Transport Committee on April 15th, 2010

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

Absolutely.

Going back to the example of fatigue, you saw the CBC reports. Were you, as an inspector, previously able to observe these things, or is this something that is very hard to ascertain?

They found logbooks that were falsified, things like that. How have matters come to this today? Is it because you no longer have the opportunity to verify those aspects? At the time, were you afraid that would happen? Is this kind of check now ruled out of your work, whereas it was previously part of it?

[Daniel Slunder]

Previously, to conduct an inspection, we consulted the logs. The time people spent on duty was always subject to very thorough inspection.

Honestly, now, we ask whether there is a system for verifying whether people are rested, and we're told there is one. So we assume they are. Do you have any evidence of people complaining? No. So everything must be working well. We previously consulted the logbooks of individuals to determine the number of days they had worked and the number of hours they had flown. We checked. We're also no longer—

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

If there's a shortage of pilots, the situation will be even more disturbing if we don't monitor that.

[Daniel Slunder]

It won't be easy.

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

That means business leaders will force pilots to work more.

[Daniel Slunder]

There's always that fear. I can't talk about what businesses will do in future. However, we've already wondered about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Slunder, for coming here again.

I have one question about the other surveillance activity, where you're still under the same rules in terms of notification, the 10 weeks of notification. In this new section that has come in, this 5.0, there don't seem to be any timelines attached to how you conduct the surveillance. Do you understand them?

[Daniel Slunder]

I've not asked my members to comment on that, so I don't know what I can tell you about it at this time. This is the new SUR...?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Yes, section 5.0, part of SUR--

[Daniel Slunder]

I think it's SUR-001, version 3.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Yes.

Okay, so you really don't know, as there's no clarification yet on how that would take place. Was it your practice in the past to conduct spontaneous surveillance?

[Daniel Slunder]

Yes, we did.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So you wouldn't tell the company 10 weeks ahead of time that you were going to come in and check out what they're doing?

[Daniel Slunder]

No, and in fact, we used to do things like ramp inspections. We'd show up.... I was subjected to one in a Transport Canada aircraft at...I believe it was not St. Catharines, but London. We landed, and an inspector walked up to us and said, “We chose you at random--show us your documents”. There were no-notice inspections. We don't see many of those anymore.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I think you've laid out pretty clearly the argument about the requirements, about needing the staffing to actually do the oversight. I don't want to get into that, but the other two items you talk about in SMS are immunity from enforcement action and confidentiality for self-reporting.

I've been looking at the situation with the Cougar crash off Newfoundland. Would there not have been some sense of enforcement of a requirement to upgrade the equipment there, when it was clearly noted prior to this crash that the equipment needed to be upgraded? Shouldn't that have been the subject of an enforcement action?

[Daniel Slunder]

I'm not familiar with the details of the accident and I'm reluctant to comment until the Transportation Safety Board does.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay, but you say that this “immunity from enforcement action” takes away one of the key tools you had in the past to ensure that what you saw there was going to take place...?

[Daniel Slunder]

It certainly was an incentive to do things right.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Yes. Now, regarding the confidentiality for self-reporting, you say that there have been 14,000 safety incidents reported. That means you don't understand how they've been.... You know that the incident is there, but you don't understand what the company has done to fix it?

[Daniel Slunder]

The 14,000 incidents I referred to are CADORS and that means externally reported. It is not the companies that report them; it is generally air traffic control. So any time an airplane departs, say, for example, in less than ideal weather conditions, a safety report gets—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Or lands in less than ideal weather conditions...? They're all doing it.

[Daniel Slunder]

Yes. That gets reported. Those incidents appear to be on the increase.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So you don't understand, then, how those incidents go back to the company, and the company is responsible for dealing with them, and they don't have to report back on these incidents...? Is that it?

[Daniel Slunder]

We are required to monitor. For example, in headquarters when I was looking at the CADORS, I would assess this. I would look at a company, and if the name appeared several times in the CADORS, I would look at the trends. From that, I would then go to the company--or to the principal inspector, because I was in headquarters--and ask, “What are you doing about this individual and what are you doing about this company?” I would get feedback from my inspector or my counterpart in the region.

But that was part of my surveillance program. Now, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what they do. I think what they do is look at the CADORS, look at the company, and ask if these things are entered into their SMS. If the individual says yes, they say, okay, you're addressing it, and thank you very much.