I know that those comments are not on our website. We'll arrange with you and the clerk the best way to get it to you electronically. I'm just thinking through in my mind the two documents we need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

That's wonderful. Thank you.

Monsieur Laframboise.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

A little earlier, my colleague Mr. Gaudet asked you what happens in other countries. You said that the United States and Great Britain had a system in place and that we tried to use it, but it was too expensive. Could you tell me who it was too expensive for?

[Ron Smith]

It was too costly for the government. Richard and I both sat on a committee, with Transport Canada, that was dealing with implementation of a confidential reporting system. Over a number of years, we had at least two meetings with Transport Canada on that implementation, but again, the cost of implementing was very great. The Transportation Safety Board said that, with the amount of human resources and the money they had available, they couldn't deal with the volume of confidential reports they were getting through SECURITAS.

In the United States, it is completely separate. It is part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They deal with confidential reporting from anybody, as far as dealing with aviation goes. They do the investigation, then they file a report, and they also advise the person who reported it. We don't do that here. We still have SECURITAS on the safety board and they still do it, but I believe it is still overwhelmed. You could ask them where they are at with it.

It did start. Transport Canada was looking at how to do it, at whether to leave it with the Transportation Safety Board and allocate more funds for the hardware, software, and human resources, or to put it into an agency that would be funded and operated separately. But it never happened.

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

Are you saying, for example, that in the United States, an employee files a report and an agency automatically receives that report and works on it? So the names are removed and all that—as you explained to us—something is done about it and there is follow-up with either the employee or the company.

[Ron Smith]

There's a return to the person who made the report, because their name is stripped off. It's the same as what happens with SECURITAS at the Transportation Safety Board.

They return a report to the individual on the outcome of the investigation. They will advise the interested party, such as Transport Canada and/or the company involved, of the outcome of their investigation, but at no point does the regulator--or even the aircraft operator--know who filed the report. That's total anonymity.