Evidence of meeting #9 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 oversight.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
--and that there always has existed a culture of safety within the organizations? Isn't that correct?
Chair, Maintenance and Engineering Subcommittee, National Airlines Council of Canada
That would be correct as long as we qualify it by saying that this culture probably did not permeate down through all layers of the organization. As an example, voluntary non-punitive reporting was highly used in the flight operations world, but not so much in maintenance, which is why maintenance is struggling with implementing that.
On the other hand, quality assurance was very strong in maintenance. Now it's permeating through the rest of the organization under the requirements of SMS.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
So, as you say, you think that oversight and continued surveillance are very important right now.
Chair, Maintenance and Engineering Subcommittee, National Airlines Council of Canada
Absolutely--we support oversight.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
So we've seen an increase in flights in Canada, haven't we, over the past decade? Have we seen an increase in the business? Would you say that?
Chair, Maintenance and Engineering Subcommittee, National Airlines Council of Canada
I don't know if I'd be comfortable saying that given the state of the industry over the last few years. Maybe Michel might be better....
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
But we've seen a decrease in the inspectors in the last decade. We've seen the numbers of inspectors with Transport Canada drop. You say that the line of safety has flatlined. Is that correct? The occurrences have not continued to go down since 2005. That line of safety has flatlined.
Chair, Maintenance and Engineering Subcommittee, National Airlines Council of Canada
It is generally accepted throughout the aviation industry that the accident rate reduction has flatlined, simply because we're reaching a point of diminishing returns under our current policies and procedures. It is an order of magnitude change that's required to make a change to that line and we see SMS as--potentially--that change.
Conservative
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for being here this morning.
Aviation safety is close to my heart. I lost a brother in an aviation accident, through a combination of materiel fatigue and pilot error, so I take this very seriously and I thank you for being here.
In preparation for this discussion today, I did a little bit of investigation. When I did a Google search and asked the computer what is being done in Canada on aviation safety, an enormous amount of material came up.So obviously we have devoted considerable attention to this, and we've made it a top of mind priority, because for our government, safety for Canadians is a priority.
For instance, I was looking at Transport Canada's website They have a whole sort of test, if you will, called “Score Your Safety Culture”, that you can go through to score your own safety culture. Then I looked at the recommendations from the Transportation Safety Board and saw that an enormous number of recommendations were put forward.
Can you tell me, first of all, how you go about doing your own audit? What components do you use? This applies to both of you. Can you talk about that?
Can you two talk about Canada and our safety record in light of international standards? I looked at international aviation safety assessment and I think we score pretty well. Can you talk about that? I'll put that to both of you.
Special Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Business Aviation Association
Thank you, Ms. Brown.
From my past experience and current review of the data, I agree that Canada has an excellent safety record, particularly when you look at the international aspects.
With respect to how you go about auditing and so on, the way it was with the private operator certificate program was that the operators had to have their safety management system and have it audited by an independent accredited auditor of the CBAA. CBAA had extensive training and quality assurance programs with those auditors, including monthly telephone conference call meetings and going along on the audits to ensure that the auditors were doing their job properly. That was how CBAA was doing it.
Certainly, as with any program, improvements can be made, and those improvements were in the process of being undertaken.
Capt Michel Chiasson
I can't comment on the statistics within Google. What I can tell you is that within Canada we're very proud of our safety record, certainly, all the carriers; I speak for all the carriers when I say that, not just the four NACC members.
Statistically, when I sit at the international boards, we are, if not at the very top, then very close to the top. At one point, I think, Australia was number one, but Canada should be very proud of its record, of what we've done, what we've achieved, and the safety we provide for our passengers. That would be based on not looking at the statistics within Google itself.
As for a safety culture, what I can tell you is that in the last four or five years it has changed dramatically. As members of flight operations, we have always lived in the world of regulatory compliance, so the safety culture developed within the flight operational group because we were following the regulations.
That culture, as my colleague Jacques mentioned, has spread, not always as quickly as one would hope, but it has spread. It takes time to educate. Five years ago, somebody in an office was not considered to have an impact on safety. Today the culture is that every person within a corporation has an impact on safety in their duties and how they perform them. I think we have taken the right tack, but it does take time to educate, so we work together with everybody to promote that culture.
Within the flight operations world, there has always been a group called “flight safety”, and the flight safety group had confidential reporting on all safety aspects. That culture has changed. It's no longer flight safety; it's corporate safety. In other words, we removed the word “flight” because it's not an exclusive tool for flight operations; it is a tool used throughout the corporation.
I think the face of safety, the understanding and how it's promoted, has changed tremendously, and employees now understand they have a responsibility at all levels. Granted, it takes some time for people to understand how their role is impacting the safety of the corporation.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I appreciate those comments. I worked in disability management for some time . Changing the culture is a time-consuming process. It is an education process.
I'm sharing the rest of my time with Mr. Watson.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The transfer of the certification process to the CBAA was completed in 2005. Is that correct?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Business Aviation Association
That's correct.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
So the decision to do that and the initiation of that transfer of responsibilities occurred in 2003. Is that correct?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Business Aviation Association
It was 2002. What happened was that the discussions took place and feasibility studies were done.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I suspect Mr. Volpe's lather is more about regretting his party's own decision to have done that.
I want to begin, though, by squaring the testimony I've heard here today.
Mr. LaFlamme, I believe it was you who said that there were changes in response to the Transportation Safety Board's conclusions and recommendations. Have these changes been implemented? Are they proposed to be implemented? Or is it a mixture of both? I couldn't understand which it was.
Special Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Business Aviation Association
To be specific, one change has been made. That was an amendment to our standards. Further changes were being proposed, not just in the areas of concern noted by the safety board, but from a complete review of the program where we noted that improvements could be made. Those were under consultation as per the process we had outlined with our standards committee, but with the minister's decision, they've had to be put on hold.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
What changes were made to your standards? Can you be specific about what kinds of changes were made?
Special Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Business Aviation Association
Yes. To address the safety board's concerns, the milestone with respect to safety management systems, an operator under the initial audit would have to be audited again one year afterwards before they could go on a longer period of duty. In terms of the changes that were being proposed, with respect to the levels of SMS, we had a three-level system: level one was meeting basic standards; level two was an effective system; and level three was over and above that. All operators had to achieve the second level within three years or face suspension action.
