Transport Committee on June 10th, 2014

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

I had a Transport Canada inspector in my jump seat, doing a check on me; they just showed up impromptu.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

That's in direct contradiction to what the UCTE said.

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

That's kicking the tires. That was a year and a half ago, so....

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

You said the national audit program was replaced by Transport Canada. Do you know when that was done?

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

The national audit—

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Yes. Your deck states, on slide 8 or 9, that Transport Canada replaced the national audit program with SMS assessments every 36 months. When did that happen?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

I'm not sure of the exact date it was done.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Was it one year ago, two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago...?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

I'm not sure. I could find out, if it's important, sir.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

It is important. We have a union that says no inspection has been done since 2004. It's critical that we get to the veracity of that particular number, whether it's an outlier in terms of information—maybe even an outright lie, for all that matter—or whether in fact that's true.

By the way, with respect to NPR, non-punitive reporting, I think we should be accurate about what happened with the Aeronautics Act amendments. There was a hoist motion in the House in a minority Parliament, which, according to House of Commons procedures, is tantamount to the defeat of a bill in that it hoists it from the order paper and doesn't allow it to be discussed for an indefinite period of time. Without voting it down, the bill was effectively defeated by the opposition.

For the purposes of understanding what NPR is, what are the differences between CAIRS, CADORS, and non-punitive reporting? For the benefit of the people who are looking in, why is NPR different? How is it different from the other two?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, but I'll allow the answer.

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

CADORS is the Canadian aviation daily occurrence reporting system. Let's say I take off out of Calgary and I mis-fly the standard instrument departure. The tower controller will submit a report, and it's called a CADORS.

The other one is a CAIRS report. In the SMS system, if I have a safety concern, I go to my employer, I submit a report, and I'm not happy with the outcome of that report, then I can submit a CAIRS report. I believe that goes to the TSB, who handles that report and follows through with it.

That's the difference between CAIRS and CADORS.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We now move to Mr. Komarnicki for seven minutes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

I'm just curious about what your understanding is of a traditional inspection. As we've heard before, there weren't traditional inspections being held, and yet I heard Mr. McKenna say that you had an inspector unannounced.

What's your understanding of a traditional inspection, and have you experienced unannounced traditional inspections, as you define it?

Mr. Blandford, or perhaps Mr. McKenna, or Mr. Bunoza, go ahead.

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

I think we're confusing things here. Is this an inspection of a carrier or is this an inspection on a particular flight that day? What are we looking at?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

You tell us the difference between the two and what your understanding of a traditional inspection would involve.

[Capt Ed Bunoza]

From a pilot's perspective, I can tell you that 20 years ago a Transport Canada inspector would show up on my flight from wherever I was going, and he'd sit in that jump seat and he'd conduct an inspection of me and my first officer. I can tell you that I've had in the last five years maybe two cases where they've shown up unannounced—I wouldn't say unannounced, because I know the day prior that he's coming there—and he'll be in the jump seat and he'll conduct an inspection of me.

Now, that's the day-to-day operational guy on the line. How they conduct the inspections with the company, the carrier, they could probably give you a better answer to that, but I know they do a PVI. I know they did a PVI in, I believe, 2009 and I know they just finished one up last year.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. McKenna, you said the inspection that you had was unannounced, impromptu, no one day in advance.

[John McKenna]

I didn't say that I had one. I'm saying that these things exist.

The important inspections are the PVI. That requires a lot of time, a lot of preparation, and usually a team of inspectors come into your firm and can camp there for two to three days while they conduct all this stuff.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Do you know instances when they've come unannounced?

[John McKenna]

Not as a team, but you've had inspectors drop in following up on things, yes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I heard Mr. Blandford say that of course effective implementation is probably key in SMS, and that SMS, on paper, doesn't necessarily result in a culture of safety, so I appreciate that.

One of the statements you've made also is that ICAO requires state authority to set acceptable levels of safety. I guess the implication is maybe that Transport Canada doesn't do that. As I understand it, don't the Canadian aviation regulations themselves define the acceptable level of safety so that there is state intervention in setting sort of a baseline of safety?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Let's start with ICAO.

ICAO has standards and recommended practices. It's up to a state to either adhere or not adhere to them. If they do not adhere, they file a difference to let the rest of the world know that they're not in compliance with this particular area. One area is where ICAO says the maximum age of an airline pilot should fly is age 65. Canada files a difference because you cannot discriminate based on age in Canada. That's an example where Canada would not comply.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But by and large, the Canadian aviation regulations set out safety standards that everyone must comply with.

[Capt Dan Adamus]

Absolutely.

They would take the standards and recommended practice and make regulations to ensure that they adhere to the ICAO standards. Canada is actually a leader in the world for this, has an exceptional safety record, and was one of the leaders out of the gate with SMS.

I want to talk a little bit, if I could, on the inspection side.

When I say “traditional”, you looked around and if there were something leaking from the engine, you would ask, why is that leaking? They would write a up a report. You'd probably get fined or have a few days to fix it. Now with SMS, there's a culture that's been put in place that allows the workers and the operators to identify risks and problems, assess them, and look for outcomes on how to best fix them. Because that's in place, Transport Canada believes that they probably don't have to go down and walk around that aircraft as much as they did in the past. They still have to do it occasionally to keep the system honest, just like the CRA. We file income tax, and every once and a while the CRA will audit us.