Transport Committee on April 15th, 2010

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

However, your president, Mr. Barone—pardon me, Mr. LaFlamme—tells us he does not agree with the Transportation Safety Board's finding. You're like a dog chasing its tail: you'll never get there. So I clearly understand why the minister was right to make the decision he made.

My next question is for Mr. Mignault. In your report today, you tell us there has to be a take-over, that a system clearly has to be introduced, that no one in the airline industry claims that the oversight function is redundant. However, pilot associations have appeared before the committee and told us they ultimately didn't need inspection. At the time, when we discussed that, they said they were capable of evaluating their qualifications and that they did not need oversight. In short, this is changing, and I'm pleased about that.

The only reservation, Mr. Mignault, concerns the TCAs, which have 15,000 members who work in your industry. When they appeared before our committee—I hope you examined their testimony; if not, I encourage you to read it—they told us that the biggest problem right now is whistle-blowing. The safety management system is based employees being able to report problems to management. However, what they are seeing is that employees who decide to disclose face reprisals, and there is no follow-up to disclosures.

From what I understood, you are the senior officer responsible for safety at Air Transat. Can you give me a guarantee that there are no reprisals against employees at Air Transat? I would say that employees will listen to you, if ever there are any. We are being asked for a new act, similar to the U.S. act: people want employees to have better protection when they make disclosures.

Can you give me a guarantee that, at Air Transat—which is a business I very much appreciate personally—there are no reprisals against employees who make disclosures?

[Capt Jacques Mignault]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise. With regard to the first part of your question concerning oversight, all NACC members entirely agree on the need for a certain amount of oversight. We have never claimed that, with the new SMS, we would no longer need that oversight. I believe the SMS framework leads us to be more transparent with regard to Transport Canada's oversight to show them that we conduct serious investigations into the incidents that are reported to us. We are therefore entirely aware that this oversight aspect must continue, and we entirely agree to take an active part in it.

With regard to the second part of your question, with your permission, I won't answer on behalf of Air Transat because I am here as an NACC representative. What I am nevertheless going to tell you applies to all members of the association.

We all have the same system in place. It's a system of reporting within a non-punitive framework. We encourage people to tell us about situations that occur within a business. This non-punitive framework has been extended to the business as a whole.

That said, the introduction of any new system, as I mentioned in my presentation, necessarily involves a change of culture. This isn't something that occurs in a few weeks or a few months, or even a year. It's a long process, and mentalities and attitudes have to change. I think we have to acknowledge, when we consider these criticisms, that the will is there and that progress is constantly being made in this area.

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

So what I am to understand is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Laframboise.

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Barone, I think your comments on the process that was followed--which ends up with you in front of us here today--are wrong. Quite clearly, we are concerned with aviation safety; that's the driving force. You know, I've raised these issues for the past two years out of that concern, which has come out of forums we've conducted on aviation safety, and I'm sure you would have had the opportunity to attend those forums if you had wanted to.

The government has changed its tune. Last year the Minister of State for Transport, through a question in the House, asked me to apologize for talking about aviation safety and bringing up questions on aviation safety. We've since seen the government change its tune on that. The evidence is pretty clear.

Do you accept the findings and conclusions of the two Transportation Safety Board crash investigations at Fox Harbour and Wainwright? Do you agree with those conclusions?

[Sam Barone]

We don't agree with all the conclusions, Mr. Bevington.

We will accept working on making sure the safety recommendations go forward to the Minister of Transport, because we are interested in aviation safety first and foremost. It's our business. We are interested in maintaining that. But there were some findings that may not have been as accurate as they should have been in respect to the TSB findings on those two accidents.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

When we look at the CBAA experiment that was done, we previously had 16 government inspectors overseeing CBAA activities. You have some 900 planes flying under your association. How many companies does that represent in your association?

[Sam Barone]

For accuracy, we actually have 515 aircraft that are certified under our association. You are correct that the entire corporate aviation sector has about 900 aircraft, but they are commercially operated.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

My question was on how many companies you represent.

[Sam Barone]

It's approximately 400.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Four hundred companies? So now, primarily, you use three staff members to audit CBAA activity; we've gone from 16 government inspectors to using three staff members. Then you had 14 private auditors who were hired by the individual companies to do the audit work--

[A voice]

That's correct.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

On 400 companies every year? Is that correct?

[Sam Barone]

Those are not 400 companies that we audit. It's the operators that.... For example, we're not auditing Corporation XYZ. We're auditing their inflight departments and we certify their aircraft, and according to--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But there are 400 different organizations that fly planes within your group?

[A voice]

No. It's less than that.

[Sam Barone]

Some of those companies are associate members, and some companies outsource their flying to other management companies, so it's less than that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So one of the big impacts of SMS was to reduce costs for you and to reduce costs for Transport Canada. Is that not correct for your industry?

[Sam Barone]

The objective of SMS as initiated when the discussions took place in early 2000 was to.... Because of the safety record of the business aviation sector, the intent was to implement SMS in the sector, to recognize the fact that it was a safe sector, and the resources from the government at the time would be used to mitigate risks in other areas of aviation safety.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But you've said that the objectives of the aviation safety...or this campaign we're operating, are to bolster union membership and an increase salaries and benefits. What we've seen since SMS has come in is that there seem to have been a lot of decreases. What is the result of that?

Now I'll go on to the National Airlines Council of Canada. What would you say the position of Canada in aviation safety was prior to the implementation of SMS?

[Bernie Adamache]

Less than it would be today, sir.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

What was the position in the international community as far as Canada's safety records are concerned?

[Bernie Adamache]

I apologize, but without having factual information on accident rates with me, I don't know that I could--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So you can't make a comparison between what we had before and what we have now? Isn't it generally accepted that we have had a good safety record in aviation in this country for many years--

[Bernie Adamache]

I believe so. Yes, sir.