Transport Committee on June 10th, 2014

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I want to review some of the testimony he's given us here and I want your reaction. Have you read his testimony?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

Yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Great.

So what do you say to Canadians when he testifies that we have 50 fewer inspectors today than when Mr. Slunder last appeared before this committee in November 2009?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

That's a fact that he keeps track of, I—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Are you concerned by that?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

No, I'm not.

Is that all you want me to say, sir?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Yes, that's all I want you to say. You're not concerned by the fact that we have 50 fewer inspectors than we did in 2009.

He cites the Auditor General's review of Transport Canada's aviation safety program. He says:

...the number of inspectors and engineers needed to ensure safety is unknown; significantly fewer inspections are done than planned; minimum acceptable level of surveillance to ensure safety is not established; and there's no documented rationale for changing acceptable minimum level of surveillance.

How do you respond to that?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

I'd respond that safety has improved since we've implemented SMS and that we've gone away from the traditional cultural model we used to have of inspections, enforcement, and punishment. We have improved greatly in our safety since we've gone away from the model. And so I don't think that—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So the Auditor General is wrong?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

—inspections alone are going to improve safety. I've said to you, sir, that we have as much experience as and do way more inspections of our own carrier than Transport Canada ever will. We do them on a daily basis.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So when Mr. Slunder testifies that:

...Transport Canada's rosy forecast is based on a simple sleight of hand. Inspections, once required annually, can now be as infrequent as once every five years.

Is that true?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

I haven't talked to Mr. Slunder about his testimony.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I've got four minutes, so yes, no, roughly.

[Capt Dan Adamus]

But the question is for me, if there are fewer inspections done, is that because we have a more robust SMS system in place? This has been in five years. I would say yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

He says that Transport Canada is:

...cancelling all comprehensive SMS assessments for airports and aerodromes in favour of doing only more narrowly focused process validation inspections.

Is that true?

[Capt Dan Adamus]

I'm not familiar with the—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So you haven't read his testimony.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're out of time, Mr. McGuinty.

[Capt Craig Blandford]

I don't know if that's true or not, sir. I'm not aware if it's true. I have read it, but I don't know if it's true or not.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I recommend it to your members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Watson, you have four minutes.

I just want to remind the members that we have a motion that was put on notice with due time by Mr. Watson, so during the last 10 minutes we'll deal with that.

You have the last four minutes.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again to our witnesses here.

We've heard, in contrast to the UCTE's testimony, that inspections by Transport Canada are in fact occurring. They're not just paper exercises in the office, and we're hearing that Transport Canada inspectors show up unannounced at the gate. Those are important points to understand today.

I'm holding in my hand the Transportation Safety Board of Canada's report for aviation occurrences and accidents, their report on statistics for 2013. In that report it states that in 2011 civilian flights in Canada, not including ultralights, gliders, balloons, etc., represented an estimated 3,966,000 hours of flying activity. There has been a significant downward trend in accident rates in the last decade from 7.0 in 2002 to 5.7 in 2011. In fact these safety statistics are the best in a decade in Canada and are improving.

Mr. Chalmers, who was in front of this committee last meeting, suggested that design improvements in planes largely explain the improvement in safety. Is that a fair assessment? Isn't it interesting that the introduction and the maturity of safety management systems coincides very neatly in fact with the improvement in safety statistics?

[Capt Craig Blandford]

I would argue that you're right, sir. We're using the tools. We're way more sophisticated in identifying issues and fixing them today. The flight data management system for us is incredible. We can identify things that are going to happen if we don't fix it.

Without even reporting, we're using the technology of today—the sophistication and education and training systems—to identify the problems and fix them, and SMS has helped us to do that.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Sure, and that's what this committee is charged with.

I appreciate your positive outlook on that. If we were to listen to the UCTE, they've grieved this shift towards safety management systems some 1,000 times, as they confessed at this committee in the last meeting, and that's sad.

Mr. McKenna, I want to ask you a question. You did develop the ATAC SMS tool kit and guide for the non-major carriers here—you talk about other classes—in order to help them implement safety management systems or some version that would be adaptable or acceptable to their particular classes.

Have you had any response from Transport Canada about your particular tool kit? Is it something they're looking at? Is it something they've considered perhaps adopting as a standard? What feedback are you getting from the regulator?

[John McKenna]

We shared it with them from the beginning. From the design part of it all the way through, we've shared it. It's not necessarily known by all inspectors out in the field. Transport Canada would never go as far as sanctioning it or giving it its golden seal of approval, but they are encouraging us to distribute it, promote it, with our members.