Transport Committee on May 23rd, 2018

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I am calling to order meeting number 104 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are having a briefing on the status of the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board's recommendations.

With us as witnesses today we have the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board representatives, Kathleen Fox, Chair; Jean Laporte, Chief Operating Officer; and Natacha Van Themsche, Director of Air Investigations.

Welcome to you all. I apologize in advance for the fact that, with the permission of the committee, we will continue for another 10 minutes or so, and then we will have to suspend and go to vote.

Our apologies, but we'd like to get your testimony on the record if we can, and be able to go into questions when we come back.

Ms. Fox, I turn it over to you.

[Kathleen Fox, Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board]

Good afternoon.

Madam Chair, honourable members, thank you for inviting the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to appear today, to discuss progress on the implementation of TSB safety recommendations.

About one year ago, we appeared before this committee to discuss aviation safety. In the context of that discussion, we told you that the response to about three-quarters of all TSB recommendations issued since our creation in 1990 had received our highest rating, that of fully satisfactory.

However, we also noted that many of our recommendations directed to Transport Canada had been active for more than 10 or 20 years. In fact, the board was so concerned with the protracted delays and slow progress that it decided to make this a watch-list issue in October 2016.

Where do we stand in 2018? The board has recently completed its annual reassessment of active recommendations, and I am pleased to report that the responses to 79.6% of all recommendations are now rated as fully satisfactory, an increase of 3.3% compared with April 2017. This year, we've closed an additional 28 recommendations, 26 of them being fully satisfactory. The document we've tabled shows the full picture of the assessments at the end of March 2018.

Over the past year, concerted efforts were made to reach out to Transport Canada in the three modes and work with them in a collaborative manner to review all the old recommendations. All the old rail recommendations and the majority of the old marine recommendations were reviewed. A joint action plan was established with Transport Canada for the review of the old aviation recommendations. Unfortunately, TC did not meet the agreed-upon timelines, and in many cases provided inadequate updates to enable the TSB to conduct proper reassessments.

Nevertheless, the TSB conducted its own research and was able to put together sufficient information to enable the board to assess the residual risk and update the reassessment of 28 aviation recommendations. In 23 of these cases, the recommendations were reassessed as fully satisfactory. The board is quite pleased with this progress.

However, it has taken much too long to address most of these issues. For example, in 1995 the TSB called upon Transport Canada to establish guidelines for training on crew resource management and pilot decision-making. TC finally published new standards on these topics in July 2017, and these standards will come into effect in January 2019. That's about 23 years to resolve the safety issues.

In total, 24 recommendations, 21 on aviation safety and three on marine safety, have not yet been reassessed due to the late receipt of the updated responses from Transport Canada. These recommendations will be reassessed in the coming months. We hope that a few more can be closed.

As of April 1, 2018, we have a total of 79 active recommendations in the air, marine, and rail modes. A little less than half, 33 of these recommendations, are over 10 years old. This compares with 52 in April 2017. Progress has been made, but the tougher and more difficult issues are the ones that remain unresolved. Furthermore, no action has been taken to improve the process to ensure that new recommendations can be addressed in a timely manner in the future.

Let me give you a few examples of the outstanding issues.

In aviation, we have three recommendations pertaining to flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders that would bring Canada in line with international standards. These recommendations date back to 1994 and 1999.

Similarly, we have five outstanding recommendations pertaining to seaplanes dating back to 1993 and 1994. In marine, we have six outstanding recommendations pertaining to fishing vessel safety that range between 14 and 25 years old.

In rail, we have a 17-year-old recommendation on following signal indications and a 14-year-old recommendation on voice recorders.

Although progress was made during the past year, the board remains concerned about the limited engagement by Transport Canada on addressing all the old recommendations and the lack of action by the government on the identification of a systemic solution to improve the process for the future.

As stated previously, action is required on three fronts in order to address the watch-list issue of slow response on addressing TSB recommendations.

First, Transport Canada must make a clear commitment to take action on the outstanding TSB recommendations with which it agrees. Second, the Government of Canada must improve and accelerate the process for taking action on safety-related recommendations. Third, there must be a marked reduction in the backlog of outstanding TSB recommendations, particularly those that will bring Canada back in line with international standards.

Thank you. We are prepared to answer any questions you may have and to provide specific examples of outstanding recommendations where not enough has been done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fox.

For questions, we will try four minutes each so everybody gets an opportunity.

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being with us today.

I have a question with regard to general aviation and the use of ELTs. Right now, ELTs are used within small aircraft. They have a false alarm rate of about 90%, and under the current technology they only work about 64% of the time. We're talking about when a small aircraft crashes and then a signal is sent in order for that aircraft to then be found. There has been a number of incidents throughout the years when a plane has crashed and the ELT actually hasn't gone off. Most predominantly, I'm talking about an ELT 406. Of course the plane cannot be found, which means the individuals—you know they have crashed, they most likely have died upon impact, though not necessarily, and in some cases the bodies are actually never found. For example, there is a family in my riding of Lethbridge, Alberta, who lost a son and his girlfriend just last June in B.C. The aircraft went down within a forested area, it is suspected. The ELT never went off, so to this day the plane has never been found. It's almost a year later.

Now, this could be prevented, it is my understanding, if there were a GPS transmitter put within the plane as well, so that it would be both an emergency beacon that would go off if the plane crashed as well as a GPS transponder, which would send a trail of breadcrumbs, if you will, to a radio transmitter on the ground. Then there would be a record of where the plane has been every few minutes.

Is this a technology that Canada would look at, or do we feel that ELTs are doing the job they need to do in order to keep private pilots safe?

[Kathleen Fox]

First of all, the issue of ELTs and crashworthiness and the capture of the emitting signal has been the subject of seven TSB recommendations following the crash of an air medical helicopter out of Moosonee, Ontario, that occurred back in 2013. Those seven recommendations—some of which are addressed to Transport Canada and some addressed to the other government regulators and the industry—touch on things like crashworthiness, the first burst response so that the signal gets captured by the satellite and so on. We can provide more information if the committee would like.

These seven recommendations are currently ongoing with Transport Canada. The other technology that you referenced is a technology that is called a SPOT tracker. There are various models. That can provide a signal to people on the ground who are following that aircraft, but it hasn't necessarily met the crashworthiness standards of an ELT. It would be up to Transport Canada to work with other regulators to determine if it could meet the requirements in lieu of an ELT. For now, we've made recommendations specific to improving the robustness, the crashworthiness, and the ability to signal the ELTs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Iacono, you have four minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In my constituency of Alfred-Pellan, in Laval, a number of residents have complained about the increasing noise from aircraft. They have actually launched a petition about it. In Montreal, the Superior Court of Québec has approved a class action by the residents to challenge the sound nuisance.

Can this increase in the sound nuisance caused by planes perhaps be linked to the low altitude at which the aircraft fly?

[Kathleen Fox]

I am sorry, but I did not understand the first part of your question. You were talking about nuisance and about noise—

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I was talking about the increasing noise from aircraft.

[Kathleen Fox]

Okay. The noise issue is not really a safety issue. It is more the responsibility of Transport Canada than of the Transportation Safety Board.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Concerning vessel length on the east coast, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans tries to limit the catch by fishers by limiting the length of their vessels. This leads to all kinds of very strange modifications whereby they try to cut off the nose and extend the back and do all sorts of things to get more crab traps on these vessels, but there's always the risk that they'll render those vessels unstable because of these modifications.

Is this an issue that your group has studied at all and investigated?

[Kathleen Fox]

Yes, we have. In 2012 the TSB issued a safety issues investigation into fishing safety. We examined 10 issues relating to the safety of fishermen. One of them was fisheries resource management measures, such as limiting the length of vessels for certain types of fisheries, which has prompted the kind of behaviour that you mention. This is something on which we have recommendations outstanding and which we're continuing to follow, both through our outstanding recommendations and also through our watch-list.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Could I ask that those recommendations be sent to the chair of the fisheries and oceans committee, please?

[Jean Laporte, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board]

Yes, we can send them; however, we've appeared before the fisheries and oceans committee just recently to discuss exactly that topic. We have thus already provided some information, but we will send it again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

According to the TSB, about 50 or so recommendations have been in place for more than 10 years—correct me if my figures are not quite right—and about 75% of those deal with aviation. You have proposed three measures to remedy the situation. The first is that “Transport Canada must make a clear commitment to take action on the outstanding TSB recommendations with which it agrees.”

I confess that I am a little taken aback. I had imagined that recommendations have not been implemented because Transport Canada disagreed.

Would you have some examples of a measure where Transport Canada is dragging its feet, though the department says it agrees with your proposals, and nothing is being done?

[Kathleen Fox]

In my comments, I talked about flight data recorders and voice recorders. Canada is not yet meeting the international standards for these systems. Our recommendations actually go back to 1991, 1994 and 1999. Transport Canada told us that it would pass regulations to comply with what we were asking and also with the international standards. However, that has not yet come to fruition. Soon, maybe, but it is not done yet.

That is one example.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

You have exhausted all the means of exerting pressure that you can put on Transport Canada in order to get your recommendation in place.

[Kathleen Fox]

Actually, in October 2016, with our Watchlist, we found a way to diminish the problem of Transport Canada's slowness in responding to some of our recommendations. Since then, we have noticed a lot of progress, but there is still work to be done.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

My next question is on a related subject. If you compare—as I tend to do—the budgets in 2015, 2016 and 2017, Transport Canada has reduced the budget for training railway safety inspectors by 17%. The latest statistics from your office indicate that the rail accident rate has increased by 21% in the same period.

In your opinion, is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the budget cuts at Transport Canada and the increasing number of accidents?

[Kathleen Fox]

I do not think that you can make that kind of correlation. The causes of the accidents are very complex. You have to consider each of the events to determine its cause. To date, we have established no correlation between those accidents and Transport Canada's staffing levels for rail.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

My question was mostly about inspections.

The TSB studies situations once accidents have happened, fine. But if you reduce the budget for inspections that can prevent accidents, is there not an inconsistency?

[Kathleen Fox]

We issued comments on Transport Canada's oversight in connection with the accident at Lac Mégantic. We provided evidence to show that there were shortcomings. Since then, Transport Canada has made a lot of progress in overseeing rail safety.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

However, the first problem we see—