I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before our committee.
My first questions are for Mr. Barone and Mr. LaFlamme.
Your association has previously had the opportunity to appear before our committee. However, your position on surveillance has radically changed. Today you're telling us that Transport Canada must ensure robust oversight. That's not what you were advocating at the time. The fact is that the people at the Transportation Safety Board have found your way of managing security management systems very tough. They appeared before this committee. I hope you read the minutes of that appearance. In the document they submitted to us, they said this:
What we found was that, while commercial operators were required to implement SMS in stages [...], business operators were free to implement SMS on their own terms with no fixed time frame. This means that many, including the operator in Fox Harbour, did not have a fully functioning SMS.
They congratulate the government for making the decision to take back oversight functions from your organization and to transfer them directly to Transport Canada on April 1, 2011. I believe that was a good decision. At the time, our fear was that this would become self-regulation. We did not agree. As a political party, the Bloc québécois has always opposed the idea of the industry itself regulating passenger safety. Obviously, the Transportation Safety Board's finding is very hard on your agency. You didn't do your job, and, inevitably, the fact that Transport Canada withdrew oversight functions and assumed them itself is, I think, what will enable the safety management system to progress.
However, that decision will not apply until April 1, 2011. I would like to know what guarantees I have that, until then, your members will effectively implement a safety management system. Have you taken measures to guarantee that, between now and April 1, 2011, there will be no more accidents for which you will be accused of not having done your job?