Evidence of meeting #12 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
But the termination of balancing these interests, this test, this is a new power being vested in the minister, plus ou moins?
LCol Paul Dittmann
Yes, it is, sir.
The way the structure is in place currently, there is no mandate for the minister to make his reports public. The CTAISB Act mandates statutorily that reports are made public and currently the very significant, serious reports go to the minister. For the most part, the Airworthiness Investigative Authority, Colonel Charpentier, directs that the less significant reports are made public and go online.
What we envisage is going to happen is once the amendment is put through, we will have an administrative process in place that will outline from the minister and direct the Airworthiness Authority how to make those reports public.
LCol Paul Dittmann
How to. We don't feel that it's a question of “if” because one of the founding principles of the flight safety program and accident investigation is an open and transparent and independent process. We don't feel that it would be in the minister's interest to not maintain that transparent posture.
LCol Paul Dittmann
Lastly, the Access to Information Act would always allow access to the reports.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Last question, 10 seconds, page 5. You talk about other problems resolved. You say: “Another related problem is the inability to obtain information critical to flight safety from civilian companies and individuals”.
Is the problem really to obtain it or is the problem to protect it?
LCol Paul Dittmann
It is to obtain it, sir. When we deal with on-board recorders for example, there are many occasions when an original equipment manufacturer, a civilian company, has proprietary software and information that is able to provide a code, which then is utilized to validate the data on those recorders. DND has neither the facilities nor the expertise to guard or utilize that software. Currently we rely on their cooperation and perhaps contractual obligation and not a statutory obligation to provide that. Of course, contracts can be broken and goodwill can cease.
In those cases, they can provide a real impediment to accessing flight data recorders, the on-board recorder, to analyze it so we can make a full discovery of the information to determine the findings and preventive measures.
Alex Weatherston Counsel, Legal Advisory Services, Department of Justice
If I could add one thing Mr. McGuinty, on the question of the minister's power to decide on the balancing test, section 11 of our amendments also allows the minister to delegate any matter under part II to any officer or member of the department. So one could expect perhaps, that power to balance could be going to a senior officer or a senior departmental official.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Weatherston.
I now move to Mr. Watson, for seven minutes.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our witnesses.
To pick up on your point, is the test, then, in effect a limitation of the minister's power with respect to publishing reports? Presumably he could quash a report for any reason currently. Is that fair enough to say or not?
Col Steve Charpentier
There are four classes of accidents. All of the major accidents are investigated, a report is produced, and a final report is published. I don't recall any of them that have not been published. I could ask. My staff have been around for more than 10 years, and I don't think there have been any cases. Actually, our motto is that you have to learn from the mistakes of others to make sure you don't do them yourself. So in that view, we are clearly transparent. And many of the things we do are also valid for civilian companies, because we do fly helicopters that are similar. They may not have armaments, but if we have a tail rotor failure that results in a catastrophic accident on a Bell 412 helicopter,well, civilian operators use the same helicopters. We want to share with them, because we want them to share with us as well, and we want to establish this relationship.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Colonel, in your written statement on page 6, as you summarize you said that the Aeronautics Act requirements would give investigators the appropriate powers to conduct “full and proper investigations”. Is that to say that without them, investigations have been less than full and proper?
Col Steve Charpentier
We do have some examples of where we've had some issues. We've been pretty successful in going around them through convincing people because of the contractual arrangement we have.
Col Steve Charpentier
Well, the civilian contractors who are involved in providing us some services.
Let's say hypothetically that we have something really bad happen. Maybe those civilian contractors at some point will feel the heat a little bit and be a bit less cooperative. We're not there yet. But with those authorities changed, we can make sure we will never face a situation where we will not be able to complete a full investigation.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Okay, very good.
In the situation of a military-civilian accident, you enter into a memorandum of understanding with the TSB. That would be to determine who presumably has the lead on an investigation. Does that mean that the military does the investigation with respect to the military vehicle involved in the accident, and the TSB investigates the civilian vehicle in the accident?
Col Steve Charpentier
No. There are many factors that have to be looked at, such as whether it happened on a military base, and so on. But let's say it happened in civilian airspace and the military was involved. I predict this would be led by the Transportation Safety Board, and we would be a participant. We would not have a parallel investigation; there would be only one investigation.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Does the TSB have powers to investigate civilian contractors when a military vehicle is involved in an accident?