Transport Committee on Nov. 29th, 2018

[Cedric Paillard]

Sure. Obviously, airplanes need to take off from an airport, and they need to come back to an airport. Most of the exercises we perform during in-flight training are actually done in specific areas that are well defined. They're actually on our map charts, and we do perform those manoeuvres to train our pilots in those areas.

There's actually one here in Ottawa, between Constance Lake and Constance Bay, on the other side of the river there. We use those areas. I think it does cost and it does take time to actually transition to those zones from the airports. Sometimes the airports are not in those areas, so we do fly to those areas.

I think what we are hearing here is that at the airport there are issues with flight training, and although there are solutions available for us to address them, in my brief you will see that we need the support of the federal government, not necessarily in terms of money but in terms of capabilities for us to actually insert technological changes in the way we train. We have tools today that are not being used because we don't have the authorization of Transport Canada, for example, to do this.

Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, electric aircraft.... There's a whole list of technology that we could actually use, not to remove the noise problems being discussed here, but at least to attack the problem and come up with, as you said, a more manageable situation.

Taking off from and landing at an airport are going to be required. There's no way we can train a pilot without him knowing how to land and take off. But there are ways in which we can actually do it that reduce the noise. We just need a little more support from Transport Canada and from the government to actually get into a position where we can adapt those technologies into a business that is cash flow-sensitive and very profit-dependent, and therefore—

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I know I have a few colleagues here who fly. Out of this group, there are at least four or five of us. I noticed that in your brief you mention government assistance. I'm going to go back to 1968. When I went to get my private pilot's licence, it cost $500 in those days. I got $100 back if I continued my flight training to an advanced state, to commercial, and then I could write off the whole commercial training if I went into that area.

Now, the reason they did that back in the 1960s was that we were facing a shortage of pilots in the 1960s because those who came out of World War II were getting older, as our aviation people are today. Maybe you could explain whether this would be of assistance to you. I believe it would, and I believe there is a need to give financial aid to the schools to update equipment and to the students who are enrolling in the programs.

[Cedric Paillard]

You're preaching to the converted here.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Yes, but maybe you can pitch back [Inaudible—Editor].

[Cedric Paillard]

I think it's an issue for us, making sure those students.... For the program today, just to contrast your numbers with our numbers today, you're looking at a program that will actually allow students to go from zero to the right seat of an airliner at Jazz or at Sunwing on the 737 for $85,000 to $90,000. I'm not the cheapest one, and I'm not the most expensive one.

For students, $85,000 in 18 months is a lot of money. So yes, funding to help them would go a long way for us to actually solve that problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We're on to Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was happy to hear from Ms. Domingue about strategies being established. I want to drill down on those strategies.

We talked a lot with the previous witnesses about how environmental protection, when it comes to lifestyle and health, is recognizable, and that trying to strike a balance with the economy is the order of the day.

My questions for both witnesses are about just that: How do we now make the connection? How do we take the human health risk assessment...? I talked to Mr. Kaiser earlier, who is a medical officer with the Montreal health office, and asked him whether, in fact, they had that. He told me they do in Montreal but not nationally.

How do we connect the human health risk assessment with an assessment on economy? Of course, the impact is the same. How do we do that? Are you already doing that? Finally, if you're not, how do we actually facilitate that process to happen? This is for both of you.

[Cedric Paillard]

Ms. Domingue, go ahead.

[Johanne Domingue]

One of the first steps would be for the Airport Soundscape Consultative Committee to be truly able to establish the priorities and needs of each location. Then, noise monitoring stations should be installed to know what is happening in our community, and to be able to identify problems and take action. Local residents should also be informed of what this airport is doing in this regard. If an air corridor is a problem, NAV CANADA should be able to study the situation and determine what adjustments are required and how to proceed. All this could be done if the committee were operational and efficient.

There is a training school that used to do 70 takeoffs and landings at night, but has changed its programs so that there are only 17. Are these practices known? Are they shared? I think that training should be reviewed in the field of transport. We understand the safety aspect, but if one school can limit itself to 17 landings or takeoffs, why can't other schools do the same? There must be a willingness to address the problem. As such, there should be silencers on the aircraft. Some models are approved, and we should be able to install some. Propellers are noisy because they are old aircraft from the 1980s or 1990s.

Let's give ourselves the means to resolve the situation. Pilot training in Canada is highly rated: why shouldn't we have a centre of excellence? I'll give you another example. The City of Miramichi does not impose any noise restrictions. We should therefore set up training centres there. Let's stop putting these centres in densely populated areas and instead develop the rural environment. That is the problem. That is what we are experiencing now. We provide training all over the world. So let's give ourselves the means and become an international benchmark.

[Cedric Paillard]

I'm not an economist, and I don't try to be. It's difficult to actually assess economic impacts in general, but from a training, safety and competency point of view, based on what the airlines are asking us, what Transport Canada is allowing us to do and what technology is available, I think there are options, solutions, that can be used if we work as a team to solve those problems regarding noise.

I'll give you one example. To be an airline transport pilot today, you need 100 hours of flight time at night. That's a serious number of hours that need to be built up. What we do at OAS is send our students all around the country at night, because Transport Canada is mandating that they need to have 100 hours of flight training at night. I could do way more training and way more efficient training, and they could learn a lot more, if I was putting them into a simulator for 20 hours with a scenario-based training environment, and I could reduce my number of hours at night by half or by three-quarters—by whatever the risk assessment analysis would show.

The problem is that a simulator today is half a million dollars. Ours is a fairly large school, so we have maybe more means to play with, but a school that has 20 or 30 students won't be able to offer a simulator of half a million dollars on the economics presented to them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Paillard.

We'll go to Mr. Aubin.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll give my time to my colleague, whose riding is directly affected by a flying school.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Aubin.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Ms. Domingue, I find your presence here extremely valuable. I think you are the example that best illustrates the angle of the coexistence of airports, and flying schools in particular, with a densely populated area. I would like to point out that beyond the six short minutes I have to talk to you, I hope that everyone around the table will listen to your point of view. The NDP had proposed an amendment that stated that a bill should include a study on the public health consequences of noise pollution and demonstrate greater transparency in the distribution of data collected on the issue, as you mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, this amendment was rejected.

To this end, I would like to tell people around the table that Ms. Domingue is a marathon runner when it comes to representing the rights of riverside communities.

Honestly, this is the most obvious case in Canada of mismanagement regarding the establishment of flying schools in a densely populated area. Obviously, Ms. Domingue, you have been faced with poor management of the situation. I will soon give you the floor, but first I would like to remind you of something important. Too many people say that the people of Saint-Hubert knew very well that they were moving close to an airport. I always remind them that Saint-Hubert Airport, located in a very small suburb of Montreal, is the sixth busiest airport in Canada, after Toronto Pearson International Airport, Dorval Airport, probably Edmonton International Airport, Vancouver International Airport and another one that I forget. This is no joke.

Your testimony perfectly illustrates that, if we don't take this into account in advance when planning the arrival of a flying school, we end up with citizens without resources. You fought, you did everything you could to get corrective action. Is the situation better today or is it clearly not?

[Johanne Domingue]

We held a public consultation and we had 45 recommendations. All we were asking was to sit down together and look at what could be done.

They just finished installing the silencers. Next summer, we will probably see a difference. They will still have to be evaluated. Silencers are being installed, but what will that do in practice? The solution probably does not lie only in silencers. It is one step in the process to achieve a certain climate.

In fact, the airport has not taken this seriously and has not taken the time to sit down with the public, with NAV CANADA or with Transport Canada. Transport Canada is constantly absent from the meetings of the Soundscape Consultative Committee. It is never represented there, I believe. If it had been, I think we could have found ways to come up with effective action plans.

As citizens, we have managed to solve a small part of the problem, namely with two schools. However, there are other schools and other people who come to do touch and go's. Has the problem been solved in Saint-Hubert, despite the class action suit? No, the problem has not been solved.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I think everyone here has asked you questions, Ms. Domingue. I also invite you to send us the documents to which you refer, including those relating to the consultation. The government must recognize that a situation like the one in Saint-Hubert has been going on since flight schools emerged. We will not go over the history, but clearly your life changed in 2008.

[Johanne Domingue]

Absolutely.

In 2008 and 2009, there were between 10,000 and 15,000 local movements per month. That's equivalent to one movement every minute. Our lives have changed. As we were saying, we were under attack. Going outside became unthinkable.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

That's very clear.

[Johanne Domingue]

We have even heard someone ask whether we were at war, because there were so many flights.

In short, we have the means, but we have no will. When I came here today, I wondered whether there was a willingness to help the people, in the same way as there is to help the various affected areas. When we vote for elected officials, we assume that they will take care of human beings too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 30 seconds remaining, sir.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Ms. Domingue, as I was saying, the government rejected the amendment that we were proposing. I think it must still be at the heart of the legislation. It is well worded in the text, that it is necessary to “determine whether the infrastructure available to flight schools meets the needs of the schools and the communities where they are located”.

Do you feel that Transport Canada has the contacts they need to respond to problematic situations such as those of the people of Saint-Hubert?

[Johanne Domingue]

I must tell you that Transport Canada has not responded in the quickest and most favourable way to our requests. I even think the department often causes problems. For example, in the case of an agreement with the community and when faced with a Superior Court decision, Transport Canada got involved and tried to overturn the decision by saying that it will not send notices to aviators, which is a much more confrontational attitude.

When we write to Minister Garneau, he tells us to solve the problem locally, and when we do, the minister decides not to issue the notices we ask for, without really responding to our requests for explanations.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I hope they'll find a solution for the people of Saint-Hubert. Your situation is a clear case of what not to do.

Thank you, Ms. Domingue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Your time is up.

Mr. Fuhr, you have five minutes.

[Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I did want to address this noise issue, because I appreciate that there is a sensitivity to noise. I appreciate there's also a hypersensitivity to noise, and there are some things that can be done. Engine technologies on new aircraft are way quieter. There are prop technologies you can adapt to the old aircraft that we typically use for training that can reduce some noise. There's approach pass to airports that you can use with GPS technology that can take the plane out of the way of noise-sensitive areas. There are traffic flow patterns. There are lots of things that can be done.

I was looking at Saint-Hubert on ForeFlight with my colleague. There are more than six other airports within 15 nautical miles where, when you're in the takeoff and landing phase, you could deploy to amortize that noise over a bigger footprint. In reality, the odds are that we're probably not going to build new infrastructure to solve the problem, but there are some things that can be done. I wanted to throw that out there.

With regard to pilot training, Mr. Paillard, how many class 4, 3, 2 and 1 instructors do you have right now?

[Cedric Paillard]

We're a little bit lucky at OAS. We have three class 1 and two class 2, and we carry 12 class 4 instructors.