Evidence of meeting #7 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transport.
A recording is available from Parliament.
April 1st, 2010 / 9:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, meeting seven. The orders of the day are pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). We are studying aviation safety and security.
Before I introduce our guests, I'll just make the committee aware that we've had a request for media to be here taping the meeting. If there is no objection to that, we will proceed.
Seeing none, that's...
Mr. Volpe.
9:05 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Chairman, I understand we have a point of privilege, I think, or a motion. Is it the committee's intention to go in camera for that?
9:05 a.m.
An hon. member
Yes.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Okay.
Thank you.
Joining us today from the Canadian Union of Public Employees is Mr. Richard Balnis, senior officer, research.
From the Canadian Auto Workers we have Leslie Dias, president of local 2002, and Ron Smith, national representative, national office.
Thank you for being here today. I know it was short notice. I understand we have a prepared statement and also some comments that will follow.
If you've had agreement, Mr. Balnis, please proceed.
9:05 a.m.
Richard Balnis Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Good morning. My name is Richard Balnis. I am from the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
CUPE represents 600,000 workers across Canada, and our airline division represents 8,500 flight attendants at six airlines in Canada. In front of you are my remarks in English and French. I will deliver my remarks in English. In addition, a book of documents accompanies that presentation. Those documents are also entirely in English and French. The first part of tab 1 has the English, while after the green paper you will find the French. That document is entirely bilingual. I would like to go through my remarks now.
Since they were discussed in 1999, we have been and continue to be critics of safety management systems in aviation. Our submission and accompanying documents address the first point of your specific study into aviation safety, “Transport Canada's Implementation of Safety Management Systems for the Aviation Industry”, and “in particular the delegation of oversight and administration for business aircraft” to the CBAA. We are also prepared to comment on other issues related to flight and duty time for flight attendants, or other issues or questions the committee may have.
When the CBAA approach first became public in 2001, we said that this was industry self-regulation and it was wrong. The CBAA took over certification of business aircraft in January 2003 as a result of a ministerial exemption. We repeated our concerns about the CBAA approach when we appeared before you on May 2, 2007, during your consideration of Bill C-6, later Bill C-7. On December 28, 2007, we released 337 pages of documents under access to information legislation. We have since learned that at the same time that Bill C-6 was before Parliament, Transport Canada inspectors missed serious issues of regulatory non-compliance with regard to how CBAA was conducting its operations.
In tab 1 is our detailed analysis of those 337 pages. I have a set of those documents, which I can leave with the committee. They are in English only. I don't intend to create any controversy by tabling English-only documents, but I can leave it with the clerk if you wish to review it to make sure that what we say in tab 1 is accurate.
We also learned, as you can see in tab 1, that there were serious shortcomings in how CBAA was conducting its operations in other areas as well. Moreover, Transport Canada senior manager Don Sherritt overruled the inspector conducting this audit, who found that the CBAA corrective action plan would be ineffective in addressing these identified deficiencies. To our knowledge, SCOTIC has been told none of this.
As the Transportation Safety Board of Canada reported on its investigation into the crash of Tim Hortons co-founder Ron Joyce at Fox Harbour on November 11, 2007, “Transport Canada did not document its decision to close off the CBAA assessment even though the CBAA had not submitted an acceptable corrective action plan”. In tab 2 you will find, in English and French, the extracts of that report's conclusions. The TSB further found that it took another review, on March 11, 2009, for Transport Canada to conclude that the assessment it had conducted, which ended on September 21, 2007, had been “fully addressed”, nearly eighteen months later.
Fortunately, Minister Baird has finally agreed with us nearly a decade later. As he told media on March 16, 2010, “Right now it's self-regulation for corporate jets...”. Referring to the Fox Harbour crash, he said, “We learned from a recent report that it's simply wrong for industry to regulate itself”.
The CBAA experiment was therefore ended by Minister Baird. It is too bad that it took crashes for this ill-conceived policy to be abandoned. Unfortunately, one could go to the Transport Canada website as late as March 30--Tuesday of this week--and still find a 2009 “Safety Partnership Programs Framework” document, which we've included in English and French in tab 3, which allows similar adventures in delegation to industry and industry self-regulation to continue.
We ask that you recommend to Minister Baird that he cancel this policy approach as well. Let us learn from the lesson of the CBAA.
On the issue of government oversight in an era of SMS, which I think is the central focus of your deliberations, we told you on May 2, 2007, that Transport Canada was implementing a new diminished role for itself under its new SMS regime, contrary to established international norms. At that time, we quoted Transport Canada assistant deputy minister Marc Grégoire, who said that there will be a “shifting relationship” between airlines and Transport Canada under its new SMS regime. As he said on April 25, 2006:
There must also be a willingness on the part of the regulator to step back from involvement in the day-to-day activities of the company in favour of allowing organizations to manage their activities and related hazards and risks themselves.
Despite the claims that things were changing when Transport Canada representatives appeared before you on March 30, 2010--and some of those changes are overdue and welcome--there will be no change in this fundamental approach. If you do not believe us, look at Transport Canada's own documents dealing with SMS and government surveillance, which we've included in our documents.
On March 22, 2010, less than two weeks ago, Don Sherritt provided participants at a CARAC consultation meeting with the document found in its entirety at tab 4, in English and French. As you can see in the marked passage on page 3 in the English version and on page 1 of the French, SMS and performance-based regulations and standards will permit “each operator to manoeuvre within the designed 'playing field' based upon their targeted risk indices and safety requirements”. In our view, that is an unprecedented level of air operator autonomy from government oversight.
We were further told at that meeting that government oversight in this environment of operator manoeuvrability would be conducted in accordance with Transport Canada staff instruction SUR-001, entitled “Surveillance Procedures”, which is also reproduced in its entirety in tab 5. There are 66 pages in English and 72 pages in French. The fundamental premise of this approach is that government surveillance is designed to ensure that the operators have procedures in place to comply with regulations, not that inspectors will ensure compliance with regulations.
As an explanation of what you were told on Tuesday, if there are sufficient resources remaining, there “may” be other government surveillance activities to ensure such government regulatory compliance, such as the inflight or ramp inspections that were mentioned to you. Please, in particular, see section 5.0; that passage has been added in the last two months.
While this is an important addition to earlier editions of this document, there are still significant problems with SUR-001. First, these supplemental surveillance activities are discretionary and entirely dependent upon resources. Without adequate resources, these supplemental surveillance activities will not be done, although they are there on paper. Second, these surveillance activities are important in themselves. As you will see in tab 6, the Atlantic region of Transport Canada disagreed with the Ottawa head office approach of having only higher-level oversight activities, such as program validation inspections, enhanced monitoring, and assessments, because "they do not address day-to-day oversight of companies and do not include intelligence-gathering activities, which are important in providing data for safety monitoring". That is in tab 6 in its entirety.
Finally, in tab 7 we have prepared a case study of maintenance violations in 2007 at Southwest Airlines, a major American air operator. As that analysis shows--and if we have time in questioning, we can spend more time on it--it is only through mandatory, no-notice, and hands-on inspections, with effective whistle-blowing protection for front line inspectors who have to go against managers who may have cozy relationships with the operators they oversee, that the public's safety can be assured.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. We have other comments as well, including the lack of any flight and duty time limitations for flight attendants, something we have been seeking without success from Transport Canada since 1991.
We look forward to your questions on anything we've presented and on any other area that you would like to question us on.
Thank you.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Thank you very much.
I understand, Mr. Smith, that you have some comments as well.
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Ron Smith National Representative, National Office, Canadian Auto Workers
Yes.
My name is Ron Smith. I'm with the Canadian Auto Workers' union in Canada. The CAW has over 256,000 members. In the aviation field, we have over 14,000. We represent aviation maintenance organizations from coast to coast in Canada. We represent airline transport pilots who fly pretty much strictly at night. We also have air paramedics who, while not considered flight crew, fly throughout Ontario; you're familiar with the orange helicopters and airplanes.
While SMS is not the best thing out there, we would suggest not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. SMS definitely needs to be improved. We do not disagree with the position of Richard and CUPE on this. There have been a lot of flaws in the implementation of SMS.
What we hear from our membership, quite simply, is this: they file a report and they don't hear back. They don't hear back about what the issue was, whether it was corrected, or what has happened. We have instances where some of our flight crew members are told they're not allowed to file SMS reports.
We agree with the move on Transport Canada's part to increase oversight. We agree with CUPE's position that without oversight, and without impromptu and unannounced visits to the airlines and the people you're regulating, what you're getting back may or may not be factual and may or may not be a true representation of what's happening out there in the real world.
The other part that we see happening, especially in the aviation maintenance organization area, is that the employers do not respect the non-punitive reporting aspects of SMS. If an employee or a member reports something to the employer, it becomes punitive; the employer takes action and the employer takes reprisals.
This is a fundamental cornerstone of the SMS program. The whistle-blowing capabilities or abilities of our members to report confidentially to the Transportation Safety Board through SECURITAS is greatly diminished by the inability of anybody to fully monitor that system. Transport Canada did at one point look at trying to make a different type of whistle-blower legislation and program, but that has all died by the wayside.
As far as the CBAA issue is concerned, while we have no membership directly involved with the Canadian Business Aircraft Association's private operating certificate operations, we would have to agree with CUPE's position that it is an experiment gone awry.
That concludes my remarks. Thank you.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our guests for appearing before us. We've seen some of them before.
I just want to go directly to one issue if I can, Mr. Balnis. Your presentation causes me some concern, on two fronts. Let me go to one of them right off the bat. As I listened to you speak and as you itemized the issues with which you have some concerns, you've essentially said that Transport Canada came very close to misleading this committee yesterday.
9:15 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
No, sir. I think there are three levels that you have to look at. I was there at the testimony on Tuesday and I heard you say that you were a skeptical MP. I think there are three levels: what a government official says; what a government official has written down; and what the bureaucracy actually does.
On Tuesday you heard what they said they will do. Today we're bringing you information on what they have written that they've said they'll do. I think your investigation has to go further to see what is happening right at the point of contact, where the rubber hits the road.
I would suggest to you that when Monsieur Grégoire said, yes, we're going to be increasing inspections, you need to look at tab 5 very carefully to make sure he has the resources to deliver on that promise. I'm hopeful that he will be able to do so. I am believing that he will, but if you look at section 5.0, I don't think they have accepted the philosophy of no notice inspections yet. They are talking about such inspections, but they have not accepted that philosophy, because in section 3.0 on that same page, they're saying that it's hands off.
So I think that document needs to be reviewed. It's been revised three times. I think this committee can play an important role in making sure that document works and is understood by inspectors. The inspectors I've talked to, say, “Oh God, they've changed it again?” You read those 66 pages and I'm not sure you're going to understand what is expected of an inspector.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Since you were here on Tuesday--and I saw you--and since you heard me say that I'm a skeptical MP, why wouldn't you have provided us with the documentation you referred to before you came to this committee so that we could have a better understanding of exactly what it was that you were pointing to, and so that my scepticism and, I dare say, the scepticism of others, would have borne some fruit on Tuesday?
9:20 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
We found out on Monday night at 5:30 that we were going to be before this committee. We learned that Transport Canada was appearing on Tuesday morning. We knew we were scheduled for Thursday. We're fast, but we're not that fast, and we did—
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
No, but you are obviously prepared, and you monitor this committee on an ongoing basis. There's no reason why you couldn't have made your information available through the chairman.
It's not my job to protect the government's position on any part of this issue, but if the point is valid that Transport Canada is either withholding information from committee and committee members or is deliberately leaving out issues that would make their statements much more credible, or less so, then why would you withhold that from us? That's the basis of your entire presentation: that there isn't transparency.
9:20 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I have two comments. One is that I am here today providing those documents, and also, I heard the deputy minister very clearly say that once you have collected the testimony of the witnesses, they would be pleased to return, perhaps even in a round table fashion, to answer what you have done—not to come each day to sit and watch, but after you had collected all of the stuff--so we thought we were part of the process.
We're sorry that we didn't come on Monday night to your office, sir, to say... We didn't know what Mr. Grégoire was going to say.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
No, but you did, actually. I do understand that we are having a little bit of a conversation here. I feel bad if you think I might be harassing witnesses. That's not my style, and you know that, because you monitor every single one of our meetings.
In terms of my scepticism and my willingness to try to get to something, you've suggested in this, as you have in the past, that Transport Canada needs to be there on the ground with inspectors. You've heard this committee, through some of the members, especially on this side of the table, say that you must have to inspectors on the ground. If Transport Canada was cutting back—and we found that it was cutting back on inspectors—then we needed to know about it.
When we found out about it, we put pressure on the minister and the department. You heard the department say yesterday they were rehiring 60 inspectors on an urgent basis and were going to fill the full complement of--what was it?--96 inspectors, of which they were short. I don't mean to be antagonistic, but are you suggesting that they're not being entirely truthful?
9:20 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
On the number of vacancies they're filling, I have no knowledge to disagree with them. All I do remember is that two years ago it was very difficult for this committee to figure out how many inspectors there were from Transport Canada.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
But here we are with Marc Grégoire the other day giving us all of these issues, which you say today are nothing more than statements of intent, rather than statements of performance. Marc Grégoire sat where you're sitting. He has had some very difficult questions pointed in his direction, not the other day, but in the past, and you know that as well. Marc Grégoire comes to this committee and he knows he's not going to get a soft ride.
Why would we say today that he wasn't being entirely truthful or that he doesn't have the capacity to come up with those numbers and the resources? I think he gave us an indication of the amount of money that we're going to find in the budget bill as we go through it. The government will correct me on this, but I thought it was $10 million.
Is that insufficient?
9:25 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
In terms of them being able to implement in the regions their policy from section 5.0 of tab 5, which is their surveillance procedures, I don't know where these new people are going. I have not seen their staffing plans. I don't know if there will be sufficient resources in the regions to do these extra activities that we think are necessary. We don't know that, so I couldn't come to you on Monday to say, “Go tell them”.
9:25 a.m.
Senior Officer, Research, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I'm sure we'll be back at this.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I do not agree with Mr. Volpe. When the Liberals were in power, they defended everything Transport Canada said. Now, with the Conservative government, they again seem to be questioning what Transport Canada is saying. It is starting to get interesting. We must remember that, under the Liberal government, the safety management systems were shoved down our throats. I have always been critical of safety management systems. In fact, when they were proposed, we felt that it meant industry self-regulation. For business aircraft, it was a disaster. I see that the minister intends to bring some order to the organization, which is good.
I took the time to read your recommendations, even though we only got them this morning. The fifth paragraph says:
Where surveillance resources are still available after the annual surveillance planning is completed in accordance with CAD SUR-008, other surveillance activities may be planned, as described in Section 6.0 of SI SUR-009.
That worries me. Once again, it shows that the speech that Mr. Grégoire gave us is very different from what they say when they meet with the employees. Of course, it is good that you are providing us with this and that the Conservative members understand that, at Transport Canada, even if they do not necessarily have a political message, they are still protecting the same old polemic. I heard Mr. Grégoire brag about Canada being the pioneer of safety management systems. Unfortunately, lives have been lost because of them. It is scary being first, just watching and cutting back the number of inspections.
That is what happened. We cut back. Of course, the government wants to bring the inspectors back to work and carry out surprise inspections again. That process must continue. The problem is that we raised this question in November.
Why have the inspectors not been hired? That is my question for you, Mr. Balnis. Has Transport Canada made an effort to hire the inspectors? Or are they trying to uphold the policy, continuing to think that they were right in 2001 and 2003 under the Liberals, although they were wrong? Why have the inspectors not been hired? Do you think that there is a strategy to not hire them? I would like to hear what you have to say, Mr. Balnis.
