Evidence of meeting #32 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 transport.
A video is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Air Transport Association of Canada
I understood that you wanted to establish a difference between categories 704 and 703.
NDP
Isabelle Morin NDP Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
I also want to establish a difference with respect to category 705.
You said it was easier for 705 category operators to have safety management systems than for operators of categories 703 and 704.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Air Transport Association of Canada
I said that we should not transfer a system that applies to category 705 and expect that operators of categories 703 and 704 will implement the same system in their organization.
The challenge is to develop a system that is appropriate to the size of these enterprises.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I'm sorry, but you're out of time.
I will now move to Mr. Braid for five minutes.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning.
Captain Blandford, I want to start with you. Thank you for a very helpful presentation.
I want to zero in on your two main concerns and recommendations. First, with respect to protecting the confidentiality of ASRs, air safety reports, filed by pilots, I'm trying to understand what the role of government would be here, and specifically what you're looking for in terms of changes or improvements to better protect the confidentiality of information in these reports.
Capt Craig Blandford
I would argue that, first of all, nobody's trying to hide anything. That's not what it's about. It's about protecting confidentiality and making sure there's free and open reporting.
If for some reason a department of government, whether it's occupational health and safety folks or others, feels it need to see an air safety report that was written by a pilot about an incident, that the appropriate person have the appropriate expertise to be allowed to see that for a specific purpose.... For example, if a flight attendant were injured in flight, or if on the ground somebody were injured because I forgot to set the parking brake, and then I wrote the safety report being completely honest about why I think I failed to set the parking brake, then the occupational health and safety folks or a lawyer wants to see my report because he wants to sue me because a guy was injured, that's not the reason we have safety reports. So we need protections and we need the appropriate people with knowledge and understanding of what the reports are about to be the only ones permitted to see those things, and in appropriate circumstances. Otherwise we'll stop reporting.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Okay.
Are you familiar with some of the aspects of the government's proposed legislation five or six years ago, Bill C-7, that Mr. Watson was describing? It was hoisted or subverted by the opposition at the time. There were elements, as I recall, of non-punitive reporting in that legislation. Are you familiar with those, and is that what you're looking for?
Capt Dan Adamus
I am familiar with that. We wanted that bill to pass specifically for that reason, to protect the data. We need legislation to protect it, because if the data's not protected and it gets in the hands of government access to information, we know how that would be. We definitely need that data protected.
Right now, the gatekeepers of this information are the airline operators. They keep the data. That way it's not available for access to information. But if the government wants it, the only way we'll hand it over is if there are proper procedures in place to ensure that it will stay confidential and be used appropriately.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
So one recommendation that this committee could perhaps make at the conclusion of our study in this important area is to suggest that those provisions be brought back and reintroduced. Would you support that?
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
I'm seeing nodding heads across the table. Do you have any further comments?
Capt Craig Blandford
Again, it's essential, and I want to emphasize the flight data analysis and flight data monitoring. That information is hugely valuable for safety and for commercial reasons, but there are no protections whatsoever for that data. In other jurisdictions in other parts of the world if you land too far down the runway and they look at the flight data analysis stuff, you're fined $3,500 because they're using that data against you and it's not for flight safety. We want to emphasize that this stuff has to be protected for safety purposes.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
That was where I wanted to go next: flight data monitoring data. How's that different from the confidentiality of reports that we just touched on?
Capt Ed Bunoza
The flight data monitoring system in Canada is FDM. In the U.S. it's called FOQA, flight operations quality assurance, and it is software on the aircraft that measures somewhere between 2,000 parameters a second. People say they want recorders in the cockpit. You already have that. You've got that FDA there. It can tell you everything. Why it's not mandated I don't know.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
How is the information from flight data recording being used now, and what specific changes are you looking for?
Capt Ed Bunoza
We have a joint agreement between the carrier and the association. We supply two gatekeepers, and pilots review this data daily. If they see something they don't like, such as Ed flying into Hong Kong and being really quick on the approach, not following the SOP, this guy will call me and ask what happened last night. I can tell him to get lost, but that's not the road I want to go down. The road I want to go down is to be able to say, the controller had me in really quick; a monsoon was coming, and we had to get down on the ground. He's going to look at it and say, I still should have followed the rules. He might recommend a course of action, or he might say that was a good call and have a nice day. That's how it works.
Capt Ed Bunoza
Nothing. It's a great system. It works great, but the problem is that not everyone has it. It's not mandated. I believe Transport did a risk assessment last year and said we didn't need it.
Capt Craig Blandford
And there's nothing to protect the employer from using it for other purposes unless we have a good agreement, as Ed just explained that we have with our employer. Otherwise it can be used for any purpose.
Capt Ed Bunoza
As you were telling them...[Inaudible—Editor]...cockpit, you can read whatever you want off that.
Conservative
Conservative
Capt Dan Adamus
It works for the Air Canada Pilots Association because they have an agreement with their operator. They have the agreement, but it's not in regulation. It's just another example of flight data monitoring. I've heard that you'll land somewhere and maintenance will show up and say that they're there to change that fuel pump, and the pilot will ask what fuel pump? They saw a couple of hours ago that it was starting to go, so they know in advance. It's a good tool.