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.
9:20 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
No, they don't.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Some may suggest that the TSB be given the authorities to investigate these types of military-related accidents. Why is that not a valid assertion? What are the concerns with that particular avenue? Presumably, the first thing I can think of off the top of my head is that if an accident occurs in Kandahar, we don't send the Transportation Safety Board to Afghanistan to investigate.
Maybe you could walk us through that a little bit.
9:20 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
Thank you, sir. That's a good question and actually you provided one of the answers.
Other points to consider are that the TSB investigations are carried out under the CTAISB Act. Section 18(2) of the act provides that the Transportation Safety Board “shall not investigate a transportation occurrence that involves a military conveyance or military transportation facility”unless the occurrence also involves a non-military conveyance or facility. In occurrences where both military and non-military aviation resources are involved, the investigation, as I explained, will be coordinated between the TSB and DND.
However, many occurrences involve only military aviation resources, but have civilians associated with the military resources. The proposed legislation addresses this situation. The legislation would permit appropriate investigation of occurrences in this category, which are increasing in number, because we have more and more civilian companies being involved.
We have protocol and understanding with NATO and the U.S. I'll give you an example, which is still under investigation, so I'm not going to go into the details. We had a Hercules that had an accident in Key West in Florida. Initially the U.S. reacted by sending their military, because it's a bit similar to us, sending the military to investigate. According to the MOU we have, Canada will investigate if one of our assets is involved in an accident or something happens in the United States.
All those things the TSB doesn't have; we have to build them, and then after that it's a question of credibility. We have a Canadian asset talking to the U.S. military—
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I would presume the question is how to deal with national security as well, and the public disclosure of information.
9:20 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
Absolutely. The three helicopter accidents in Kandahar would be cases where you need specialized training in order to go there, to access the location, and do your work—
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
You'd need the military, yes.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
On the administrative process to determine how reports will be posted, how will this committee or anyone know what the process will look like when it's fully operational? Could that be reported to the committee?
I think it was the lieutenant-colonel who mentioned some sort of an administrative process for determining how reports get to the released-publicly stage. What factors would influence how that's done? Could the public know about that at all? Would this committee be able to know about that? How would we know if it's operational at all or if there is any administrative process?
9:20 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
I guess the first thing I should say is that there's really no change in the way we do business. It would be the same.
There are many occurrences happening in Canada and many investigations happening. I think we have over 3,300 investigations per year. Many of them are very minor. It's rare that we have one of those big ones that we call a class one investigation. When we do have those we have a special investigator, mainly guys here in Ottawa who have special training, who go in the field with some experts and they conduct the investigation. This is done independently of the chain of command and the minister and so on. This is all internal to my group. When this is done, we look at it, we make sure everything is fine, we consult some people, and then the report is produced, signed, finalized—
9:25 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
No, it stops at me. I'm the final level that will approve the release. It's for the credibility of the system, so there's no interference from my boss, the chief of the air force, and so on in the report.
When I'm finished with that, then I need at least to inform my chain of command of the conclusion of the report. So the steps are that we first go to the chief of air force and tell him that this is what we found, this is the preventive measure that should happen, and so on. After that we inform the chief of the defence staff and then this goes to the Minister of National Defence.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
The Ministry of National Defence may ask us some questions, but the type of questions I have seen so far are very minor, such as have we actioned a preventive measure, or that type of clarification and so on. For the minor stuff, it is available but it is not published on the website, but part of this, when we submit it, is we clearly say to the minister, we clearly mention in the briefing note, that it is our intent for the major ones that they will be published within 30 days on the website and made available.
Despite all of what I have been saying, there is no change to what we are doing. We are going to do that same thing. If someone was concerned, they still could go and use the Access to Information Act and the report would be made available as well that way.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
February 13th, 2014 / 9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to share my time with Ms. Young.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today, and for your presentations and for your service to Canada.
I have just a couple of simple questions to start. Does this act apply only to military accidents involving civilians? Or does it also apply to military accidents involving military personnel only?
9:25 a.m.
Counsel, Legal Advisory Services, Department of Justice
There is a clause in the bill that provides certain provisions in part II to just the military investigations. That is clause 24.7.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
Counsel, Legal Advisory Services, Department of Justice
No. All these clauses are new clauses for us. Up until now we've relied on certain of the privileged sections in the CTAISB Act, but all the other ones are building this whole system now for accessing the civilian information.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Just to help us understand the context, can you give us an example or two of the last time investigations like this occurred?
9:25 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
Involving civilians?
9:25 a.m.
LCol Paul Dittmann
Since the early 1990s we've had an increasing participation of our contracted partners in our flight ops, our maintenance operations, and today it is not far off the mark to say that the majority of the 3,300-some-odd accidents and incidents that we had last year had some sort of civilian or contractor involvement. Industry is involved in everything, as the colonel said, from search and rescue to fleet maintenance, to target towing for our fighters, working with our navy, and working with the army. Those are all contracted flight or maintenance operations, so it is extensive throughout the air force and they are involved in that regard at all times.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you.
With respect to the powers of the minister on the balancing test, what various factors might the minister consider in applying that test, and might some of the factors be security related?
9:30 a.m.
Col Steve Charpentier
There might be a little confusion, I'm not too sure, because this test is for the OBR. It's for the on-board recorder. It's not for the publication for the report, there is no test function. Actually, the default setting is we are going to publish it.
